Thursday, September 13, 2012
Approach
I just felt inclined to write a little after our classroom discussion on Monday. We keep talking in circles about method and approach and how it relates and shapes our teaching philosophy and values. While I agree that discussing approaches are important and help us form our curriculum and values, I think that as pre-service teachers it is so difficult to firmly understand which approach works for us. Now, as seniors in college, we have been in school since we were 5 which is why we can easily discuss and identify our learning style. But we have only been discussing teaching for 2 or 3 years. I think it is a little premature for us to argue with one another about which approach is better or how to blend the approaches or the best way to teach. As we have learned from learning styles, we all learn differently so in turn we will all probably teach differently. I just kept asking myself, how important is it to really define your approach before you even teach? While it is important to really understand the concepts of each approach, I think it is difficult to really know what you want and how you will teach until you are actually in front of a class doing it. A lot of teaching is trial and error. We can teach with these approaches in mind but many times we will rely on intuition and instinct when plans go awry. I may be the only one who feels this way but we went around and around talking about it on Monday I just felt the need to put it out there.
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Danielle,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your insightful comment. I just thought that I should respond to your reflection since you are asking a very important question about your future practice.
Just like every profession, TESOL/BE as an interdisciplinary field is filled with debates on theory and practice on language education. As pre-service teachers, although you may not yet have enough experiences with the context of teaching, it is very important that you build a strong foundation of knowledge on how to act on certain teaching moments in class. And, the debates you are involved in classes like this one is only the beginning of your engagement with the field and with the disciplinary dialogues on various language teaching related issues.
You are absolutely right in saying that you will better understand what would work best in your context when you are in fact in the field teaching, but remember that the purpose of our discussion is never to select which approach or method works best with which context. On the contrary, our hope is to initiate a class discussion which would move beyond this myth (that there is one best method/approach), and carry the discussion to a deeper level of analysis. We are all about investigating the needs of the local context, but to learn how to do it one needs to read on varios debates in the field. Just like any profession, certain things may make more sense when you actually do it in practice. however, it is important to keep in mind that any kind of practice that ignores current theories and knowledge lacks an intellectual investment and reflection-on-action.
Hope this helps.
Keep up the great work,
Dr.Seloni