Teaching Philosophy
Teaching has been defined for decades. The idea of teaching is continuously evolving according to the necessities of the society. As a person who is living in the 21st century, I believe that teaching should be aimed at improving critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and collaboration which are the known as 4Cs or the skills of the 21st century (Chiruguru & Chiruguru, 2020). Throughout my internship, I attempted to approach the Cambridge curriculum that is followed by the grade 6 and grade 7 students at OKI International School while enhancing students’ 4Cs.
Critical thinking is one of the most important skills that regardless of the subject, i.e., science, languages, mathematics, every teacher should cultivate in students. Therefore, the majority of the post-tasks were designed to practice what is learned in the while-task while developing students’ critical thinking skills. For example, in a group activity, students were asked to imagine that they were abandoned in a terrible jungle (as a jungle explained in one of the reading passages in the learners’ book) and students had to utter what are the three major actions they take to ensure their survival with reasons. In order to improve creative thinking, for grade 6 students, a project of making an invention was conducted. Initially, students had to submit a proposal of their invention and then students had to do the invention at school as a group activity. Not only creative thinking but also collaboration is developed throughout these tasks because when students are working together, they learn to exchange their knowledge, and listen to others’ ideas. Communication is another skill that should be inculcated in students. Therefore, students are allowed to conduct authentic conversations and design authentic documents while enhancing students’ communication skills. For example, students were given activities to conduct debates, and presentations and write blog articles as a practice of doing authentic communication in the target language (English). Thus, it is certain that catering to the necessities of the century was a vital concern of my teaching practicum.
When teaching according to the requirements of the 21st century, I believe that the teacher’s role must be dynamic without arresting the sole authority of the classroom according to the idealist perspective. The teacher can play the roles of guide, facilitator, monitor, and assessor while allocating more time for students to be interactive, share their ideas, and pose their questions rather than being a mere tutor. this dynamic nature of the teacher’s role was obvious throughout the whole internship.
In conclusion, 21st-century language teaching is completely different from conventional language teaching where only the language components are taught in isolation. Instead, language teachers are required to improve critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and collaboration as skills parallel to the knowledge of the language. In this attempt, fostering student-centered learning is remarkable. Therefore, by using teaching methods that are connected to sociocultural theory, project-based learning, communicative language learning, and differentiated instructions I attempted to enhance students’ 4Cs throughout the whole teaching practicum while performing the educational requirement of the 21st century.
Reference
Chiruguru, S. & Chiruguru, S. (2020). The essential skills of 21st century classroom (4Cs).
Comments
Post a Comment