Today I’d like to start to share a series of ideas and reflections on my own teaching practice and ‘theory’.
Why
After reading Techniques and Principles of Language Teaching and How Languages are Learned* for my Delta Module 1 preparation course, I started reflecting on my own practice, trying to pinpoint what theories or beliefs underlie my teaching practice.
I have already written some of the results of my reflection in a more practical sense, but with this post series I would like to dig deeper into what makes me choose what and how to do things in class.
How
I’ll divide my reflections by topic, so modelling the structure on Larsen-Freeman and Anderson’s work, I will consider the following points:
- what is my aim and role as a teacher
- what are my assumption on learning and teaching in general
- what is the role of the learner
In doing this, I hope to shed some light on why I do what I do in class, and on what aspects of my teaching I need to improve.
Notes:
* Unbelievably both books are written by women. Coincidentally, both have been the most enjoyable reads I had to do for course, together with Scott Thorbury’s Beyond the Sentence.