Emmanuel Candiani

TESOL 200

Teaching Philosophy

In my experience as a language learner and also as a language teacher, I have found several
methods that would always work to help someone understand and apply the language being
learned. I tested these ways several times with me and with different kind of students, some
students were determined and always with a good attitude to learn, other even though their best
efforts were slower in the learning process, and finally those students who hated the fact of having
to learn another language only because it is needed for their job or any other different situation.
Certainly the approach would not be similar towards all the students, but the methods are
generally the same. These principles are probably known to everybody, they are not from another
galaxy. Here I would describe them.

They have to be their own teacher as long as possible. We are there to assist the learning and
redirect it whenever is going astray, but finally, in its very core, the students become their own
teacher so to speak, for instance, when we are learning something in classroom through the books
and dictionaries and so forth its only half of the learning process, the other half would be going out
and actually apply, in real life situations, what was described in classroom, and we as teacher
cannot be there in the outdoors always with them, in other words, they will have to make mistakes
on the application outside, and that is exactly the place where they become their own teachers,
when they learn by their own mistakes, and then the learning would be completed.

Obviously this is not a onetime cycle, rather is an ongoing process of language acquisition. After
that students come, and we help to overcome the challenge just experienced, we simulate
situations in order to practice deeper, we give feedback. Despite the attitude and the pace of the
student, this process has to happen with every single language learner. This is what I think has to
happen with everyone learning a second language. Probably there is another ways like the way
babies learn their first language, but I have not been familiar with that process. I will not be
teaching babies, I will be teaching grown-ups, and I think the approach has to be different for
them, and also if they learning it as a second language or foreign language.

My goal is to become an outstanding resource to the students in order to facilitate language

learning, comprehension and application in listening, speaking, writing, reading, vocabulary and
phrases. Personally I need to improve in knowing how to apply these principles to my students and
adapt my teaching to them and how they specifically learn. I want to help them find motivation to
overcome the big walls of communication in this world. I really believe that we are made to
communicate with others, we humans are design to learn these language that would help us
succeed in life, and of course help those around us.