Teaching+Philosophy

Writing a philosophy of teaching and learning will help you to:

1) Determine what you believe about teaching and learning world languages and identify the values that underlie those beliefs. (This will help you to clarify the beliefs that are guiding your actions and responses to unexpected situations that may occur in the classroom.)

2) Envision what a classroom in which your beliefs and values are operationalized might look like in concrete terms (i.e., give [|specific examples]).

3) Identify portions of your vision that are likely to be misperceived by administrators, colleagues, parents, and students.

4) Craft a teaching philosophy designed to clearly and explicitly articulate your beliefs, expectations, and values about language teaching and learning so as to prevent misunderstandings among different stakeholders.

5) Package your philosophy in a format appropriate to a particular audience (administrators, colleagues, parents, and/or students) and a specific occasion (job interview, open house, enrollment/recruitment night for the department, etc.).


 * Brief paragraph included in a classroom syllabus
 * Brochure distributed at Eighth Grade Enrollment Presentations, Parent-Teacher Conferences, or Open House
 * Letter sent home to parents at the beginning of the year
 * One-pager with photos (think Scrapblog) for use in a job interview
 * Poster for a professional conference, teacher recruitment fair, or for display during an "electives fair" in which you are trying to recruit students for your program
 * PowerPoint presentation (a brief one) for Back-to-School Night
 * Single page sheet for inclusion in a teaching portfolio for a teacher education class

6) Prepare to defend your philosophy in response to situations and misunderstandings that are common in schools. For example, how would you defend the following practices?


 * You use projects extensively, but some of your students don’t believe they learn anything from projects
 * A parent is mad because you don’t send lengthy lists of vocabulary home every night
 * A parent feels you should give more homework
 * A colleague thinks that the hands-on, interactive activities you do in your block scheduled classes are a waste of time
 * An administrator questions your classroom management skills because of the noise/activity level in your classes
 * You focus on the development of oral proficiency in your classes, but a colleague from a nearby private school insists that the student who just transferred into your class from his/her class should be placed in a higher level because the student has "covered" 15 tenses by the time they have finished Spanish 2 at the private school.
 * A parent of a native speaker wants their child, who speaks Spanish fluently, to enroll in your Spanish 1 class to learn to read and write.

7) Educate targeted audiences about effective language teaching and learning.

user:chericem1


 * Additional Resources:**

- This Venn diagram will help assist you in developing your teaching philosophy by helping you to think about what you want your classroom to look, feel, and sound like user:chericem1

- This assignment sheet is designed to help new teachers consider their beliefs about classroom management user:chericem1

- This assignment sheet is designed to help teachers articulate their philosophy of teaching and learning user:chericem1

[|How to Write a Statement of Teaching Philosophy (tips)]

[|Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy (very nice article targeted at university professors)]

http://ftad.osu.edu/portfolio/philosophy/Philosophy.html#samples More information from The Ohio State University that gives a guide to writing your Philosophy of Teaching along with other examples. user:decortem


 * Samples:**

Angela Sherman's Teaching Philosophy (MS/HS) user:chericem1

[|Future Faculty Teaching Philosophy Statements] user:chericem1

[|Sample Teaching Philosophies (variety of disciplines)] user:chericem1

[|Teaching Philosophies of Award-winning Graduate Students] (Be sure to look at Aaron Bloomfield's) user:chericem1