Teaching Philosophy

Communicative language teaching - CLT (Brandl 2008) is the nucleus of my TL

approach. Given that I do speak various languages and learned them in the authentic setting
(respective countries), I only can defend this approach. I am using direct communication with my
students throughout the class. Greetings, grammar explanations, exercise instructions are all
given in TL. Authentic material, appropriate for the TL level is crucial for CLT. They underline
what this TL is aimed to be used for and make it more tangible. CLT opens an array of
possibilities, what new things the students might be able to have access to, by mastering the TL.
When I am constantly using TL in class, students get used to the grammar structure (Swan 2000),
start identifying themselves the acceptability of their own and their peers speaking patterns and
become the masters of their own comprehensibility. CLT does not mean that grammar is
neglected. It is the main pillar of my CLT approach and a crucial part of my teaching philosophy,
however it is subordinated to the communicative purpose of the language. A new grammar point
is immediately followed by an application model or exercise in order for the students to
assimilate it faster and understand the auxiliary but indispensable role of the grammar.
Each classroom is particular and every student in this classroom is different and this is
my task, as a teacher, to find the way to motivate every one of them to learn the TL (target
language). So, being flexibility is crucial to my teaching philosophy. I am currently teaching
French I at the university setting to students of mixed L1s. For instance, given the fact that I do
speak Spanish, among other five languages, and have a considerable number of native Spanish
speakers, I always try to draw a parallel with this language, since Spanish, as French is a
Romance language and therefore they share a considerable amount of similarities. The idea

behind it is to find that something, that the students strongly relate to and build their learning
experience around it. This method makes the learning process of a foreign language a lot more
tangible since the language per se, and a foreign language especially are very intangible
concepts.
Flexibility determines as well the outline nature of my short-term and daily lesson plan
(Brandl 2008). I rather have a frame that I work with because there are various variables in a
class-room, like the pace of assimilation of new material, questions about the already studied
material, unexpected events, etc. Nevertheless, this frame always contains a clear objective of
what I would like the students to learn during this class and the tools (usually, exercises) I will be
using in order to attain these objectives. I am, however open for unexpected changes in the
projected path since the purpose of my teaching is not to teach the prepared lesson from A Z
but rather to facilitate the learning process of my students with the help of my teaching.
The humane element of the teaching is also very important to me. I am far from perfect
and prone to making mistakes in the TL. However, I know a little bit more about the TL and am
excited to share my knowledge about it with the students. I am not an English native speaker, so
every time I am writing a translation of a French word on the board and am not sure about the
spelling I do ask my students to correct me. Less, frequently, of course, I do the same in French.
Showing this humane aspect of me, I believe, empowers them, because they are in charge to
correct me. I do it on purpose, because this takes away students fear of not being able to give a
100% - correct output because not even I, their teacher am able to do it 100% of the time. This
approach makes me a catalyst (Scrivener, 2012) in their learning process because I am
enabling them to be in charge of the correctness of the output. When I am doing so, the students

are more awake because they know that they are active players of what is going on in the class
room and need to be attentive.
Scrivener (2012) is talking about praise and its boundaries. I would like to expand on it
and add my own bit. I believe that praise should be public and generous, however criticism or
rather addressing issues, needs to be private. I am not speaking about correcting either
pronunciation or spelling or any other part of the TL but rather issues that might impede the
learning process of an individual or the entire group. I did so with a couple of students and had
outstanding results. Especially, when addressing issues, the trust element rather than the
judgement should prevail (Scrivener, 2012). Usually, students will aspire to not let their teacher
down since I trusted them and not disappoint this elevated image I do have of them.
Over and over again I experience that students are so much smarter than we usually give
them credit for and are able to discern whether a teacher is genuinely motivated by the material
he/she is teaching or not (Mihaly Csikzentmihaly 1977:77, from Drnyei 2001). I would like to
focus on the intelligence of the students and to expand on that rather than the enthusiasm factor,
which is not less important to my teaching approach and is entirely embedded into my TL
teaching practice. When I explain a new topic, I like to play with hypothesis testing. I feel that
this empowers the students because they, themselves, find the right answer (sometimes with my
help). The process of hypothesis testing helps them retain the newly acquired information better
because of the satisfaction they feel after having found the correct answer. They feel like little
discoverers in the New World of TL because I let them navigate on their own for a while. This is
directly related to the concept of high teacher expectations, described in Brandl (2008). I put it
that way to my students: I might seem demanding but only because you are really smart. At the
same time my students are aware that I am fully committed to help them outside classroom with

even tiniest questions and doubts. So, I provide this infrastructure for learning that they are
completely aware of, which creates a safety net for them because they always know that they can
count on me on their learning journey.
Students seem to have more challenges in listening comprehension of a different speaker
from their usual teacher, since I, particularly, tend to (over)articulate my pronunciation in order
to facilitate the acoustic assimilation of the TL. The solutions to this challenge are listening
exercises that expose students TL native speakers and their pronunciation modalities as well as
exposure to authentic TL speakers through songs, cartoons, movies and others on a regular basis.
Teaching a foreign language is not a static science. It evolves in order to accommodate
the needs of the more and more networked and globalized world and I stay tuned to its ever
improving teaching techniques. I always advise my students to travel to the countries of the TL, I
am teaching, since it gives them the real possibility to experience the TL in its environment, to
embrace the culture with all its ramifications. Learning a foreign language is not only studying
new words, grammar, understanding dialogues; it is a powerful tool that enables you to dive into
a different universe of signs, rhythm, habits, and ways of living as valid as your own. It is
learning to see that there is not only one way, but an endless variety of right ways, which in turn
creates more tolerance towards unknown or not understood issues, in general. A foreign
language enriches an individual mutli-dimensionally since a language encompasses our, human
way of expression and information exchange about ALL matters.

References:
Brandl, K (2008). Communicative Language Teaching in Action: Putting Principles to Work.
Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. p.1-75
Drnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001. p. 31-49
Scrivener, J. (2012). Classroom Management Techniques. Cambridge: University Press, p.36-47,
119-178, 231-297.
Swan, M. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice.
Cambridge: University Press. p. 148-152