My Teaching Profile

My Teaching Profile by Renate Rødsdalen

This teaching profile will focus on how I; as an L2 English teacher, teach English to my students. The text will focus on my motivation for teaching English, and how I work with my goals and methods to teach English to L2 learners. My focus as an English teacher is to make sure that my students gets new knowledge and skills in every class. That their vocabulary and communicative skills are improved, so that they can communicate well with each other and people with English as their L1. It is important to remember that every student is different. “Any class of students is made up of individuals who differ in a variety of ways…" (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 283). Students learn differently, and it is important to remember that when making a strategy for each class. 

My motivation for teaching English

My motivation for teaching English is based on how I learned English at school, and how I have experienced English in my practice. Both I and some of the schools I have been to, have learned English in the same way. By using grammar-focus drills, repeating after the teacher or to work with assignments to achieve new knowledge and skills. That is not my strategy when teaching English. My focus is on CLT. “Communicative language teaching. An approach to teaching aimed at fostering communicative competence in a language.” (Ellis & Shintani, 2014. p. 335). My motivation is to give the students motivation, knowledge and skills in English, in a way that will make them want to learn more. By using this approach, I believe that the student will receive more of the input they are given, than by using grammar-focus drills. They will acquire new knowledge, and they will have fun while learning. I believe that the most important thing for L2 learners, is that they first of all learn to communicate. To speak and interact with other people in the new language they are learning. Then comes writing, one should try to combine the two, to give the teaching more meaning. 

The teaching methods I believe is best

I believe that communicative practice is the best method for teaching and learning English. When the teacher gives the students communicative tasks, it is important to give them some new input. “Input can be oral or written. Oral input is provided in comprehension-based language instruction, in task-based language teaching, and, more generally, in the classroom talk that arises no matter what the teaching approach. Written input is provided in textbook practice materials and through reading.” (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 163). That way they will be given new knowledge, that they can use in the communicative practice. A task one can use is; Identifying differences. The students should each be given a picture, with written input, which should be words they do not already know. They have to interact with each other to find the differences in the picture. They also have to describe known objects in new ways. That way they interact with one another and get new knowledge and input. A different task that combines communication and writing is Dear Abby. The students will be given a question from a person, who is about their own age. They have to interact with each other to answer that person, they also have to write down the answer they come up with together.

My teaching goals and methods, and how my teaching is consistent with my goals.

One of my most important teaching goals is to get my students to communicate more by using English and improve their vocabulary. To get the students to interact with each other, they will learn from each other and find answers together. “In its most basic form, the Incidental Learning Hypothesis claims that learners can learn new linguistic features without any intention of doing so.” (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 174). This method is used when teaching CLT in the classroom. They will receive input, that they have to transfer into output. “Output requires “bottom-up processing” and thus is likely to make learners aware of gaps in their competence.” (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 209). It is the teacher’s job to make sure that the gaps in the student’s competence and knowledge is filled with the right input. That means that in that class or the next, the students have to get new input, that will fill these gaps. That way the output will be better from class to class. The student will then get more knowledge and skills for every class. Earlier this semester I had practice with ninth grade. As a warm-up activity we had a word-auction. The students were divided into groups and given paper money, so they could buy words. Their only task was to interact with each other, buy words and make a grammatically correct sentence. They were only allowed to use English to interact with each other and the teacher. They had to negotiate with each other and use their knowledge and skills to make a grammatically correct sentence. Accuracy is important in this task. They have to make sure that the sentence is accurate before they share it with the class.

My personal goals as an English teacher and conclusion.

My personal goal is to make sure that my students have implicit L2 knowledge. “… these theories have addressed how learners develop implicit L2 knowledge as this is the type of knowledge that is considered primary, in the sense that it is required to become a fluent, competent user of an L2.” (Ellis & Shintani, 2014, p. 11-12.). If the students get more implicit knowledge, they will eventually become a fluent English user. My students are not the only ones who need to get more input. I always have to learn new content and ways of teaching. That way I will always have the best foundation to teach my students. 

Literature:

Ellis, R. & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research. London, New York: Routledge. 

Reflection 4

Every school has its own set of textbooks. These are often decided by the school administration. This has been different from school to school, which I have seen when I am in practice. I have now been to three different schools, and not one of them use the same textbook. One school had one textbook they used all the time. They followed the textbook, the way my teacher did when I went to high school. The one I am in now is more focused on using different material. They use a textbook, but the teachers are encouraged to use different textbooks and other material. That way the students learn more then if the teacher only uses one textbook.

Teaching English is in my opinion not limited to one textbook. As an English teacher one should always have a lot of material available. A textbook can be a good resource, but one should not limit the teaching to only one book. Students need to learn different things, not only what is limited in a book with about 300 pages. When you as an English teacher use different material, you are in charge of the learning process. To take control, and make sure that your students get the best information possible, is the best way to teach English. There will always be activities in the textbook that one can improve, and make better for the students. It is a teachers job to make sure that whatever you make the students do, it is for them to learn the content in the best possible way. And to make sure that the content is full, not only a piece of the information/story but the full information. That is where another material comes in. If one works at a school where it is common to only use the textbook that is given to the students, it is the teacher's job to make sure that there will be given more information about the different topics.

In my practices these last three years I have come across different books. Last year I came across On the move. The English teacher used this book a lot in class. And this was the only book the students had access to. The book was used as a guideline throughout the year, it showed the students what they were going to learn, and when they were going to learn the different subjects. In that way using a textbook can be good for the students. When they get the book at the beginning of the year, they know what to expect and what they are going to learn the next year. The problem with only using one textbook is that the students will only learn what is in the book. For some of the students that will be enough, for some, it might even be too much. But then you have the students that need to learn more. Then it is up to the teacher to provide the students with the information or the activities they need to learn, and to make sure that they reach the highest level they can. I liked On the move. It was a good book, but it was a book where it was only a few pages with information about a topic. So the teacher needed to find additional information for the students, which is not a problem if the teacher is interested in doing the research. Which every teacher should.

Other material available can be a lot of different things. It can be different textbooks, it can be books you as a teacher came by when you went to school. Some of the books at school now also have a website or a DVD with different activities and more information. And there is the internet. One should always be a little critical to whats on the internet, but there is still a lot of resources one can find there when it comes to additional information and activities one can use. For me, it is important to have a varied teaching. With a focus on communicative practice. You can find all sorts of activities and information on the internet. Which is why, in addition to textbooks and other books, one should always use the internet for research. And as a teacher one should teach the students how to find good information on the internet. That way they become critical to the information they come across, and they will find good information when they are working with assignments.