Topic: Review the presentation of methods and approaches in Session 1 and

other relevant sources. From your reading draw out ideas that you would like
to integrate, or have already successful integrated, into your language teaching.
Make this statement of your personal “philosophy of teaching”.

Richards and Rodgers (2001) states that a wide variety of approaches and
methodologies has been used for language teaching in the last century, and many
continue to be used today (p. 1-14). In the early and middle century, grammar
translation method and “presentation, practice, production” (PPP) were the
dominant medals in this time and until now (Penny Ur, 2012, p.8). Grammar-
translation method focuses on grammatical rules as the basic for translating from
the second to the native language. PPP focuses on grammatical accuracy and
teacher-dominated, but it is a methodology or step in the lesson. In the late 1980s,
Gouin found Series Method that taught learners directly (without translation) and
conceptually (without grammatical rules and explanation) with series of perceive
sentences (Brown, 2000, p.20). The Direct method, arrived at the end of the
nineteenth century, was an improvement based on the restrictions of Grammar-
translation method. It focuses on oral communication and only the target language
using in the classroom (Harmer, 2007, p.63-64). Jim Scrivener (2011) claims that
“the Audio-Lingual Method aims to form good habit through students listening to
model dialogues with repetition and drilling but with little or no teacher
explanation” (p.31). One more well-known approach is the Communicative
approach (Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)). Learners are central in the
classroom so each communication task based on the level of students. Besides, there
are also some familiar method or approach such as Total Physical Response (TPR),
the natural approach, Task-Based Learning (TBL), The Silent Way, Person-centered
approaches, Lexical approaches, Dogme or Personal methodology (Jim Scrivener,
2011, p.32-33)

From what I have learnt in Methodology in language teaching class, I decided to

apply this to my class. Actually, although I know what each method or approach is,
I still confuse how to use it correctly in class. The first class I taught was primary
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level. I think my students are children so I need to find the interesting and easy
method. In my mind, modern language teaching must let student is a center. Audio-
lingualism might be perfect. I have a good impression on this kind of method. In the
first day, I stood in front of a class of learners sitting at their desks. I asked one
learner, “Hello, what’s your name?” .The learner responded, “My name is Lan?”
After listening to each student’s answer, if he/she made mistake in pronunciation, I
tried to correct it, emphasizing the /z/ sound for “is”, by explain it by actions and
words. Then I continued asking different learners until I got the same response. I
think that repetition drill is a good way to make students more impress on what they
are wrong and remember it better and faster. Then, I changed another task. As far as
I am concerned, there was one day that I taught about zoo. Firstly, I took a photo of
lion and I said “this is a lion in the zoo.” students repeated this sentence. Next, I
chose another picture of monkey and said “a monkey”. Students repeated “this is a
monkey in the zoo”. This action repeated again and again with difference pictures.
This is a kind of replacement drill. So most of my lesson, I combined playing game
and learning together. Day after day, I found down that if I want to teach better, I
have to mix a variety methods or approaches together, choosing suitable principles
for my teaching. Also, I released that opening and closing lesson is really important.
After a long lesson, they forget most of what I say in the middle and just remember
first and last minutes on my lesson.

My next class is a communicative class. Although they are teenagers and adults,
they have basic level. In this class, I did not choose a specific methods or
approaches. I mixed them together but my students were always a class-center. In
my lesson, I let student listen a conversation and repeated again with CD. Then I
asked them to repeat one by one and corrected their pronunciation if wrong. Next, I
required one learner to translate this conversation to L1. Finally, I putted them to
work in pair to create another conversation based on the original one and then called
some of them talking in front of class.

What is teaching? As I remember, the first time I became a tutor when I study in
university. I thought that to become a good teacher should let students have a lot of
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knowledge as much as possible. I try to force my students learn by heart what I
taught, just learning and learning, even though some knowledge does not belong to
their level. Then, after a few months, I realized that this was not teaching, just look
like training a robot. I started to search on the internet what teaching is. Jeremy
Harmer (2007) said that “it is often helpful to use metaphors to describe what
teachers do” (p.107). Teaching is not just training. It is a series of guidance skills to
get students to think well. Now, when I walk into classroom, I play many different
roles in class. For example, I am sometimes a prompter to give students assistance
discreetly and supportively. Or I might be become a participant to liven things up
from the insight instead of always prompting or organizing from the outsight the
group. I always have to remind myself that what I do in class is good or bad. But I
am proud to have to be these people because these things show that maybe I am a
good teacher and a good person to prepare for my student to continue walking in
their life.

References

Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd Ed.).
Cambridge University Press.

Ur, P. (2012). A Course in English Language Teaching (2nd ed.): Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy (2nd ed.): Longman.

Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.): Longman.

Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language

Teaching (3rd ed.): MacMillan.

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