Teaching Material
Here I have compiled materials, prepared and curated throughout my graduate experience, including my personal views as an educator, lessons plans and resources that I have throughout my time as an instructor.
Teaching Philosophy
In my view, when language educators exhibit enthusiasm towards gaining perspective on distinct customs, communication styles, and other real-world cultural topics, they demonstrate a compassion for the subject, their students, and themselves. With diverse cultures worldwide, I strive to instill the desire within learners to broaden their recognition of those around them through interaction, communication and exposure of communities and cultures, reflecting on cross-cultural comparisons and drawing connections to their own identity, opinions, and views.
Interaction
In my classroom, I present learners with the opportunity to strengthen communication and foster a connection with their peers in the classroom. I begin with arranging desks a “U” shape, allowing constant visibility to the front of the room, the educator and their fellow peers. This approachable set-up encourages learners to ask questions, share opinions, and gain insight from other's experiences. Through a sociocultural approach to collaboration, learners in my classroom reflect on areas of confusion, seek peer guidance and feedback, explore connections with community and culture, gauge for interlocutors understanding and work together to resolve miscommunications or misunderstandings. Using this collaborative approach, I facilitate the use of multiple modes of communication, task-based activities and interpersonal communication, where learners can connect with one another, engage with the language and build confidence with their linguistic abilities at a comfortable pace.
Material
When planning classes, I use authentic material to contextualize the target language, raise an awareness for linguistic variation and foster an appreciation for the uniqueness of communities surrounding them. This approach encourages learners to create authentic language use and creatively engage with the content. With an ever-growing presence of technology, I pursue to introduce learners' different methods of communication, by presenting them with materials like articles, interviews, podcasts, social media post and many other resources. This exploration of multiliterate encourages discussions on register, interpretation of media, pragmatics, miscommunication, and opportunities for sociocultural comparisons between Spanish communities and their own surroundings. By seeing the language's practical application, learners are able to solidify the target language as a part of their identity through understanding and personal involvement.
Feedback
I primarily use mixed methods of feedback to promote language production, offering metalinguistic feedback to clarify any misunderstandings. These forms of correction highlight errors in communication while explaining the implications of its use, how it can be corrected and most importantly, it clarifies why the correction is necessary to avoid misunderstandings. Through the use of this oral and written feedback, I have been able to introduce learners to examples of linguistic variations, recognize their prior knowledge and linguistic variations, and learners' in my classes have expressed reduced feelings anxieties related to production in the class, through the reassurance and encouragement provided to always attempt to communicate focusing on the message they want to convey, rather than on accuracy. In prioritizing constant generation, I am also able to assess learners' comprehension of provided input and gauge their interest and involvement towards investing effort into the class and its materials.
Participation
In the classroom, I remain active in motivating learners to participate interactively throughout every class and taking time to listen to learners' experiences, investing time into learning about my students as individuals. I encourage my students to participate with language in the same manner. Through a variety of different mediums such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing, I assess each learner's preferred learning styles and help them participate and engage in the most effective manner. Although the classroom is teacher-led, emphasis in my classes is placed on student-centered learning and active engagement.
With experience, I’ve come to recognize that the classroom is not a place where learners are taught material imparted by one person, but a place where all participants learn how to exchange ideas and build upon their understanding, advocating for themselves using their linguistic abilities. In the future, I look forward to continuing to expand my cultural knowledge and offer students a safe space to learn from me, from one another and to learn from their experiences and their abilities myself.
Resources
In the following section, I offer sample lessons incorporating methodologies mentioned in my teaching philosophy. Below, you can also find a list of resources to find others' lesson plans, teacher tools, and teaching materials.