My Teaching Philosophy

It is my belief that each student has the potential to improve themselves and can achieve any goal they set for themselves. I have seen students who initially struggle with English because they have never encountered the language but after working hard and some encouragement from myself and other teachers, they have drastically improved their results. I say to students that whilst English can seem difficult to learn, if you try hard enough and open yourself up to the language and the fact that it can help you communicate with hundreds of millions of more people, you will be pleased with yourself for studying hard. Even by simple activities such as listening to music in English and watching TV shows/movies in English you can increase your English level through such exposure.

I believe that positive reinforcement is also extremely important in the classroom. I have seen that negative reinforcement and associating shame or negative feelings with learning English only hinders that students chances of improving English and definitely lowers their motivation to continue studying the language. I always try to maintain a positive attitude in the classroom through the use of supportive language. I never shame a student for incorrectly answering a question or for mispronouncing a word because I believe these responses only create a negative feeling in the classroom and in the student.

Each student is different. Whilst it may be easier to create a single, uniform lesson for a whole class, some students do not learn the same way as others or do not understand as quickly as some others do. So, often I need to customise the lesson so that certain students do not get left behind and others aren't bored with the content. At the very least, I create a lesson for the whole class and individually help the students that struggle with English throughout the lesson to ensure they are at a similar level to the rest of the class.