Philosophy of Teaching
I believe that learning is a process of achieving goals, and for that, motivation and passions to keep the interest for achieving the goals are essential factors. English was a mandatory subject when I was a junior and high school student, and I did not like learning English, because I was not interested in learning the language. However since I have found a future goal that is becoming a Japanese teacher in the U.S. or English teacher in Japan, learning English becomes a required pass point to achieve this goal. Plus, on the way I have found an interest in it and realized English is worthwhile when communicating with other English speakers. For my future students, I would like to be their catalyst to open up their doors to connect to their better future by sharing my knowledge and experiences. In addition, by knowing and being immersed in the American culture and Hawaiian culture, I have become even more interested in English language. From my perspectives of learning history, I view that a teacher's role is to share knowledge and raise students/learners motivation, and definitely American and Hawaiian cultures has been a motivating factor for me to become a language professional. Therefore a teacher has to be a good guide, navigator or facilitator to lead his/her students to right or better directions of their lives by sharing not only wisdom but also the culture of the target language. I want to become a teacher who is knowledgeable and at the same time, a good role model for my students. If students decide not to respect their teachers, their interests and motivations are dramatically reduced. I have cultivated communication skills throughout my life and own culture, and believe I can utilize that in my teaching as well. Furthermore there are many things that we have to consider as a language conveyer, and I think globalization is one of the important incidents in this world now. Therefore I would like to emphasize my thoughts how we should think about the role of culture and globalization in teaching language.
The Role of Culture in Language Teaching
One thing I highly value as a language learner and teacher is the important role of culture in language instruction. A culture is strongly connected to a language that includes history or manners of the culture, so we cannot separate these two when we teach any languages. For example, languages like Japanese and Korean, they have several forms to use depending on the situations. When we speak using honorific forms, word-endings are changed, and in some cases, a word changes to a completely different word in honorific forms. The form differentiation shows the culture that we highly respect elders. Another example of the important role of culture in language instruction has to do with my experience learning English in the U.S. When I learned English at a community college's ESL programs, they were using content-based teaching methods, and the contents were about American rights, immigrants history in Hawaii and environmental issues in the world. They were different from text-based learning style which I have had in the Japanese Education system, and I believe it was a very effective teaching methods for language learning because I learned authentic language skills and culture which are important knowledge when living in the U.S. such as behavior and custom differences, and also American history. Therefore, when I become a language teacher, I would like to try a blended approach which is mixture of content-based and text-based instruction. Grammar is important as a base structure of a language and a textbook would be the best material to explain grammar. Besides that to stabilize the skills and make opportunities to authentically use them, the content-based approach including communicative practices which use real-life settings would be my ideal teaching approaches. And also, by adding the culture such as traditional culture and unique pop culture, students might become motivated and have increased interests toward the target language.
Culture and Globalization
By living in Hawaii for several years, many things have inspired and motivated me to achieve my future goal of becoming a Japanese or English language teacher. I have tutored Japanese classes at a community college and high schools in Hawaii, and seen many Japanese American students. I was impressed, but same time I was sad because some of them who I talked to were struggling with their identities. They think that their part of culture is Japanese but they are missing that because they are "Americans" and then I have started thinking becoming a Japanese teacher to help them to rebuild up their part of identity through language and culture lessons. I feel like culture and globalization place a strong role in my instruction of Japanese as well as English. Sadly, we are losing cultures in the world due to the globalization, but I believe language teachers can remain our cultures among people by teaching. Learning English is an important skill to survive this globalizing world. English is rapidly becoming the world language, and I am concerning the language loss because of the globalization with English as the dominant language. I strongly agree to teach English as a second language in non-English speaking countries, and especially in my home country, the English education system should be improved to open up people's capability as international citizens.
As a Japanese professional and successful English learner, I would like to contribute for both languages to create better world by teaching languages. For that, I would like to use my beliefs about the role of culture in teaching, and experiences and thoughts which I gained regarding this globalizing world.
The Role of Culture in Language Teaching
One thing I highly value as a language learner and teacher is the important role of culture in language instruction. A culture is strongly connected to a language that includes history or manners of the culture, so we cannot separate these two when we teach any languages. For example, languages like Japanese and Korean, they have several forms to use depending on the situations. When we speak using honorific forms, word-endings are changed, and in some cases, a word changes to a completely different word in honorific forms. The form differentiation shows the culture that we highly respect elders. Another example of the important role of culture in language instruction has to do with my experience learning English in the U.S. When I learned English at a community college's ESL programs, they were using content-based teaching methods, and the contents were about American rights, immigrants history in Hawaii and environmental issues in the world. They were different from text-based learning style which I have had in the Japanese Education system, and I believe it was a very effective teaching methods for language learning because I learned authentic language skills and culture which are important knowledge when living in the U.S. such as behavior and custom differences, and also American history. Therefore, when I become a language teacher, I would like to try a blended approach which is mixture of content-based and text-based instruction. Grammar is important as a base structure of a language and a textbook would be the best material to explain grammar. Besides that to stabilize the skills and make opportunities to authentically use them, the content-based approach including communicative practices which use real-life settings would be my ideal teaching approaches. And also, by adding the culture such as traditional culture and unique pop culture, students might become motivated and have increased interests toward the target language.
Culture and Globalization
By living in Hawaii for several years, many things have inspired and motivated me to achieve my future goal of becoming a Japanese or English language teacher. I have tutored Japanese classes at a community college and high schools in Hawaii, and seen many Japanese American students. I was impressed, but same time I was sad because some of them who I talked to were struggling with their identities. They think that their part of culture is Japanese but they are missing that because they are "Americans" and then I have started thinking becoming a Japanese teacher to help them to rebuild up their part of identity through language and culture lessons. I feel like culture and globalization place a strong role in my instruction of Japanese as well as English. Sadly, we are losing cultures in the world due to the globalization, but I believe language teachers can remain our cultures among people by teaching. Learning English is an important skill to survive this globalizing world. English is rapidly becoming the world language, and I am concerning the language loss because of the globalization with English as the dominant language. I strongly agree to teach English as a second language in non-English speaking countries, and especially in my home country, the English education system should be improved to open up people's capability as international citizens.
As a Japanese professional and successful English learner, I would like to contribute for both languages to create better world by teaching languages. For that, I would like to use my beliefs about the role of culture in teaching, and experiences and thoughts which I gained regarding this globalizing world.