Teaching Portfolio

Teaching Portfolio 

As a language teacher, both English and French: in the context of English as a second language and French as a foreign language teaching, I am indeed grateful to create this teaching portfolio to recognize and reflect upon my teaching philosophy and provide a reflective summary of the teaching demonstration conducted as a requirement for the course " Principles and Practices of Classroom Management" at the University of Kelaniya. 

 

Teaching Philosophy                  

My sole belief about Education is that it is a hallway with multiple doors. Similarly, education offers diverse opportunities for individuals to choose their paths and explore individual interests. This further emphasizes that education is a personalized journey because it leads to different destinations according to the choices made along the way!  

The role of a teacher is to guide the students in accessing the preferred doors. Given today's diverse educational landscape, classrooms have evolved into various online and hybrid formats alongside traditional settings. However, not all students readily adapt to this change. Yet a teacher's role remains the same. Therefore, in such contexts, my guiding principle is "Dissolving the screen" (Lemov, 2020, p. 44) which enables students to express themselves and engage in activities that are unique to the online setting. 

I strictly disregard bullying and frequently strive to promote respectful interactions to establish a secure and inclusive learning environment for all students. Since each learner is unique, I embrace diversity of all forms (Ur, 1996). Although these differences lead to conflicts, they enable me to create an individualized learning experience. Therefore, inevitably differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 2001) plays a pivotal role in the teaching process.  

Believing that both the teacher and students work towards a common goal (Ur, 1996) in a positive learning environment, which cannot be calm, as students eventually use the language to interact (Long, 1996) my teaching philosophy draws from cognitive constructivism, inspired by Piaget (1972), and social constructivism, by Vygotsky (1978), recognizing the significance of cognition and social influences. Acknowledging the uniqueness of each student, I frequently incorporate music, literary texts, or calculations, inspired by Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory (1983) to create a classroom where every student feels special. Additionally, I apply behaviorist principles (Skinner, 1954) to manage student behavior and maintain motivation. 

  

Reflective Summary  

In my classroom demonstration which was targeted at grade 08 students to teach probable predictions and definite predictions, I selected “Eliciting, Questioning, Giving Instructions, Feedback, Encouragement and praise” as classroom management techniques. Having the assumption that students were confident in using the future tense, this lesson was created to use the grammar point in contexts. Specifically, to generate probable and definite predictions.  

As the pre-task focused on Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Constructivism Theory (Piaget and Inhelder, 1972), I incorporated realia: a toy car to generate responses from the students. The toy car provided the opportunity to question and activate students’ schemata. Furthermore, it provided the opportunity to elicit responses from the students regarding the future of cars. The engagement of the audience was evident from the moment I started using the toy car to express and generate predictions about the future of cars. Therefore, I believe Questioning and Eliciting were addressed appropriately in my demonstration. 

In terms of giving instructions, I believe that I was “brief” and “supported the instructions” according to Scrivener (2012) by providing examples and eliciting some from the audience. However, during the demonstration, since the audience was more advanced and was composed of my own peers, I felt that the need to grade my language and to “provide information more than once” (Ur, 1996) was not necessary. However, if the classroom was composed of the actual targeted audience, repetition of information would have eventually taken place as an instinct to the given situation.  

Time management was a positive factor I experienced in my classroom demonstration. Moreover, I believe I was able to engage the audience throughout the 10 minutes as I provided fast-moving activities that required the students to work as a team which incorporated Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism theory (Vygotsky, 1978). Furthermore, requesting the students to come forward and place respective flashcards on the whiteboard provided them the opportunity to overcome anxiety and engage in the active learning process. 

Regarding feedback, I provided delayed feedback and constructive feedback using the “Feedback Sandwich” suggested by Kerr (2020). Students were given time to create sentences, categorize, and place the phrases on the board respectively. The categorized phrases and sentences were read together with the students and were praised wherever necessary.  

Initially, I approached the classroom demonstration with ease, treating it like any other teaching session where I engage with students and enjoy teaching. However, as the demonstration unfolded in front of my peers, I started to feel intimidated and found myself carried away by the unique setting, which led to deviating from the appropriate level of language grading. 

Being exposed to such a setting afforded me the opportunity to recognize how intentions can rapidly and unconsciously adapt to a given situation. This demonstration also offered the opportunity to experience intimidation and learn how to overcome it. So that it will not be repeated in the future.  

Given the circumstances, I believe that if we were given the opportunity to teach an exact classroom of the intended grades, it would be less intimidating and, we would have done a great job because there lies the actual challenge of teaching the intended language components.  

Observation 

The peer observation provided valuable insights into the teaching demonstration as to how an observation takes place in a classroom. Even though the assignment guidelines suggested selecting a grammar point, the peer's choice of teaching mneonic devices was thoughtful as it is a lesson mostly skipped by language educators. 

The peer effectively demonstrated various classroom management techniques, including activating schemata, giving instructions, explaining, eliciting, feedback, and praise. These techniques were all noticeable during the demonstration. Furthermore, the use of the native language of the target audience for clear instructions was evident as an intention to enhance comprehension throughout the lesson.

  

The most notable strength observed in the peer's teaching demonstration was the clear voice projection, which ensured the instructions and explanations were clearly audible. Overall, the teaching demonstration was clear and concise, although there was a slight rush in providing instructions and transitioning from one task to another. However, it is evident that this was possibly due to the 10-minute time constraint. 

The lesson commenced with a brainstorming session, which included the activation of schemata by recalling the famous film “Harry Potter”. Furthermore, the main task was to create mnemonics. Therefore, an interesting game to develop mnemonics and practice spellings of words was introduced in this demonstration. The engagement of the audience was evident as they were grouped to create the mnemonics. However, a significant challenge was prominent: time management. Having realized the time was running short, the peer strategically skipped certain groups and provided feedback promptly to ensure completion within the designated time frame. 

I firmly believe that my peer executed the lesson exceptionally well, effectively achieving the intended outcomes centered around mnemonic devices. Observations like these serve as valuable learning experiences, allowing the observer to remain vigilant and identify potential and inevitable mistakes that can be avoided in the future. Therefore, peer observation proves to be an excellent method for enhancing one's teaching skills and continually improving the art of teaching and learning.  

 

 

References 

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames Of Mind.  

Kerr, P. (2020). Giving feedback to language learners. Part of the Cambridge papers in ELT series. Cambridge University Press. 

Lemov, D. (2020). Teaching in the online classroom: Surviving and Thriving in the New Normal. John Wiley & Sons. 

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1972). The Psychology Of The Child. Basic Books. 

Scrivener, J. (2012). Classroom management techniques. Cambridge University Press.  

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. ASCD. 

Ur, P. (1996). A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press 

Vygotsky, L. (1980). Mind in society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.