I then explained the theoretical framework of my teaching philosophy to provide a theoretical basis for my future teaching practice. The theoretical framework for my teaching philosophy mainly consists of socio-cultural theories, Translanguaging theory and Backward design.
Philosophy of Teaching
My teaching philosophy is based on four theories, including Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory, translation theory, backward design, and new literacies studies. In general, my teaching philosophy is guided by socio-cultural theories and simultaneously influenced by translation theory and reverse design theories.
Professional Knowledge
Planning
In this lesson plan, my students are 8th grade Chinese students whose first language is Mandarin Chinese and they have received formal English language instruction during their previous educational experience. At the end of the class we also review all the concepts learned in this class and did a self-reflection.
Instructing
In this project, I chose translation theory because translation has been a traditional and popular teaching method in teaching English in China. In this guide, I have presented two sample lesson plans to demonstrate specific instruction that includes translation theory.
Assessing
The assessment of my student's oral and written language skills was divided into four parts, including phonology, semantics, grammar and pragmatics. The results of these informal assessments have greatly complemented my analysis of my participant's English Language Proficiency (ELP).
Identity and Context
Artifact E: The second artifact I chose was an article about my experience researching a local ELL class designed for adults at Belmont United Methodist Church (see Appendix E, attached separately). Although they may have different learning goals, they all want to improve their English in pursuit of a better life in America. Relevance to the domain: The students mentioned in these two artifacts are mostly immigrants to America.
Women account for approx. 75% of the number of students in the class, while men only have approx. 25%. Regarding the learning environment at Belmont Church, the teacher tried to create a low anxiety classroom. For example, the teacher would always play some classical music before class, and snacks and free coffee are also available for all students.
The curriculum in Artifact E was dominated by communicative language teaching, meaning that oral communication was prioritized in class. The ESL classes at Belmont church have greatly validated the students' cultural experience in classroom practice and created space for diver students' voices (De Jong, 2011, p. 184) especially by organizing group discussions and peer reviews. In the international English program, the amount of female students is greater than male, and they also learn English for another motivation.
Language Proficiency
However, I think the teacher should do more research on students' cultural backgrounds and identity information to guide his instruction. I remembered that my mother took me to an educational institution to take a demo English course, and I made the decision to start learning English at that institution after class. One of the most useful things I learned from that institute was the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which improved my phonological skills immensely.
My high school is one of the best foreign language schools in China, which specializes in learning and teaching foreign languages. In college, I chose Business English as my major, in which I took various courses related to English language learning, such as Comprehensive Reading, Listening, Debate, Academic Writing, Linguistics, etc. I also got a total score of 107 on my TOEFL test with reading, listening, speaking and writing respectively.
My outstanding performance in my undergraduate studies led me to the Master of Education program for English Language Learners at Vanderbilt University. Peabody College of Education and Human Development has been one of the best experiences of my life. I have been engaged in courses that lead to a deep understanding of second language acquisition.
Learning
With all the previous teaching and practice experience, I will continue to learn new teaching strategies and methods to diversify my teaching style in the future. In this artifact, I have chosen to learn Spanish as a new literacy by using an online learning platform, which contains all-in-one tools to help language students improve and understand a new language while listening, reading, writing and speaking in the target language. language. Clearly, technology and the internet were the biggest 'sponsors' of my progress in this tutorial, as the platform I used is online and full of digital media.
The curriculum and interactive activities included in the 5-step learning pathway involved different literacy skills and the development of each skill dependent on the other skills. During my teaching experience, cultural learning took many forms, including reading texts, pictures and maps, and videos. Since language learning can never be separated from the culture embedded in it, this platform has offered information about Spanish-speaking countries such as geographical distribution, demographics, festivals and celebration customs, etc. by incorporating cultural elements.
If this platform is used in classroom teaching in schools, this cultural engagement could give students a deep understanding of the cultural and linguistic flexibility in our globalized world (Paris & Alim, 2014). For youth who have only prior knowledge of English, bilingual education on this platform would also tap into their prior knowledge and promote cultural exchange, which can be considered a typical reflection of culturally sustaining pedagogy in literacy education (Lee & Walsh, 2017). Another specific thing to keep in mind is that this platform is computer and internet based, so students without access to technology may not be able to use these types of learning tools.
Content
Therefore, it is also worth considering how to help these students if they are not familiar with technologies. This curriculum is a typical example of culturally responsive pedagogy, incorporating both Chinese and American cultures of celebrating the New Year and using English to introduce other festivals. Not only do I want my students to understand the reading I used in this curriculum, but I also want to develop their ability to communicate their own culture in a foreign language.
Relevance to the domain: The target students in this lesson plan are Chinese adult learners. Therefore, this lesson is not test-oriented, which I can take advantage of to include more content outside of the textbook. This lesson is designed to provide students with a cooperative learning environment as they try to use more English to communicate with each other.
While it is important to understand the meanings of the text, it is even more important to learn how to express their own culture in English. Group discussion is the main tool I will use in this lesson to track my students' insights. It is also important that teachers keep the content of the lessons flexible rather than fixed.
Commitment and Professionalism
In this project, I demonstrated my understanding of the application of the translation method in language teaching based on various researches that I read during my postgraduate studies. The attitudes of different researchers towards the translation method were in dramatic contrast with each other, while some had negative attitudes towards its application, there were still some people who think it is necessary to keep it in the classroom. Finally, I also introduced a new design of the translation method - the Pedagogical Method of Translation as a potential improvement of my professionalism.
Since ESL learners and EFL learners learn English in different social contexts, people would have different answers as to whether the translation method should be used or not. Translation method as a traditional teaching strategy has been a controversial issue regarding language education in several countries. In this artifact, a brief overview of different opinions on this topic was presented to demonstrate the theoretical basis of my project.
As the framework showed, the whole class would be divided into three parts, namely pre-translation activities, translation activities and post-translation activities respectively. The pre-translation activities were intended to interest students and also provided a pre-assessment of students. The post-translation activities combined reading with writing and also assessed students' knowledge acquisition.
Application to Practice
According to schema theory, a student's schema, which is organized knowledge of the world, provides much of the basis for understanding, learning, and remembering ideas in texts (Anderson, 2004). Electric cars are also known to be more efficient in terms of energy conversion: on average, electric cars use about 60% of the power of electricity to turn the wheels, compared to 17%-21% of the energy stored in gasoline. converted to power at the wheels. The most important festival is the Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year in the lunar calendar on January 1.
Chinese Valentine's Day, July 7 according to the lunar calendar, comes from an old legend about a cowgirl and a weaver;. It is celebrated on the first new moon according to the lunar calendar, always between January 21 and February 20. Therefore, it is customary in China to welcome the arrival of the new year with fireworks and the use of the color red.
The Chinese New Year is celebrated with lion and dragon dances performed by martial artists and acrobats who wear large costumes with images of lions and dragons and parade through the streets of the city, surrounded by the sound of drums and dishes. For the Festival of Lights, children organize parades with red lanterns of various shapes to celebrate the arrival of the first full moon and it is the end of the Chinese New Year. Each region has its own dishes, but everyone celebrates by spending hours at the table eating the typical dishes of the celebration.
Chinese New Year is also celebrated around the table by eating the traditional foods of the festival together. One of the typical games is majiang, a Chinese game that can be compared to our chess.
