Sara Houser English 496 Practicum Spring 2018

Teaching and Learning Statement

My philosophy of teaching has evolved over the course of the last several years as I have
worked to obtain my provisional certification in Elementary Education, with endorsements in
English Language Arts and English as a Second Language. This journey towards certification
included numerous fieldwork and observational experiences, as well as three separate student
teaching experiences both here and abroad, all of which have shaped my beliefs about how
students learn and how they can and should be taught. My beliefs about teaching begin with a
concern for the students’ goals and expectations in learning English and in learning in general,
first and foremost, and I believe that this understanding of my students should inform my
teaching on a daily basis. In the classroom, I am not merely a dispenser of knowledge: my
position enables me to provide much more than information on grammatical structures and
vocabulary. My role in the ESL classroom – in any classroom – is to teach students both content
and language concepts, using strategies and methodologies that are research-based, in order to
further their development and to reach their goals and expectations regarding learning a new
language. I think of myself as a guide and a conductor for the students – as someone who
organizes the students (in groups), the activities and learning tasks (according to standards,
objectives and student needs), and the classroom itself (with the purpose of the physical space in
mind), as well as someone who scaffolds learners through the tasks in front of them such that all
students can benefit academically, linguistically, and socially in my classroom. In my classroom,
these beliefs about teaching manifest as student-centered approaches to content and language
instruction, which begin with planning activities to get to know my students and establish a
community of growth mindset-focused learners within the first few weeks of the school year, and
to continue to provide quality learning experiences for students to collaborate on, and be
challenged by, throughout the year.
I believe that the students in my classroom are active and autonomous learners as
opposed to a passive audience or empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge, and that my
teaching should capitalize on this, as well as their abilities and strengths, rather than focusing on
their perceived deficiencies. While it is oftentimes easy to dismiss learners’ struggles as a
language issue, in the case of ESL instruction, or another behavior or learning deficiency, I find
that is more productive to capitalize on the strengths my students bring to the classroom. English
learners, in particular, come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, and this background
knowledge can help them learn the content and language necessary to succeed in school, if they
are given the opportunity to utilize it in the classroom. I believe that recognizing and accepting
their different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and using these to springboard further
learning, is essential for students to feel as though they have control over their own success in the
classroom, and for them to develop as autonomous learners. Additionally, I prefer to get to know
my students individually and learn about their interests, so as to better connect each lesson to
what they already know and what they are interested in. In my classroom, this often manifests in
the form of hands-on activities and thorough discussion of content and language concepts during
lessons, and student centered forms of instruction, whenever is possible. Furthermore, I believe
that the classroom itself should be a community, in which the learners are safe to express
themselves, to make mistakes, and to learn from these mistakes and those of their peers in a
Sara Houser English 496 Practicum Spring 2018
Teaching and Learning Statement

collaborative and comfortable setting, as this is essential to learners being able to grow and
develop individually. In fact, it is an understanding of how learners develop and the learning
differences among individual students, coupled with an engaging learning environment that
makes teaching practices effective: when students are engaged in the material, within a strong
community of other learners, learning is not only possible – it is exciting.
It comes as no surprise that, given what I believe about teaching and learning, my
instruction with English learners tends toward methods that involve simultaneous focus on both
communicative use of the English language and on teaching this language use through
meaningful content instruction, using effective instructional strategies and assessment practices,
within the classroom. Ideally, this method of teaching could be categorized under the label
content-based language instruction; however, while I do believe that content and language can be
taught simultaneously and that in the mixed-language classroom this is often necessary, I also
recognize the value of strategies derived from other research-based methods of teaching. For
example, I tend to pull from the Communicative Language Teaching, Total Physical Response
and task-based language instruction methodologies in my lessons, in order to provide students
with a variety of means through which to explore and learn both the content and language
necessary, and to reinforce that learning through physical and real life applications of the content
and language in the classroom. This is done through careful planning of instruction around the
expected standards for both teaching and learning at the state and national level, in order to
create and meet content and language objections that reflect the central concepts that are taught
in each subject. More importantly, I teach in this manner because I believe that engaging
students in activities that are meaningful to them can only benefit their learning and their
confidence in the classroom. Above all else, my main adherence is to SIOP-based instruction. I
believe that the SIOP method of teaching, which I have been trained in through my ESL
endorsement requirements and which I have put into practice in both lesson planning and
teaching through my ESL practicum, is effective in addressing the content and language needs of
students, and allows for successful application of the research-based strategies and methods
mentioned thus far. As such, whether I am teaching a mathematics lesson or a grammar-focused
language lesson, my goal is to plan and apply strategies within the SIOP model, and, in doing so,
to instruct my students in a way that supports and is supported by the classroom community
we’ve created and the standards that guide us in what learning needs to be accomplished. I
believe, as many other teachers do, that all students can learn, and it is a privilege for me to be
able to provide them with the opportunities and guidance necessary to support that learning.