My Philosophy of Teaching

My 7-years of being a mother and 11-years of being a teacher with a great number of events have helped me to gradually discover my philosophy of teaching.

One day, my daughter came back from school and looked really sad. I came closed to her and asked why she was so sad. She burst out crying and said “my teacher is not nice”. She continued: “She asked other students to laugh at me when I colored my mango black. She said I should have colored it yellow as other students did because a mango was yellow. I explained to her that my mango was a rotted one, but she kept saying I should never think of a rotted mango in an Arts lesson.” I started to understand that teaching and learning should be a process of teachers and students sharing their own interpretations of the surrounding world. Teachers should inspire their students in expressing their own opinions and ideas about the world and should never control their thoughts. Moreover, teaching is a dialogue of relationships. Teachers should create a safe environment for students to learn, to communicate, to play roles and to improve their interpersonal skills. Teaching also means empowering students to actively take part in the process of teaching and learning, developing learning materials, inventing classroom activities, conducting assessments and improving curricula.

Another time was when I accepted an invitation to teach an evening class for the students who were going to take the university entrance examination. The exam was in 3 months’ time. With all enthusiasm, I started the course with careful and detailed explanation of the whole system of English syntax. However, two of the students quit the class after my two lessons. I felt so sad because there was no precedence for that in my so far teaching career. I started to look for the reason by asking one of the students in the class after the lesson. She revealed that those two students did find the lessons too easy for them, and they had expected to have knowledge of higher standard from my lessons. I kept quiet for a while and thought I had failed to be a good teacher this time. I should have known that teaching is a process of identifying individual students’ needs and satisfying them with the most effective methods. I decided to start an investigation into my students’ needs and made a detailed plan to use different teaching methods and techniques to be able to satisfy their different needs in my lessons.

What is more, the first time I was invited to teach Vietnamese Standard 2 classes in X school was when the key teacher there was on leave for her mother’s death. When the teacher came back, we shared these classes. However, the students wrote to the school director to ask for my lessons only. I had no chance to know their reasons. It was not until the last day of the course when the students wrote to me that I realized how much impression I had made on them. They wrote: “Ms. V, we are so lucky to have you as our teacher of Vietnamese. Up to our middle age, this is the first time we have looked forward to every of our lessons. You are a clever teacher who is able to make your lessons to be a dialogue of life and help your busy students like us to memorize the lessons right in the class. You are a charming Vietnamese woman who can bring here in the class a charming Vietnam image and spirit. You are also a good mother who can feel how hard we have to try to learn Vietnamese at this time when we have family and children to take care of after working hours at office.” I finally understand that teaching is not only touching my students’ mind but also touching their hearts and souls.

In my language teaching career, I have found that this philosophy really works. Failures and successes in my teaching are really contributions to the identification of my teaching philosophy.