Teaching Philosophy

     Thankfully, I had to make my own  teaching philosophy in regards to the nature of language learning and teaching because I so happen to love investigating, staying up until 3am and I loved the way my eyes twitched cause of all the hours spent in front of my computer screen. Not really, that was a nightmare for me. The one thing I am thankful for this experience is because it helped me to take a deep look at the theoretical models we learned about and it made me construct my own opinion and point of view on how language teaching and learning takes place. 

I compare my teaching philosophy to the musical aspects of playing the piano and the factors that involves learning how to play it. So, I hope you like analogies a lot, because I'm about to flood these paragraphs with it. I'm going to breakdown my philosophy in 11 parts.

 

    1. Music of Language Instructors                                                                              

      I call the first part The Music of Language Instructors. To learn a language, you need instructors and role models. Those can be parents, school teachers, society, experiences and an environment that is rich and inspiring.

    2. Affective Domain

     The second part of my philosophy is not an analogy, so you can  leave your brain resting for now. It is called Affective Domain and it has an interrelated relationship with the first part, Music of Language Instructors , because they benefit from each other. In order for a person to acquire a second language, they need to have motivation. A teacher should also be able to encourage both types in the student, an extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. For a more efficient language learning, the levels of intrinsic motivation should be higher than the extrinsic.

   

    3. The Pentagram of Constructing Knowledge

      Another section of my philosophy is called The Pentagram of Constructing Knowledge.  In music, a pentagram has five spaces. This section basically states 5 important aspects that are essential for language learning and teaching.



shirlys300hrsong copyright


     I will define them in no particular order. The pentagram of constructing knowledge's whole purpose is to create meaningful learning, which is linked to Ausubel's Subsumption Theory. Rote learning is when an information is completely new to the learner. A person who knows nothing about music can look at a pentagram and see nothing but lines. When that person learns the names and lines of the pentagrams for the first time, it is called rote memory. Until they assimilate it, know that each line and space has a sound and acquire knowledge of them, then it becomes meaningful learning. Now, Vigotzky's Zone of Proximal development(ZPD) is what a person can learn with assistance of another. For a child to learn a language, he/she, needs assistance. With some scaffolding, the child will be able to work independently. That is the goal. The students should be able to have a deep structure, where their sentences can carry a meaning. Without deep structure, real comprehension cannot exist.

   

    4. Schemata Hands

     I hope you are still with me and understanding this because we are not yet finished; now comes the schemata hands (heterogeneous competence)! I promise I'll resume as much as possible. Ok so, just as  learners use their hands to play the piano, a student should be by now ready to use their second language with the background knowledge they have. If we look at the definition of heterogeneous competence in the book of Brown, we'll see that it is the abilities in process to be formed (Brown, 2007). This means that a child acquiring a second language, is an ongoing process..

        5. Cognitive Domain

     I will let a picture explain the next part called Cognitive Domain.

    6. The Sharp Half-step Hypothesis 

     For the next section, you may really feel like your taking a music class, and you kind of will. Free of charge, you're welcome!

The sharp Half-step Hypothesis

     In a piano, when you move from one key to another a half step up, it is called a sharp. As shown in the picture above, if I move my hand from the C note to the C# note, I raised C a half step. The tone, pitch or sound will  change slightly, and for an untrained ear, it is not that noticeable.
I associate this with Krashen's input hypothesis (i+1). This could be seen as a higher level of competence acquired.

   7. Hemispherical Clefs

     Next section I called it Hemispherical Clef. Don't be fooled by the name, its pretty simple. Everyone has a side of their brains that dominates more than the other. A that person can be more analytical and logical, or more emotional and creative, depending on which side of the brain is more dominant.



    8. Learning Genres

     I believe that one of the matters that has to be taking into consideration by teachers is that their students have different learning styles. In music there are slower songs and faster ones. The same applies to the students. As teachers, we cannot expect everyone to learn at the same pace or rhythm. The instruments used for teaching should also have variety. Having a chalk board filled with information from top to bottom may not work as well as it did for prior generations. Todays generation is more technological. Alternating between writings on the board and the use of Power Points, videos or Prezi, can be a good way to reach to different learning styles.

9. Multiple Instruments

     I adopted Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence as part of my teaching philosophy. I call it multiple instruments just to continue the flow of the musical thing going on here. Learners have different types of intelligence, according to Howard Gardner. I believe that teaching has to be done in different ways to target the variety of intelligence in the class. Some students have musical intelligence and they may learn a language easier through songs and listening than through reading.

 10. Pruning

     In the beginning stages of learning to play piano according to some teaching approaches, learners are encouraged to learn chords scales and even certain songs. The learning taken place always need to be perfected in certain areas such as hand positions. These learned pieces are also used later on to play other pieces. The same thing happens with Speaking a language. When a learner is able to speak of easy topic it prunes out basic greetings and becomes more focused on a whole conversation.

 10. Comprehension Performance Concerto

When a concert is given by a student, it means that it is because they are ready to perform their piece.