My Teaching Philosophy

I believe that every child can learn. I have high expectations for every student, and I am committed to help every student learn and achieve his or her academic success.  

Although I was trained to be a teacher in my native China, it took years for me to understand that teaching is a blessed career. In our limited life span, what else can be compared with the opportunity to shape the lives of young people? How blessed it is to enrich young minds with knowledge; to help young people explore their intellectual potentials; to fill young hearts with goodness; to help them when they need emotional and other supports but have nobody to turn to, just as we had received support from our teachers in the past.

I see my role model in my graduate advisor in China, Mr. Cao Mufan, a distinguished scholar in Chinese literature and philosophy. It was his insight in the academic disciplines and the world, and his sense of responsibility that has had a big impact on my view of life. But most of all, it is his parental care and moral strength that helped me going through the lost days in my youth. These qualities will be the essential components of my teaching philosophy.
I learned from Professor Reed, my teacher during my teacher’s training program at Brooklyn College, what a good teacher is like. He demonstrated to us what a positive connection between a teacher and the students is. He showed us how critical thinking and new ideas can be evoked by intellectual inquiries. I believe that only when a teacher cares for the students, can he or she develop a true connection with the students.

By reading some wonderful books for the class about great teachers such as Leonard Covello and Jessica Siegel, I understood we, as educators, are obliged to help balance the striking social inequality in American education. We are obliged to provide the high-quality public education that the students from the affluent social class receive for the poor people’s students.

I believe the goal of language teaching, is to equip students with a new skill, a key to a broader new life. Contrary to what is happening in many New York public and private second language classes, I believe, beyond the mere transmission of language skills, it is probably more important to stimulate students to think critically. For example, a second language, whether it is English or Chinese, can give students the tool to examine their own culture, society and themselves. By leading students to observe the critical issues about another country where the target language is spoken, both the positive and negative aspects of its development, students will appreciate their own history, society and themselves in a much bigger context and in a much more profound depth. I learned this from my own academic study in America.

Under this philosophy, I believe in the integrated teaching methods, exemplified by the way Jessica Siegel integrated English language, literature, history, political science and the contemporary immigrant experience all together in her English and Journalism classes. My curriculum will reflect this philosophy. In my class, I have had the students watch some excellent documentaries about Chinese society (such as “A Century of Revolution” and “The Nan king Massacre”) and did a series of class discussions and presentations. I have in my classes introduced some famous Chinese music pieces played with Chinese musical instruments, and elaborated upon what cultural scenarios they convey. It was much welcomed by the class. I referred students to You Tube and Google websites to explore the traditional dragon and lion dances, and other cultural events.

In terms of teaching methods, first, I try all ways possible to motivate my students. In order to do so, I make my class interesting and fun. The best teaching method I have learned is to conduct my class in an inquiring and inductive way. Always question the students about how they can assemble a new sentence with the characters and phrases they have just learned; always ask them to think and try before giving them the answers. Before studying a new lesson, always ask them what they know about the context. This is to give some suspense and arouse curiosity, and moreover, to stimulate students to think, to engage students in interaction. I find this works wonderfully well with my recent classes.

It is very important to motivate a student by positive encouragement. Even when a student raises a question that is disruptive to the class schedule and timing, a teacher should be patient and encouraging.
Second, I have clear academic goals. They include long-term and short-term goals, collective goals for the entire class and goals for each student. With my goals in mind, I plan each of my lessons carefully in a detailed written form. I try to infuse my class with dynamic, interesting and student-centered activities by which students can practice the content knowledge wholeheartedly. This proves also the best strategy to maintain the students’ attention.

I have tried the following activities in my class: cooperative learning (group students by use different learning style, cultural and language background so they can help one another), activities involving musical, verbal, logical mathematical, naturalistic, and visual activities; group based projects, and presentation. Students love to participate in team competitions on character recognizing and character writing, pair conversations, guessing, picture and words matching, play bingos, physical movement, singing, dancing, storytelling, and mini drama performance.

In order to reach my academic goals, I differentiate my teaching strategies based on students’ academic levels and learning styles. I provide differentiated teaching materials, lectures, and activities for different groups of students. Especially for the struggling students, I design simple, visual and interesting group lessons to motivate them; provide extra lecture, level appropriate and interesting reading (read to, read together or students read to each other), writer’s workshop, and technology (for example online reading software) and other learning resources to help them. Grouping struggling students with well-performing students is also helpful. I also adjust my approaches constantly to meet the students’ needs.

Third, it is very important to make the teaching materials as visual as possible. I use PowerPoint presentations to visualize Chinese characters. I also deconstruct Chinese characters from the perspective of how they are constructed. It proves to be a very impressive approach. My students remember the characters by the picture image the characters present, which is the most distinguished feature of Chinese characters: Picture graphic. For example, a sun in Chinese 日 is an image of a shinning spot in the middle, which represents the sun itself, surrounding by a circle, which represents the track that the sun revolves along in the sky.

I also use sound stimulations in class as much as possible to get the students exposed to the authentic Chinese language environment. For example, I use CDs, CD-ROMs, You tube clips, audio books, and other online sound file resources for daily assignments.

I believe a teacher should always ask students about what they feel about their classes, what they wish to learn, what they liked and dislike about the class. This is also a part of interactive teaching. The feedback I have gotten from my students through periodic surveys has helped me improve my teaching in a way that no other experiences can.

In addition, I found the students would be very frustrated and lose interest if a teacher does not give enough explanation, or does not slow down the teaching pace when introducing new concepts. Even if this happens with a single student, it should not be ignored: That student’s refusal to participate can disrupt the class.

I believe teaching is a process of constant learning. It includes learning from colleagues, students, people who are articulate and expressive, humorous and interesting including actors or actresses. I have been learning French and I find it tremendously helpful to understand what language contexts my students are being exposed to. I took the speech class by which I believe will help me become a better communicator so I can deliver me messages more efficiently in class. I attend the Greater New York Area Chinese Teachers’ Association workshops and other professional conferences as often as I can, at where I meet many teaching professionals and learn many inspiring ideas that are helpful for my teaching.
Although I was trained to be a teacher in my native China, it took years for me to understand that teaching is a blessed career. In our limited life span, what else can be compared with the opportunity to shape the lives of young people? How blessed it is to enrich young minds with knowledge; to help young people explore their intellectual potentials; to fill young hearts with goodness; to help them when they need emotional and other supports but have nobody to turn to, just as we had received support from our teachers in the past.

I see my role model in my graduate advisor in China, Mr. Cao Mufan, a distinguished scholar in Chinese literature and philosophy. It was his insight in the academic disciplines and the world, and his sense of responsibility that has had a big impact on my view of life. But most of all, it is his parental care and moral strength that helped me going through the lost days in my youth. These qualities will be the essential components of my teaching philosophy.
I learned from Professor Reed, my teacher during my teacher’s training program at Brooklyn College, what a good teacher is like. He demonstrated to us what a positive connection between a teacher and the students is. He showed us how critical thinking and new ideas can be evoked by intellectual inquiries. I believe that only when a teacher cares for the students, can he or she develop a true connection with the students.

By reading some wonderful books for the class about great teachers such as Leonard Covello and Jessica Siegel, I understood we, as educators, are obliged to help balance the striking social inequality in American education. We are obliged to provide the high-quality public education that the students from the affluent social class receive for the poor people’s students.

I believe the goal of language teaching, is to equip students with a new skill, a key to a broader new life. Contrary to what is happening in many New York public and private second language classes, I believe, beyond the mere transmission of language skills, it is probably more important to stimulate students to think critically. For example, a second language, whether it is English or Chinese, can give students the tool to examine their own culture, society and themselves. By leading students to observe the critical issues about another country where the target language is spoken, both the positive and negative aspects of its development, students will appreciate their own history, society and themselves in a much bigger context and in a much more profound depth. I learned this from my own academic study in America.

Under this philosophy, I believe in the integrated teaching methods, exemplified by the way Jessica Siegel integrated English language, literature, history, political science and the contemporary immigrant experience all together in her English and Journalism classes. My curriculum will reflect this philosophy. In my class, I have had the students watch some excellent documentaries about Chinese society (such as “A Century of Revolution” and “The Nan king Massacre”) and did a series of class discussions and presentations. I have in my classes introduced some famous Chinese music pieces played with Chinese musical instruments, and elaborated upon what cultural scenarios they convey. It was much welcomed by the class. I referred students to You Tube and Google websites to explore the traditional dragon and lion dances, and other cultural events.

In terms of teaching methods, first, I try all ways possible to motivate my students. In order to do so, I make my class interesting and fun. The best teaching method I have learned is to conduct my class in an inquiring and inductive way. Always question the students about how they can assemble a new sentence with the characters and phrases they have just learned; always ask them to think and try before giving them the answers. Before studying a new lesson, always ask them what they know about the context. This is to give some suspense and arouse curiosity, and moreover, to stimulate students to think, to engage students in interaction. I find this works wonderfully well with my recent classes.

It is very important to motivate a student by positive encouragement. Even when a student raises a question that is disruptive to the class schedule and timing, a teacher should be patient and encouraging.
Second, I have clear academic goals. They include long-term and short-term goals, collective goals for the entire class and goals for each student. With my goals in mind, I plan each of my lessons carefully in a detailed written form. I try to infuse my class with dynamic, interesting and student-centered activities by which students can practice the content knowledge wholeheartedly. This proves also the best strategy to maintain the students’ attention.

I have tried the following activities in my class: cooperative learning (group students by use different learning style, cultural and language background so they can help one another), activities involving musical, verbal, logical mathematical, naturalistic, and visual activities; group based projects, and presentation. Students love to participate in team competitions on character recognizing and character writing, pair conversations, guessing, picture and words matching, play bingos, physical movement, singing, dancing, storytelling, and mini drama performance.

In order to reach my academic goals, I differentiate my teaching strategies based on students’ academic levels and learning styles. I provide differentiated teaching materials, lectures, and activities for different groups of students. Especially for the struggling students, I design simple, visual and interesting group lessons to motivate them; provide extra lecture, level appropriate and interesting reading (read to, read together or students read to each other), writer’s workshop, and technology (for example online reading software) and other learning resources to help them. Grouping struggling students with well-performing students is also helpful. I also adjust my approaches constantly to meet the students’ needs.

Third, it is very important to make the teaching materials as visual as possible. I use PowerPoint presentations to visualize Chinese characters. I also deconstruct Chinese characters from the perspective of how they are constructed. It proves to be a very impressive approach. My students remember the characters by the picture image the characters present, which is the most distinguished feature of Chinese characters: Picture graphic. For example, a sun in Chinese 日 is an image of a shinning spot in the middle, which represents the sun itself, surrounding by a circle, which represents the track that the sun revolves along in the sky.

I also use sound stimulations in class as much as possible to get the students exposed to the authentic Chinese language environment. For example, I use CDs, CD-ROMs, You tube clips, audio books, and other online sound file resources for daily assignments.

I believe a teacher should always ask students about what they feel about their classes, what they wish to learn, what they liked and dislike about the class. This is also a part of interactive teaching. The feedback I have gotten from my students through periodic surveys has helped me improve my teaching in a way that no other experiences can.

In addition, I found the students would be very frustrated and lose interest if a teacher does not give enough explanation, or does not slow down the teaching pace when introducing new concepts. Even if this happens with a single student, it should not be ignored: That student’s refusal to participate can disrupt the class.

I believe teaching is a process of constant learning. It includes learning from colleagues, students, people who are articulate and expressive, humorous and interesting including actors or actresses. I have been learning French and I find it tremendously helpful to understand what language contexts my students are being exposed to. I took the speech class by which I believe will help me become a better communicator so I can deliver me messages more efficiently in class. I attend the Greater New York Area Chinese Teachers’ Association workshops and other professional conferences as often as I can, at where I meet many teaching professionals and learn many inspiring ideas that are helpful for my teaching.