Teaching Philosophy

My philosophy of teaching English as a second language

comes from both of my under-graduate and graduate courses in
Teaching English and Applied Language. I have ten years of
experience of teaching English to Vietnamese students and students
from other countries including Mexico, Korea,; also my own
personal experience of being an ESL student in Vietnam and in the
US. With the old way of leaning English, grammar- focused tasks are
mainly taught in all classes. However, this method is not effective in
supporting students to build up their communication skills. I strongly
believe that the Communicative Approach is much more supportive
for ESL/EFL students. In addition, with an incorporation of TaskBased Language Teaching, I create tasks imitating real life situations
that encourage students use the target language-English. For
example, giving instructions for direction, leaving a phone message
and taking a phone message.
Making mistakes in learning a language is indispensable, so
the attitude taken by teachers towards mistakes plays an important
role. In fact, students can learn from their own mistakes and others;
peer- correction and self- correction encourage students reflect
themselves and to be an autonomous learner. With the role of a
facilitator, I create a supportive environment so that students can
join all class activities and produce the target language without fear
of making mistakes. In fact, this is really essential for students
whose English proficiency is still limited. I do believe that learning
English does not only occur in classroom, it offers many more
opportunities to get students exposed to an English- speaking
environment especially when students are in the US. Therefore,
being an autonomous learner who is motivated intrinsically instead
of extrinsically is an essential key for ESL students.
In terms of giving instruction and assistance to students, I
think that instruction given to students should be just beyond the
present competence level of students. To be more specific, if a
student is operating at a level without any assistance at all, he is
not learning. To be more specific, a typical exam gives us no useful
information because it tells us what students can do today; that is
old information. What is more valuable for an instructor is to see the
learning trajectory of the students, to see what they will be able to
do in the future.
To improve my teaching skill, I constantly reflect on my
teaching. I write down notes after each teaching session so that I
can make any adjustment I need to find more effective ways to
convey the message to the students. I also come to weekly teacher
meetings to exchange ideas with my colleagues and professors. I
learn from my colleagues, my peers and even my students.

In closing, I enjoy teaching, learning and improving my skills.