Teaching philosophy

In my experience as an English teacher, I have realized that, with the implementation of realia in the EFL classroom, students learn best since they can have contact with the new vocabulary. Besides, the performance of on-line games such as Quizziz, Kahoot, Hangman, Jeopardy, between others, make the English learning fun. In fact, I have used those strategies of gamification for both practice and assessing learners, individually, in-pairs or even in groups. For me, assessing students is important because it does not only give me the opportunity to know who is learning but also, to reflect on what I am doing well and what things need to be improved. With this in mind, I also evaluate myself by recording the most relevant aspects of the teaching and learning process in my diary.

I believe that the most significant learning occurs in real situations but considering that I teach in a Spanish language context, it could be quite difficult to expose the learners all day to the English language. For that reason, I think that it is very important to create scenarios where students can use the language as much as possible in an authentic way. Besides, it is meaningful to reflect on how the students learn better in order to use the appropriate resources in the EFL classroom. Since hand-made materials can be striking and motivating for learners, I enjoy creating instructional materials. Also, it makes me take into consideration the students' needs and their learning styles. In the same way, the adaptation of resources made by other teachers is useful when I fit them appropriately considering the learners’ characteristics and interests. For that reason, my teaching philosophy as a language teacher is focused on a totally student-centered approach to education. 

Not only it is important to me to teach the linguistic competence of the language, but it is also crucial to be aware of the social rules and the cultural references of the language. In other words, I do not teach just a language, I instruct students to get familiar with it by knowing the culture behind the target language and building sensitivity and respect towards it. Therefore, I try to include the cultural aspect in the lessons as a cross-curricular. 

It seems to me that teaching is the ability to help others to learn, and I, as a language teacher, can help learners develop or improve their second language skills by providing and modeling the context that they would like to interact with. Based on my experience as an English Foreign Language learner and teacher, I consider myself to be aware of the process that carry out learning a second language. Therefore, I know that students do not all learn in the same way or at the same rate. 

I feel that it is essential to be aware of the constantly changing technological world since it has contributed to our society in different positive ways. As for me, I think that the classroom is a space for exploration and discovery in which technology can help me to promote learning and build learners’ skills in ICT that they will need in everyday life. Besides, the use of games, interactive learning web sites, WebQuest, among others, keep students motivated and help to raise interest in learning. Thus, it is fundamental that me, as a teacher, have advanced knowledge and feel comfortable of using technology in the English language classroom. 

Teaching is a constant process of learning from your students, colleagues, and the whole community. This is a lifelong process in which I as a teacher learn constantly what is new in the discipline and enhance my educational philosophy through theory and practice. At the end, I would be satisfied when students realized that they have learnt in a significant way having an active role in the EFL classroom not only the linguistic knowledge of a language but also the cultural aspect of it which we can interact with using technology.