PEDAGOGY
Over the years my pedagogical convictions have followed trends from holistic, critical thinking and kinesthetic approaches to an interest in CALL and E-learning methods to traditional classrooms techniques which include both student-centered, individual and group work to teacher-centered “drill and grill” language learning methods (popular with defense language courses).
As I have grown as a teacher, I do not feel I have adopted a new learning management trend while abandoning an older one; rather, I feel I have taken what worked best in the past and fit it into what seems to be working in the present.
For example, my last regional presentation promoted a once popular but currently seldom used method—dictation—in a CALL lab which uses advanced text to speech techniques. http://anenglishoasis.com/TESOLARABIA_Presentation_2006.html
My basic approach whether it has been traditional classroom or CALL lab is “The Communicative Approach” ( C.A.). As I interpret the C.A., the learner is the center of attention—not the white board, not the textbook, not the teacher’s lectures.
Lessons using the C.A. distinguish that all communication or messaging has a social function and the learner has something to say or discover as opposed to the teacher having something for the learner to say or discover. This I feel is at the heart of the C.A.—social linguistics.
Speech encompasses the same wide range of functions the learner experiences outside of the classroom(such as seeking information/ formal or informal salutations or “chit chat”/ expressing pleasure with someone or something and displeasures, so on and so forth).
My role in the classroom is to perform the role of trainer or mentor, encouraging learning by developing a model learning environment which reflects a real life social environment. I try to be conscious of vital instances in learning processes when a learner begins to sub-consciously and cognitively pull together meaning which develops from a variety of training techniques in language learning skills.
Essentially, a learning environment should mirror real life communicative situations and help lead to this type of crucial critical planning and thinking.
I feel my greatest strength lies in the diversity of my experience. I have been an English composition and literature instructor which makes make keenly aware of the English for Academic Purposes targets. Also, I have been an ESL and EFL Instructor with ten years overseas experience, mostly at the tertiary level in English Departments, Language Centers or Modern Language Faculties. I have taught both native and non-native speakers; abroad, I have taught composition and literature (the University of Maryland's University College) or English as a Foreign Language.