Trees need air, light, water, nutrients, and space to grow and students are the same. We need more than one thing to grow and the quality of each factor determines our unique differences. Students need an effective environment, teacher, peers, challenge, and patience for positive development. The role of a teacher has the power to manipulate the quality of some of these critical features. I believe that teachers must have the passion to support students’ physical, mental, emotional, and social growth. It is my desire to have students depart the classroom with a handful of knowledge about the world, new perspectives in viewing the world, and a brighter glare to how they see themselves. My stance on what a student should be doing in a classroom does not halt at the studying phase. My strong belief is that students will learn much more through interaction than simply focusing on the educational input.
An ideal classroom environment takes various forms and structures in my mind. I consider it a success as long as the students feel safe and comfortable enough to explore their learning process. I believe students mustn’t be afraid to make mistakes. They must all be aware that this is a space full of learners, thus everyone is to be respected and encouraged. To facilitate age-appropriate learning, I will take time to learn about my students so that I am able to implement authenticity throughout the class. I value the importance of incorporating authentic material to keep students interested and motivated. My previous experience of teaching an intermediate grammar class provides an example of how I placed my beliefs into action. I asked students to speak up and talk about their dream jobs and what they would take with them if they were stranded on an island. My purpose in this activity was to have students practice using modal verbs while they concentrate on their personal thoughts and opinions. Students are not only focused on learning the grammatical uses of modal verbs but are also practicing how they would use them in their speech.
Assessment can be a tool to evaluate the student’s learning outcome, but it is also a technique that allows the teacher and students to observe their progress to further motivate their learning. I believe it is important that students get a chance to look over their own strengths and weaknesses to enhance and critique individual highlights. Although summative assessment is required by most institutions, my focus is on formative assessments as I believe this is what holds more value to the students at the end of the day.
My goal as a teacher is to provide students with the fullest support to guide them to a brighter future. All students walk into the classroom with different goals and perspectives from the different paths they have walked. I want students to learn about their uniqueness and how that makes them special. I want them to know that they are capable of changing the world in one way or another. My highlight amongst others will be that I care most about the students and I will push towards becoming the teacher that I always wanted to have.