Yeana Kim

Philosophy of Teaching
Around the World in Eighty Years

My Cornerstone, Input hypothesis (i+1) and ZPD
Initially, Krashens (1982) monitor hypothesis specifically comprehensible input
influenced me to think about my role as a teacher. While Krashens model i+1 illustrates
the importance of input and the amount of input placed, I would like to further extend it to
Vygotskys (1978) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD involves the importance of
having social interaction, both facilitated by a teacher or peers. In such respect, I believe
that scaffolding is highly necessary. On the other hand, I do not believe that student should
fully depend on the teacher. To quote Maria Montessori, the greatest sign of a success for
a teacher...is to be able to say, the children are now working as if I did not exist. Therefore,
my ultimate goal is to have students working independently from teachers, whether it be in
individual or collaborative tasks or assignments given.

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning)
Technology is becoming a tool that is inevitably and easily accessed in todays daily
teaching environments, expanding into classroom settings. In fact, students rely more on
Internet sources to do their homework and tasks given. Not only do I see technology as the
current trend, but I also believe that teachers must be able to seek and follow what students
are engaging in. For example, I plan to incorporate the use a blog for a class, which is to be
extensively used outside of class time. I would be able to upload sources I want students to
access, while I get students to interact and communicate within the blog. Furthermore,
blogs will allow me to provide them with feedback to students by commenting on what they
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have previously uploaded. Essentially, technology can be used to enhance and develop
communication and interaction with my students.
Another use of technology can be through the use of podcasts. Harmer (2004)
suggests that teacher involvement during process phases is an important trait. As Harmer
provides a specific situation, which is during a writing class, I can apply the concept of
CALL by incorporating the use of technology. Aside from blogs, podcasts can be effectively
used to provide students feedback. With technology and Internet becoming readily
accessible to students, they tend to discard papers. By giving comments and feedbacks
through a podcast and saving it as a file for students to listen to, it becomes more
accessible and easy to use. Not only will it be comfortable for students, but it will also save
time for teachers to give as much feedback to several students within a short amount of
time.

Needs Analysis and Empowerment
What does empowering students mean? Merriam-Webster defines the word empower as
giving the official authority or legal power. Imagine a ship, and assume that it is the
classroom. A ship is isolated in a body of water, which can metaphorically be the pool of
knowledge and imagination. In this ship, teachers need to hand the steering wheel to
students. My belief is that, while teachers initially help students to hop on the ship,
essentially it is the students power to maneuver the ship. One way of doing this is
through the needs analysis. In one of the courses I took in Second Language Studies (SLS)
titled Second Language Pedagogy, it taught the importance of engaging students using the
appropriate tasks involved. Long (2005) notes that many contemporary needs analyses
employ tasks as the unit of analysis. He further adds that sources, which are the task-givers,
and methods, which are the forms of tasks, ought to be carefully selected according to
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learners in order to produce effective language learning. If teachers are able to select the
appropriate materials and tasks according to the needs of the students, then it can lead to
drastic improvement in student learning. This is where I learned the importance of
immersing students learning needs into the task involved. Essentially, this leads to high
student motivation because students are able to perform in what they are most interested in.
One way I can incorporate this into my teaching is by analyzing learners ultimate learning
goals. For example, Samuda and Bygate (2008) suggests a task named Things in Pockets
to be used for students learning conversations. The task involves the teacher providing
objects (things in pockets) owned by a certain person, while the students guessing the
identity of the owner by scrutinizing the objects. Students are then placed into groups and
asked to ask questions to each other to improve their communication skills. Thus, matching
student needs analysis to learning would be an effective way to engage and strengthen
students.

Classroom Management through Culture
I imagine my future class to have a culturally diverse atmosphere. In fact, culture goes hand
in hand with language culture affecting language and learning. Likewise, language and
learning shapes the culture as well. One example of culture being integrated into language
is when honoring of elders comes in to learning. Not only is language used differently to
elders, but the respect and obedience given to teachers shapes the learning atmosphere of
a class.
I believe it is important to realize that language learning is intertwined with culture.
These two are inseparable in many ways because each trait makes up the other. Thus I can
integrate this factor into my teaching in several ways: Firstly, I must be sensitively aware of
culture of the students, the teaching country and atmosphere, while teaching. I can
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incorporate this into my teaching by doing an icebreaker activity, Brown Bag, asking
students to bring three culturally significant objects to show to the class. Not only will this
help me and my students familiarize with diverse cultures, but it will also show that the
classroom is culture-friendly. Secondly, I would integrate culture to learning a language. For
example, I must take into account that some countries celebrate New Year or Thanksgiving
on different time of the year. Showing students of my awareness can bring me culturally
and physically closer to my students. An activity I can apply to this is titled Cities. This
involves students having different cities described in an activity sheet given. Each sheet has
different missing information about four cities which requires communication between
students to figure the information each student is missing. While they get to practice
grammatical and question structures of the language, the students also get to know about
the culture in each city. Lastly, I can make my classrooms that are culturally inviting. I can
decorate my classroom with the map of the world and put around flags and souvenirs that
represent each country and race present in my class.

Around the World in Eighty Years
During my childhood, I remember reading the novel Around the World in Eighty Days by
Jules Verne. While this fascinating book ranks as one of my favorite novels, I am still awed
by the fact that Mr. Fogg, with strong will and determination, was able to sail the globe in
such a short amount of time. I picture myself in Mr. Foggs shoes. With unconquerable
desire and ambition to empower my future students at hand, I plan to board as many
students possible anchoring the boat or sailing ceaselessly when necessary. One way I
can achieve this is to have student-led group discussions. For example, a group discussion
of three can at least have responsibilities such as: facilitator, recorder, and timekeeper. Guk
and Kellogg (2007) assure that giving students the power to maneuver their learning
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increases independence and a sense of ownership. This is why I plan to sail for only eighty
years at maximum. My eventual goal is to pass on the steering wheel for the students to
finally choose their own destination. I eagerly look forward to the day when I have boarded
as many students and have led them successfully until I depart, and let my students sail
across the sunset.




















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References

Empower. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/empower

Guk, I. & Kellogg, D. (2007). The ZPD and whole class teaching: Teacher-led and student-
led interactional mediation of tasks. Language Teaching Research 11, 281-299.

Harmer, J. (2004). How to teach writing. UK: Longman.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language Acquisition. Oxford:
Pergamon.

Long, M. (Ed.). (2005). Second language needs analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.

Samuda, V. & Bygate, M. (2008). Tasks in second language learning. New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.