My philosophy of teaching has been shaped by what I learned in the Education programs and my teaching practice experiences. I believe that the ESL teachers need to prepare instructional skills for students to develop the 21st-century skills because it will help students to obtain knowledge and work on ways to get new ideas. For example, I used a class Dojo app with students to give them homework, rewarding  them, giving  them feedback and helps them to reflect on their learning. My teaching philosophy will be summarized and discussed in five areas which related  to the teaching competencies, especially about professional development skills, collaborative learning activities, student motivation, engagement, and achievement, dealing with students’ behaviors and collecting feedback.

 

         As a future teacher, I strongly believe that my professional growth depends on the ability to attend educational workshops, seminars, conferences and meet with other colleagues. As a result of doing some conferences last semester and it’s developed my competency of planning for assessment by checking and monitoring the work. This goal is one of my crucial goals in my professional development plan because it improves different areas of my teaching proficiency and serves the community (see PDP, professionalism, competency). Apart from this, attending these areas helped me to increase my knowledge in all areas of education competency. Obviously, I gained lots of skills such as decision making, critical thinking, and effective communication which helped me to develop my personal attitude and professional skills. From my perspective, not only attend workshops but also give a workshop at the conference, give and receive feedback from others to learn how to improve my skills as a leader in the future.  (See PDP, professionalism, competency).  For instance, I did a workshop about special needs which was related to the course that I took in education. It was effective for me because I got many skills. The skills that I gained in this field were communication skills, management skills, understanding behavior and learn about social development.

 

        Based on my experience, I believe that students can learn effectively when they interact with each other because they are sharing information and getting a shelter for the practice of the English language. They also develop social skills by helping one another, sharing, taking their turns and being proud of the group identity. Planning for different interaction patterns like pair share helps to make students more productive in the classroom. According to Pimm he found that students' learning is improved when they collaborate with each other (Pimm, 1987). I also believe that students with different levels of low students helped by high achieving students. Furthermore, better collaboration can be a more effective learning by making students work together, encouraged oral communication skills, allow students to become “experts” on the topic and develop students' social interaction skills. Apart from this, I strongly believe that Learning centers in the classroom provide the opportunity for the students to practice and get skills which let the students involved in the social interaction (see PDP, planning for learning competency).

 

        I believe that motivation is an important aspect strategy for the students because it increases the effective behaviors of the students and increases enthusiasm.  As a future teacher, I believe that students need a greater motivation to learn English language in the UAE government schools. Accordingly, I planned to inspire and stimulate the students, which you can see it as one of my PDP goals in managing learning competency.  Using techniques to motivate students such as group performance charts, individual motivation charts, and reward positive behavior helped the students to be more engaged in the classroom. Both Cashin and Lucas believe that students are more affected by positive feedback and can succeed in learning (Wlodkowski, 1984). Personally, I believe that any teachers can make an efficient learning if they focus on the motivation and rewarding students because it is the key to the success for students in learning the English language in the UAE setup.  Closely related to this student's’ behavior management,

 

       As a future teacher, I strongly believe that a successful teacher with good monitoring can create a supportive environment for the students to learn the English language.  Also, I believe that the classroom cannot work well without the skills of managing the students’ behavior and success can only come when there are a well-managed structured classroom and effective behaviour management” (Krause, Bochner, Duchesne, 2003). Also, it will increase their performance in academic achievement that guides students toward particular goals(See PDP, implementing learning competency).

 

       I strongly believe that implementing a successful summative and formative assessments provide the teacher with information about the students’ progress and development. The summative assessments helped me evaluate students learning at the end of a unit and ask the students to projects or give them the exam to see their development. (See PDP, assessment competency). This strategy was helpful for me because it gave me a clear explanation about students’ proficiency in obtaining skills or concepts and sees their achievement to know if they understood the lesson well. On the other hand, formative assessment was a crucial strategy because it’s improved their learning accomplishments and let them understand concepts by expanding their knowledge (see PDP, assessment competency). As a consequence, applying these assessments helped me to get a clear picture of the students’ progress and performance.

 

        I believe that Getting feedback on my teaching behaviour is necessary to help me to  reflect on areas of strength and how to improve my weakness in teaching. At the beginning of my teaching practice, it was hard to take feedback from my MST and MCT’s because I took it personally.  Later, I figured out that feedback is an essential procedure to know the strength and the weakness of my teaching and how these comments can improve my skills in teaching the English language. I gained lots of strategies such as question forms, managing students and students centered strategy and it allowed me to examine my professional performance (see PDP, reflection competency). For instance, receiving corrective guidance from my MST and MCT’s, helped me to make an action plan to improve my skills and look at strengths and areas for progress which I believe is a vital trait for lifelong learning. Clarks explains that in learning, the teachers have a big role in receiving and giving feedback because it has always been central to the improvement (Clarke, 2001). From my perspective, feedback is necessary for both teacher and students to develop their skills and look at the areas that need enhancement to get effective learning. On the other hand, giving students feedback helped them to understand the lesson better by giving them a clear instruction to increase their learning.  Oecd believes that feedback is much easier when the participants are motivated to do their assessment (Oecd, 2005).

 

 

Conclusion

 

     I think being a teacher is a great honor because it is a challenging and rewarding job that teacher brings transformation to the students in learning the English language. As a teacher, I am always thinking about how to make my students succeed English language learner. I think every teacher should provide all the materials, strategies and skills to share it with the students, so the students will have rich of the learning environment to learn and develop their skills. I would highly recommend teachers to be enthusiastic about new ideas about  teaching and making students engaged in the learning process,

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References:

 

Clarke, S. (2001). Practical strategies for formative                                                          assessment: Unlocking enhancing pupils’ learning in the primary                              classroom. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Krause, K. L., Bochner, S., & Duchesne, S.(2003). Educational psychology for              learning and teaching. Australia:Thomson.

Oecd. (2005), Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective          Teachers. Oecd, Paris. 

Pimm, D. (1987). Speaking mathematically: Communication in mathematics               classrooms. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Wlodkowski, R. (1984). Motivation and teaching: A practical guide.                               Washington,DC:National Education Association.