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My Teaching Philosophy By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Tuesday, March 1, 2016 Post 224
If you were asked, “What do you believe about teaching?” or “What do you want to achieve as a teacher?” What would your response be? While these may sound like simple questions, the answers may not be so straightforward.
Laureate Education (2013)
Education could be reduced to a simple equation in which 50% is provided by the Instructor (teaching) and the other 50% is supplied by the Students (learning); without this catalytic symbiosis, education may not take place properly and then effectively. Learning is then an autonomous journey anyone is meant to take part of in order to shape his/her knowledge, understanding of the world or his/her working environment. In a successful learning situation, pupils will achieve learning outcomes and will develop new competencies they can eventually employ at work.
My perfect learning environment is that one in which students are selfmotivated since deep learning is part of their way of being and can help them become better learners. Life-long learning is what inevitably happens once my students are away from my virtual or physical classroom since their thirst for more knowledge is so great that they need to quench it on their own, exploring new horizons in their education autonomously. And in this process, pupils will indeed develop their critical and hierarchical thinking skills to succeed and excel in their field. And, all of the sudden, learners get to realize that their skills are metamorphosing into competencies they can exploit in their current or future jobs. When my teaching is over, I would like my students to have developed all sorts of competencies to become excellent teaching professionals, competent educators who can face their teaching life professionally and ethically. I really want my students to develop their whole potential to see them using technology in their classroom wisely and ecologically, too. I’d really like to see them planning and carrying out all sorts of activities in their future classroom to produce and replicate learning for other learners, their learners. And in turn, my current learners in education will start to prepare their future pupils to succeed in their jobs-to-come by broadening their potential with good planning techniques, innovative teaching strategies, and an open-mindedness that can help them embrace the challenges of their futures cleverly. As a well-matured teaching professional, I have sampled lots of teaching methodologies, and now –at this point in my teaching career- I guess I have found a nice niche for my teaching potential: Project-Based Learning in content courses because I want students to experience hands-on projects to develop creativity and a sense of accomplishment and CLT or Communicative Language Teaching –the real stuff- for the language classes I get to teach with a twist in which Krashen’s Model for Learning is always present.
I see myself as a trainer rather than a teacher. I want to prepare teaching professionals who can face current and future challenges in education. For that reason, providing formative feedback for guidance towards learning is my priority. If I see my pupils as my trainees, I can “train” them to become topnotch language instructors who can excel by themselves and benefit their future students’ learning. As trainees I want my pupils to learn the importance of treating others as humans and not just as a number in a college system. Likewise, they will treat their future learners as people and not a numerical figure. Furthermore, I want my students to really experience deep learning, not surface learning, since competencies and skills they will develop in my classes are useful assets for their teaching practice and professional development. By attaching myself to these to these basic principles, I have developed myself professionally and matured as a teaching professional. Education is a symbiosis of many different factors, and I want my students to be certain that they will learn what is already stated in a course outline and why not, beyond. And now the burning question: What’s your teaching philosophy?