My Philosophy of Teaching

Teaching is the most powerful weapon a person can use to change the world. It’s the most honorable job you can choose if you were an adventures’ seeker, a dreams’ catcher, and a love giver. Teaching has changed over the years. It’s always on progress, matching all the learners’ ages, and all the learners’ interests. Teaching nowadays is no more about grades, nor about memorizing the information. It had become student central where the whole importance is given to the student himself, whether he understood the lesson explained, he’s feeling comfortable in the class, or he’s having all the conditions he needs to learn the information the teachers are aiming to teach. (Practicum I)

Furthermore, teaching, and teaching English especially, is now related to students’ personalities, attitudes, interests, and of course each student psychology. Teaching English consists from us to make efforts bigger than any efforts made in teaching other subjects, where the English teachers should teach their students practically four main tasks within the bigger title “English”. They should teach them grammar, writing, reading, and speaking. And each of these tasks represents a subject by itself, which makes the English teachers the most teacher to interact with their students, and therefore, they must play the role of the mother, the sister, the friend, and of course the role of the teacher. (Practicum I)

From my own point of view, the methods we’re using at class must first of all respect the fact that technology had become our students’ best friend, therefore we must introduce technology to our class, second of all, all English teachers must work on their students’ self esteem and their accents, therefore we must introduce in our class as much speaking activities as we can, and as much native language as possible through movies and songs and maybe shows… however, the relationship between the students and the teacher must be built with love, respect, and care, but teacher must know where to play the role of the friend, the role of the mother, and  the role of the teacher, and sometimes the role of the severe teacher.

Firstly, as we all noticed technology has invented our world widely, controlling everything we do, in our everyday’s life. And of course as we all know teaching and learning are the oxygen of our progress in this world, so technology have also its effects on teaching, especially teaching English, which is something all the teachers should pay attention, and something I, myself, believe that should be one of my major methods in teaching English,  because students of these days are so interested in technology, just like we were their ages interested in baby dolls. You can never find a kid nowadays who doesn’t own an Ipad, Ipod,

Mobile phone, lap top, or at least who doesn’t have an Instagram or Facebook account. So we as teachers should teach them how to make using technology beneficial rather than just using it for fun, by inventing technology in our classes. This way we are mixing something students love and have passion for, with something (Which is learning) they think they hate, for they have never experienced the right methods in learning. So by this, we are making the teaching and learning a mix of fun and knowledge that permit the students to benefit and improve while having fun. And finally, we find a way of making our students enjoy learning language. (Practicum I)

Furthermore, one of the main methods I’m going to use in teaching my students English language, is working on their accents by letting them watch non translated movies at least twice a month, plus teaching them vocabularies and expressions, and enrich their imagination, by letting them listen to different kinds of songs, and memorize them. These two ways are the main ways that helped me enter the world of English language. By letting them watch non subtitled movies and listen to English songs, I’m teaching them indirectly the perfect accent they must learn by listening to native speakers, plus teaching them how to understand the meaning from the context as a whole, without going back to the translation, and at the same time I’m making them enjoy learning rather than learning unwillingly. Plus, this way, I am making of the listening skill a real skill to be learnt, not just a skill that we only test our students with.

However, these activities must be preceded with talking activities, whether making summaries of the movies and tell it to the whole class, or making debates between the students, because one of the major problem I’ve faced in learning English was my accent firstly, and my lack of confidence secondly, that also affected my way of talking English. By making them practice the English language in front of their classmates, I’m helping them build their self confidence and their personalities, and not to be afraid of practicing English language and making mistakes.

Moreover, the most important thing that every teacher should respect and work on is the relationship between the teacher and the students, where every teacher should forget, every once and awhile, that they’re more knowledgeable than their students and forget the fact that they’re the teachers and the kids are the students, and they have control over them. Every English teacher should deal with their students as if they were their children needing love, tender, and care. However, they must know when to limit this relationship to a more severe relationship.

From my experience in teaching this second semester at OMEC I noticed that, contrary to what I wrote in Practicum I, teachers can’t treat their students always as their friends, because students don’t know that there is time for fun and there is time for real hard work and studying.

A last point that I discovered from my experience as a teacher is that practical is so much different than written plans. When I put lesson plans for my teaching lessons, I gave each activity the time I thought it will take. However, it took me sometimes much more time to achieve it, and some other times so much less time to achieve it. Plus, the thought that your lesson is going to flow easily is so much wrong, because so much situations and difficulties will take place and face you while trying to explain whatever lesson you’re planning to explain.