Introduction
It is widely known and understandably clear that learning languages is an undeniable and inseparable part of our lives. The reciprocal interactions of diverse communities all around the globe have gained mobility due to untraceably-swift spreading technology and communication network. The world is now turning into a “global village” where linguistic interactions are carried out effortlessly (Marshall McLuhan, 1962). To give an example, one can watch programs and news, listen to songs that are broadcasted in English, German, Italian, Portuguese and so forth; and I believe it would be no surprise to watch a TV series even in Swahili if it were not a dead language. In this amazingly and extraordinarily abundant flow of communication taking place in our lives our attention is drawn to the field of language studies. Although learning languages has always been a part of human life since its very origin, due to lack of the opportunities and facilities that I listed above, it did not turn into an area of exclusive study with its all dynamics, processes and features until the turn of the 19th century which sparked and brought about the existence and applications of language studies. Indeed, the concept of language teaching as a distinct and separate domain was initiated in this era, when we witnessed a bombardment of ideas, methods and approaches which endeavored to yield the best learning outcomes regarding language teaching. All of these efforts of explaining and describing how languages are learned, and in line with this, how languages should be taught has offered language teachers insights making them come to the realization of the complicated process of language acquisition. Having gone through these basic methods and approaches of language teaching the very first thing that I can dauntlessly state is that there is no best way of teaching a language; however, this does not mean that teaching languages to its full content is impossible. Put another way, there can be only good ways of teaching languages, yet in my view it is neither reasonable nor credible to mention the ultimately best method of teaching. Throughout this paper I will attempt to explain my view of language teaching (teaching philosophy) combining parts of various methods (although not mentioned directly) that seem applicable, which we can refer to as an “eclectic” way of teaching.
Before starting to explain my teaching philosophy I need to mention a critical point in language teaching. As a teacher candidate who has experienced teaching, not substantially though, I have come to recognize that people have a wide range of motivations in their attempts to learn languages. For instance, a considerably large number of people in Turkey compared to other countries learn languages, English mostly, in order to acquire accreditation for certain areas. A number of academicians learn English to pass the UDS exam, which is obligatory for them to pass to go on their academic lives. And obviously these people’s driving force of learning English is not communication but filling in some circles on the optic-reader form correctly. Even though I am strictly against teaching English giving some rules and formulas as if it is mathematics, I am of the opinion that we need to consider thoroughly the purposes of the learners in their attempts to learn languages so that we can determine the nature of teaching that we will adapt to class. In the philosophy of teaching I will present I assume that learners are learning the target language for communicative purposes.
According to my teaching philosophy, languages should be taught with the fundamental aim of enabling learners to communicate in the language of concern. I believe that there is no use in learning a foreign or second language unless the learners can engage in conversations in the concerned languages at the end of their learning. Therefore, my philosophy of teaching is nourished mainly by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which by its very nature views learners as active participants in the process of learning and which highlights the teaching abilities of instructors putting a heavy burden on their shoulders to ensure the proper adaptation of CLT in class. Apart from this, my teaching philosophy has five main pillars on which, I believe, a language teaching class should be constructed. These pillars are: communicative competence, learner autonomy, comprehension and production, cooperation, and finally motivation. In the following pages you will find my views, comments and beliefs on these issues as well as citations from the works of specialists from the area. And at the end of my synthesis of teaching philosophy, you will see the connections that I have integrated into my philosophy inspired by the specific incidents, insights and experiences that I have gone through during the course FLED 311 which have exerted significant impacts on my composition of teaching philosophy. Communicative Competence
As mentioned above, in my understanding of learning languages primary goal of instruction is to enable students to communicate and engage in interactions using the target language, which predictably entails communicative competence. For the purposes of my teaching philosophy I have found it useful to adopt Brown’s (1994) definition of communicative competence: 
Another consideration that needs to be defined in is the make-up of one’s communicative competence. Understanding what the concept of communicative competence attempts to achieve in learners is crucial. Littlewood (1981) summarizes the four domains or skills which constitute one’s communicative competence to be identified in foreign language teaching. Littlewood postulates that (1) the learner must obtain as high a degree as possible of linguistic competence – “he must build skills in manipulating the linguistic system”- to the extent where he can use it without premeditation and flexibly in order to convey his message, (2) the learner must differentiate between the forms which he has excelled as a part of his linguistic competence, and the communicative functions they carry out; this means that items must also be understood as part of a communicative system, (3) the learner must develop strategies and skills for using language to communicate meanings as effectively as possible in concrete situations, he must learn to use feedback to judge his success, and if necessary, remedy failure by using different language, and finally that (4) the learner must recognize the social meaning of language forms; this may not require the ability to modify their own speech to suit different social circumstances but rather the ability to use generally acceptable forms and refrain from potentially offensive ones.Learner Autonomy
Learner autonomy is what we basically define as the ability of the learner to take the responsibility of learning. There are also numerous names associated with and sometimes used instead of learner autonomy such as 'learner independence' (Sheerin, 1991), 'language awareness' (Lier, 1996; James & Garrett, 1991), 'self-direction' (Candy, 1991). This abundance of naming this process indicates the magnitude of importance placed on this concept. However, one common ground that all these names and definitions share is the fact that all of them assume the active role of learner, which requires generation of ideas, creating learning opportunities and promoting learning opportunities on the part of the learner. Thus, learning is seen as a result of “self-initiated interactions” with the world (Thanasoulas, 2000)
Learner autonomy requires the learner to be self-sufficient, to make self-assessment, and to have self-awareness. Nevertheless, these requirements can be viewed as products as well. That is to say, a learning experience gone through taking learner autonomy as its basis can generate learning outcomes listed above. These skills are now accepted to be prerequisites for both foreign language education and education in general (Balçıkanlı, 2008). This need emerges in foreign language education owing to the fact that learners are not able to diagnose their learning needs and they cannot identify resources and strategies for themselves. Most of the time, they do not find any need, incentives, and motivation to make use of autonomous learning.I believe that learner autonomy adds to the effectiveness of teaching at incredible rates. Students after learning and benefiting from this autonomy will certainly realize the extendibility of this process to their whole lives. One effective way of achieving this is portfolios that are “purposeful collection of students’ works” and they can provide valuable information about students’ understanding. Additionally, portfolios increase student participation in assessment and the responsibility for their learning. In other words, portfolios giving learners the opportunity to assess themselves promotes learner autonomy. As conclusion, I believe in the effectiveness of portfolios in both assessing learning outcomes, evaluating the course and creating learner autonomy which is essential in learning. Comprehension and Production
It is known both by experts of language studies and teachers of languages that comprehension precedes production. This means that we cannot expect to have learners to speak a language right after or during the course of teaching. This is mostly because comprehension of words, especially spoken ones, seems to an extremely challenging task. And also we have to note that comprehension is not facilitated with higher degrees of knowledge but rather with higher degrees of familiarity with structures in language. As to production, we can say that it is promoted by both familiarity with structures and the level of comprehension (Treiman et.al, 2003). While identifying short-term and long-term goals of teaching we need to consider these points as well as the maturity levels of learners.
We have mentioned that comprehension precedes production. That is why, before we expect learners to produce sentences in the target language, we have to make sure that their comprehension levels are high enough to allow for production. The best way of effectuating comprehension is engaging learners in interactions in the target language as much as possible. This will increase their familiarity with structures and build upon their readily constructed body of knowledge gained from the instructor. As in my philosophy of teaching teacher is responsible to make students comprehend and communicate, being the first but not only resource of information, s/he should make the necessary modifications in his or her speech to ensure comprehension. Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning may include role plays, projects, discussions and simulations carried out by students in groups, and it requires total participation on the part of the learner. Nevertheless, there is a wide range of classroom activities in which learners work together such as problem solution activities. If successful interaction is achieved in the class with the initiative of students themselves, they will surely build skills and approaches needed for cooperation in other aspects of their learning and lives and they will start to believe in the power of cooperation (Jacobs, 1998).
Projects can function like means of linking the world outside the class to what they are learning in the classroom, which increases their motivation and willingness to participate further in projects. As they spend a long period of time working on projects together, they tend to form group cohesion and a membership feeling. Role plays which are another way of starting and maintaining collaboration in class seems to be one of the most preferable cooperation helping learners not only with their learning but also with their personality development, especially regarding life-orientation. Encouraging them imagining themselves as if they are someone else, it gives students the chance to recognize similarities and differences among people and makes them know what “empathy” is. In conclusion cooperative learning constitutes an indispensible part of my teaching philosophy. Motivation
The main force that drives our actions in our lives is our motivation. We approach to and refrain from incidents or cases in our lives due to our absence or existence of motivation towards them. And language learning is no exception this mentality. That is why as language teachers, we have this challenging task of motivating learners and enabling them to maintain this motivation. In this part instead of mentioning specific types of motivation like extrinsic or intrinsic, I would like to refer to importance of keeping students motivated no matter what kind motivation they have to learn a language.
Unmotivated students will reject to learning either implicitly or explicitly. At this point teachers have to be cautious. Teachers of languages do not necessarily have to keep motivation in class by preaching. Instead of this we have to concentrate on activities that will underlying motivate learners. Using games is a perfect way of doing this. These activities predictably should be modified or replaced according to the levels of students. We should not expect 40-year-old learners jumping around n the class. All in all, I can state that keeping learners motivated is a significant part of my teaching philosophy. Discussion & Experiences and Insights from FLED 311
In my teaching philosophy, I have chosen not to give direct references to methods or approaches but rather to extract from them what I believe to be useful in language teaching. I have built my philosophy on five pillars which seem to me as the most important components of language teaching. I suppose these pillars are crucial and needs to be considered thoroughly in language teaching. Although they may not be applicable and available at all places and in all times, they can be manipulated in order to fit to what is needed. Finally, I think that I will benefit from having stated my philosophy in my teaching career.
As a teacher candidate who have high expectations from future teaching experiences (just like once every graduate student had) I am aware of the fact that my teaching philosophy is an ideal maybe even utopic one to apply and maintain. The real teaching world will probably be a lot more different than the one I have in my mind. However, actually the main challenge lies here. If I can be courageous and initiative enough, for which I will try my best, I believe that some changes are possible. And in this future process I know that stating my philosophy of teaching will help me make my plans clearer and more systematic.
Balçıkanlı, Cem. (2008). Fostering Earner Autonomy in EFL Classrooms. Vol. 16, No. 1: Kastamonu Education Journal. Gazi University Press.
It is widely known and understandably clear that learning languages is an undeniable and inseparable part of our lives. The reciprocal interactions of diverse communities all around the globe have gained mobility due to untraceably-swift spreading technology and communication network. The world is now turning into a “global village” where linguistic interactions are carried out effortlessly (Marshall McLuhan, 1962). To give an example, one can watch programs and news, listen to songs that are broadcasted in English, German, Italian, Portuguese and so forth; and I believe it would be no surprise to watch a TV series even in Swahili if it were not a dead language. In this amazingly and extraordinarily abundant flow of communication taking place in our lives our attention is drawn to the field of language studies. Although learning languages has always been a part of human life since its very origin, due to lack of the opportunities and facilities that I listed above, it did not turn into an area of exclusive study with its all dynamics, processes and features until the turn of the 19th century which sparked and brought about the existence and applications of language studies. Indeed, the concept of language teaching as a distinct and separate domain was initiated in this era, when we witnessed a bombardment of ideas, methods and approaches which endeavored to yield the best learning outcomes regarding language teaching. All of these efforts of explaining and describing how languages are learned, and in line with this, how languages should be taught has offered language teachers insights making them come to the realization of the complicated process of language acquisition. Having gone through these basic methods and approaches of language teaching the very first thing that I can dauntlessly state is that there is no best way of teaching a language; however, this does not mean that teaching languages to its full content is impossible. Put another way, there can be only good ways of teaching languages, yet in my view it is neither reasonable nor credible to mention the ultimately best method of teaching. Throughout this paper I will attempt to explain my view of language teaching (teaching philosophy) combining parts of various methods (although not mentioned directly) that seem applicable, which we can refer to as an “eclectic” way of teaching.
Before starting to explain my teaching philosophy I need to mention a critical point in language teaching. As a teacher candidate who has experienced teaching, not substantially though, I have come to recognize that people have a wide range of motivations in their attempts to learn languages. For instance, a considerably large number of people in Turkey compared to other countries learn languages, English mostly, in order to acquire accreditation for certain areas. A number of academicians learn English to pass the UDS exam, which is obligatory for them to pass to go on their academic lives. And obviously these people’s driving force of learning English is not communication but filling in some circles on the optic-reader form correctly. Even though I am strictly against teaching English giving some rules and formulas as if it is mathematics, I am of the opinion that we need to consider thoroughly the purposes of the learners in their attempts to learn languages so that we can determine the nature of teaching that we will adapt to class. In the philosophy of teaching I will present I assume that learners are learning the target language for communicative purposes.
According to my teaching philosophy, languages should be taught with the fundamental aim of enabling learners to communicate in the language of concern. I believe that there is no use in learning a foreign or second language unless the learners can engage in conversations in the concerned languages at the end of their learning. Therefore, my philosophy of teaching is nourished mainly by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which by its very nature views learners as active participants in the process of learning and which highlights the teaching abilities of instructors putting a heavy burden on their shoulders to ensure the proper adaptation of CLT in class. Apart from this, my teaching philosophy has five main pillars on which, I believe, a language teaching class should be constructed. These pillars are: communicative competence, learner autonomy, comprehension and production, cooperation, and finally motivation. In the following pages you will find my views, comments and beliefs on these issues as well as citations from the works of specialists from the area. And at the end of my synthesis of teaching philosophy, you will see the connections that I have integrated into my philosophy inspired by the specific incidents, insights and experiences that I have gone through during the course FLED 311 which have exerted significant impacts on my composition of teaching philosophy.
Communicative Competence
As mentioned above, in my understanding of learning languages primary goal of instruction is to enable students to communicate and engage in interactions using the target language, which predictably entails communicative competence. For the purposes of my teaching philosophy I have found it useful to adopt Brown’s (1994) definition of communicative competence:
“Communicative competence is that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts”
In this definition we can see the emphasis placed on the interactions supposed to be carried out in the language concerned. In parallel with this definition, I believe that teachers of foreign languages should set their teaching goals in this direction. However, an instructor should be well aware of what is meant by communicative competence in order to fulfill these goals. The fact that communicative competence cannot be compressed in a small pot necessitates making some categorizations of functions in the scope of communications. This is required for the instructor to be not only realistic but also organized in the processes taking place in class. Keeping these respective functions in mind, the instructor will surely handle the regulation aimed to possess. Thus, I also suggest a functional approach to teaching languages believing that language is both interactive and interpersonal. Therefore, considering the functions of the language, I would like to mention Halliday’s seven functions, who is believed to have provided the best interpretations concerning this issue. These functions are: the instrumental function, the regulatory function, the representational function, the interactional function, the personal function, the heuristic function, the imaginative function (Halliday, 1973). These functions are really significant for communicative competence and none of them should be forsaken at the expense of another. Furthermore, in the preparation of lesson plans, Halliday’s functions can officiate as perfect guidelines providing a framework for the objectives supposed to be achieved during class. Besides being a guideline for communicative competence, Halliday’s “systematic functional approach” sets useful parameters for teaching grammar too.
Another consideration that needs to be defined in is the make-up of one’s communicative competence. Understanding what the concept of communicative competence attempts to achieve in learners is crucial. Littlewood (1981) summarizes the four domains or skills which constitute one’s communicative competence to be identified in foreign language teaching. Littlewood postulates that (1) the learner must obtain as high a degree as possible of linguistic competence – “he must build skills in manipulating the linguistic system”- to the extent where he can use it without premeditation and flexibly in order to convey his message, (2) the learner must differentiate between the forms which he has excelled as a part of his linguistic competence, and the communicative functions they carry out; this means that items must also be understood as part of a communicative system, (3) the learner must develop strategies and skills for using language to communicate meanings as effectively as possible in concrete situations, he must learn to use feedback to judge his success, and if necessary, remedy failure by using different language, and finally that (4) the learner must recognize the social meaning of language forms; this may not require the ability to modify their own speech to suit different social circumstances but rather the ability to use generally acceptable forms and refrain from potentially offensive ones.
The issues mentioned above are significant points in achieving communicative competence in class. One important aspect that must be kept in mind is that the guidelines helping to form and maintain communication in class can only be actualized with enthusiasm and diligence. After the points above have been internalized, then it is the time to implement them which can be carried out with “meaningful interactions”. That’s why teacher should try his or her best to come up with activities, applications and performances that will make this theoretical knowledge turn into practice.
Learner Autonomy
Learner autonomy is what we basically define as the ability of the learner to take the responsibility of learning. There are also numerous names associated with and sometimes used instead of learner autonomy such as 'learner independence' (Sheerin, 1991), 'language awareness' (Lier, 1996; James & Garrett, 1991), 'self-direction' (Candy, 1991). This abundance of naming this process indicates the magnitude of importance placed on this concept. However, one common ground that all these names and definitions share is the fact that all of them assume the active role of learner, which requires generation of ideas, creating learning opportunities and promoting learning opportunities on the part of the learner. Thus, learning is seen as a result of “self-initiated interactions” with the world (Thanasoulas, 2000)
Learner autonomy requires the learner to be self-sufficient, to make self-assessment, and to have self-awareness. Nevertheless, these requirements can be viewed as products as well. That is to say, a learning experience gone through taking learner autonomy as its basis can generate learning outcomes listed above. These skills are now accepted to be prerequisites for both foreign language education and education in general (Balçıkanlı, 2008). This need emerges in foreign language education owing to the fact that learners are not able to diagnose their learning needs and they cannot identify resources and strategies for themselves. Most of the time, they do not find any need, incentives, and motivation to make use of autonomous learning.
I believe that learner autonomy adds to the effectiveness of teaching at incredible rates. Students after learning and benefiting from this autonomy will certainly realize the extendibility of this process to their whole lives. One effective way of achieving this is portfolios that are “purposeful collection of students’ works” and they can provide valuable information about students’ understanding. Additionally, portfolios increase student participation in assessment and the responsibility for their learning. In other words, portfolios giving learners the opportunity to assess themselves promotes learner autonomy. As conclusion, I believe in the effectiveness of portfolios in both assessing learning outcomes, evaluating the course and creating learner autonomy which is essential in learning.
Comprehension and Production
It is known both by experts of language studies and teachers of languages that comprehension precedes production. This means that we cannot expect to have learners to speak a language right after or during the course of teaching. This is mostly because comprehension of words, especially spoken ones, seems to an extremely challenging task. And also we have to note that comprehension is not facilitated with higher degrees of knowledge but rather with higher degrees of familiarity with structures in language. As to production, we can say that it is promoted by both familiarity with structures and the level of comprehension (Treiman et.al, 2003). While identifying short-term and long-term goals of teaching we need to consider these points as well as the maturity levels of learners.
We have mentioned that comprehension precedes production. That is why, before we expect learners to produce sentences in the target language, we have to make sure that their comprehension levels are high enough to allow for production. The best way of effectuating comprehension is engaging learners in interactions in the target language as much as possible. This will increase their familiarity with structures and build upon their readily constructed body of knowledge gained from the instructor. As in my philosophy of teaching teacher is responsible to make students comprehend and communicate, being the first but not only resource of information, s/he should make the necessary modifications in his or her speech to ensure comprehension.
After we check understanding (comprehension) and therefore solidify of expectations of production, we can have students communicate in the language of concern. In this process errors are natural and acceptable; however as a person who have benefited from error correction a lot, I am definitely for error correction when it occurs. Although this is claimed to cause a decrease in learner motivation, with proper approaches, this can be avoided. In conclusion, I am of the opinion that we have to be realistic in our expectations of comprehension and production and take steps bearing mind the natural order of these processes.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning may include role plays, projects, discussions and simulations carried out by students in groups, and it requires total participation on the part of the learner. Nevertheless, there is a wide range of classroom activities in which learners work together such as problem solution activities. If successful interaction is achieved in the class with the initiative of students themselves, they will surely build skills and approaches needed for cooperation in other aspects of their learning and lives and they will start to believe in the power of cooperation (Jacobs, 1998).
Projects can function like means of linking the world outside the class to what they are learning in the classroom, which increases their motivation and willingness to participate further in projects. As they spend a long period of time working on projects together, they tend to form group cohesion and a membership feeling. Role plays which are another way of starting and maintaining collaboration in class seems to be one of the most preferable cooperation helping learners not only with their learning but also with their personality development, especially regarding life-orientation. Encouraging them imagining themselves as if they are someone else, it gives students the chance to recognize similarities and differences among people and makes them know what “empathy” is. In conclusion cooperative learning constitutes an indispensible part of my teaching philosophy.
Motivation
The main force that drives our actions in our lives is our motivation. We approach to and refrain from incidents or cases in our lives due to our absence or existence of motivation towards them. And language learning is no exception this mentality. That is why as language teachers, we have this challenging task of motivating learners and enabling them to maintain this motivation. In this part instead of mentioning specific types of motivation like extrinsic or intrinsic, I would like to refer to importance of keeping students motivated no matter what kind motivation they have to learn a language.
Unmotivated students will reject to learning either implicitly or explicitly. At this point teachers have to be cautious. Teachers of languages do not necessarily have to keep motivation in class by preaching. Instead of this we have to concentrate on activities that will underlying motivate learners. Using games is a perfect way of doing this. These activities predictably should be modified or replaced according to the levels of students. We should not expect 40-year-old learners jumping around n the class. All in all, I can state that keeping learners motivated is a significant part of my teaching philosophy.
Discussion & Experiences and Insights from FLED 311
In my teaching philosophy, I have chosen not to give direct references to methods or approaches but rather to extract from them what I believe to be useful in language teaching. I have built my philosophy on five pillars which seem to me as the most important components of language teaching. I suppose these pillars are crucial and needs to be considered thoroughly in language teaching. Although they may not be applicable and available at all places and in all times, they can be manipulated in order to fit to what is needed. Finally, I think that I will benefit from having stated my philosophy in my teaching career.
As a teacher candidate who have high expectations from future teaching experiences (just like once every graduate student had) I am aware of the fact that my teaching philosophy is an ideal maybe even utopic one to apply and maintain. The real teaching world will probably be a lot more different than the one I have in my mind. However, actually the main challenge lies here. If I can be courageous and initiative enough, for which I will try my best, I believe that some changes are possible. And in this future process I know that stating my philosophy of teaching will help me make my plans clearer and more systematic.
We covered the course FLED 311 watching presentations on specific methods and approaches of language teaching. Most of the time, I was amazed by the power of imagination and adaptation of my peers. The contents they presented us so knowledgeably and professionally make up the main reference of my teaching philosophy.
References
Balçıkanlı, Cem. (2008). Fostering Earner Autonomy in EFL Classrooms. Vol. 16, No. 1: Kastamonu Education Journal. Gazi University Press.
Brown, H. (1991). Breaking the language barrier. Intercultural Press.
Brown, H. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, JC: Prentice Hall.
Halliday, Michael. (1973). Explorations in the functions of language. Hodder Arnold.
Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon. Council of Europe.
Jacobs, G.M. (1998). Cooperative learning or just grouping students: The difference makes a difference. Learners and language learning. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.
Jacobs, G. M., & Cates, K. (1999). Global education in second language teaching. SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Tottori University.
Javier, Rafael. (2007). The Bilingual mind. Springer Verlag.
Littlewood, William. (1981). Communicative language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
McLuhan, Marshall. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy. Univ of Toronto Press.
Richards, Jack, Rodgers, Theodore, & Dudeney, Gavin. (2000). The Internet and the language classroom. Cambridge University Press.
Thanasoulas, Dimitrios. (2000). What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It be Fostered? Vol.6, No.11: the Internet TESL Journal.
Treiman, R., Clifton, C., Jr, Meyer, A. S., & Wurm, L. H. (2003). Language comprehension and production. Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology, Volume 4: Experimental Psychology. Wiley & Sons.
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