Teaching Philosophy

My philosophy as a teacher of English as a foreign language will be elaborated in four

aspects: my teaching objectives, discussion of methods to achieve such objectives,
measurement of teaching effectiveness, and the reason why I choose to teach.
To begin, my objectives as a teacher cover three areas: intrapersonal and interpersonal
values that my students gain, my area of responsibility and the teaching and learning
environment.
First, I believe as a teacher I should foster the development of necessary intrapersonal
skills in students so as to prepare them to function effectively in the era of the fourth
industrialisation, where automation and computer networking have transformed
industrial activities, which alter the requirements that the industrial workforce place on
younger generations. In the near future, the personal skills required to performed most
jobs will shift to analytical and critical thinking, creativity and originality, reasoning
and systems analysis and evaluation. I also focus on encouraging my students to become
autonomous learners who know how to apply suitable learning strategies to their active
learning, so as to facilitate life-long learning. Additionally, interpersonal values are also
what I want to foster in the classroom. As mentioned above, the future of the younger
generations is changing rapidly with the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution.
Therefore, interpersonal skills such as leadership and social influence and emotional
intelligence become so increasingly highly-demanded that they must not be excluded in
teaching. Lastly, if we are certain that globalisation 4.0 is bringing us changes which
are not isolated to any particular culture and country, then it is a wider, more cooperative
and universal approach that we need to adopt to response to those changes, and so
cultural and social inclusiveness and diversity are other concepts that I want to teach
my students to grasp and appreciate if they want to engage in the international
community.
As a teacher, I am also highly aware of my area of responsibility. I believe that the
teacher’s role is that of a monitor who constantly observes what happens in the
classroom, a facilitator who creates a learning environment where students are at the
centre, and a counsellor who listens and responses appropriately, sensitively and
attentively to students’ concerns. I also believe that a teacher should not expect her/his
students to learn at the same pace with the same progressiveness, and so she/he should
give each student a tailored learning path. Lastly, teachers must appreciate cultural and
social inclusiveness and diversity, and educate students about these concepts so as to
prepare them to become part of the international community.
In my opinion, an effective and benevolent teaching and learning environment is a safe,
disciplined, and freedom-encouraging environment where students can share their
ideas, learn from others, be the best version of themselves and develop to their full
potentials, without being confronted to the norms by preconceptualised stereotypes and
prejudices.
My teaching objectives are constructed based on relevant theories, beliefs and current
trends, one of which is the theory of constructivism. Constructivism claims that learners
actively construct knowledge, rather than passively receive it from the teacher. The
implications of such a view are that passive learning, memorisation of meaning and
imitation are of little significance in language teaching; a learner-centered approach in
the classroom is preferred as each learner shapes her/his own version of reality based
on the same input; and personalised learning or a tailored learning path is supported.
Cognitive and social constructivism underscores the communicative approach in
teaching, which argues that a person learns a language by using it and emphasises that
it is communicative competence, not linguistic competence alone, that is the goal of
language learning. The communicative approach that I follow entails modification of
syllabus, materials and learning assessment to foster communication in the classroom,
and it also leads to the implementation of project- and problem-based learning, which
in turn encourages the development of the skills I outlined in my teaching objectives.
Another force that drives my teaching philosophy is the 4th industrial revolution. The
rise of automation and robotics in the industry and the formation of a global network of
computers require that: learning has to be flexible, personalised and continuously
assessed; teachers become mentors in the classroom; diversity is encouraged as no two
learners are the same.
In order to form an informative picture of my teaching effectiveness, I employ formative
assessment to evaluate students' progress and achievement and apply peer observation
to assess my teaching practices.
Finally, I want to conclude by saying something about why I teach. Rather than claiming
that I want to make the world better or at least make a difference in the lives of my
students, I think the main reason why teaching matters to me is that I am aware that
teachers can be very influential people to students, and I want to make good use of such
an influence. I hope my influence can help students understand their worth, identify the
field in which they can prosper and excel at it. Teaching them English to me is basically
provide them with one more tool to explore the world and erase the borders between
them and new opportunities. Rejuvenation to me is simply the growth of my students.
Teaching Material Development
In the past 250 years, the world has undergone a number of major changes as a result
of the four industrial revolutions. These changes have affected heavily not only
industrial activities but also other aspects of society, namely education in general and
teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in particular. Understanding the four
industrial revolutions and their influences on education, therefore, guides teachers of
English as a foreign language to a better alignment of their teaching to the requirements
of the industry, part of which is related to material development and implementation.
The first industrial revolution took place after the invention of the steam engine, which
significantly transformed production as such an engine replaced manual labour with
machines that operated more accurately and eased the financial burden on employers.
This revolution also marked the beginning of an era of mechanisation. A century later,
the second industrial revolution occurred, following the introduction of assembly line
production (with Henry Ford as a leader in the field). thanks to such a new approach
product assesmbly, production was processed at a higher efficiency and a lower cost.
This assembly line had fundamental implications on the education system at that time
and even in the following century (I will delve into this in the later parts). The third
revolution took place in the seventies and was attributed to the invention of the
computer. Within a short period of time, the computer transformed all aspects of the
global industry, and companies such as Intel and Microsoft, which manufactured
personal computers, raised industrial productivity to an unprecedented rate. The start of
the twenty first century marked the threshold of the fourth industrial revolution. Even
though this revolution has witnessed major breakthrough in technological
developement, it is advances in connectivity and communication that are the basis of
the fourth revolution.
All four industrial revolutions have had significant influences on education paradigms
all over the world. Around the time of the first industrial revolution, education was still
seen as a luxury rather than a universal right for children. It was not until the second
industrial revolution that the industrial scene demanded education prepare a more
skilful workforce to operate the production line effectively and efficiently. The
education system that existed was very well aligned with the notion of assembly line
production. Similar to how different parts of one product were manufactured at different
stations before they were assembled, students experienced one learning path divided
into lessons, and as products at all stations needed to be uniform, assessment tools were
standardised with only one scale. The education scene after the third industrial
revolution, with the appearance of personal computers, did not alter drastically as
compared to the previously built system. Although the integration of computers into the
classroom reduced the workload of teachers, it did not revolutionise teaching and
learning approaches. However, a lot must change after the fourth industrial revolution
to, first, benefit from the Internet and the network of computers and, second, meet the
requirements of the new industry. The fundamentals of education in the fourth industrial
revolutions are that learning is personalised; formative assessment replaces summative
assessment; teachers become facilitators and mentors; and diversity is encouraged. The
fourth industrial revolution is also what is shaping globalisation 4.0, and if, in this era
of high political division, terror threat and income inequality, we expect better results
out of global integration compared to previous waves of globalisation, there is on
fundamental thing I believe education should prepare students with: skills for jobs of
the future.
Grasping the current state of industrial advancement in the world, my viewpoints on the
use of materials in TEFL are that materials should facilitate a tailored learning path;
materials should help students to actively acquire knowledge; and materials should
facilitate the development of necessary skills for jobs of the future. I will illustrate each
of my viewpoints using relevant teaching materials.

Materials should faciliate a tailored learning path

The kind of materials that support a personalised learning path that suits each student’s
strengths and learning pace should be one that leave the decisions of what to learn and
how to learn for the students to make. An example of it is materials for extensive
reading. In order to help students select suitable readers, teachers need to carry out a
need analysis, usually in the form of a book report. One book report form that I often
use for my students is illustrated on the next page.
Here, the students get to recall the stories they have read, reflect on their understanding
of them, express their attitudes towards the stories and show expectations of future
stories to read. Based on the information gained from such book reports, teachers help
each student to choose suitable readers that match his/her linguistic competency and
interests. One thing I always bear in mind with conducting extensive reading is that no
two students prefer the exact same books, read at the same pace and improve at the same
rate.
 Book report form
Name ______________________________________________________
Date _______________________________________________________
Title of book _________________________________________________
Author ______________________________________________________
Setting – Where does the story take place?
_________________________________________________________________________
Main characters – Give a brief description of each character.
1. ______________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________________
Summary – What happens in the book?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Moral of the story – What did you learn from reading the book?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion – How did the story end?
________________________________________________________________________
What did you think of the story? (Tick one of the choices below and explain it)
O Excellent. It was great! O Good. I like it. O Fair. It was OK. O Poor. I didn’t enjoy it
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
________________________________________________________________________
This book was (Tick one of the choices below)
O Easy to read O Just right to read O A little difficult to read O Too hard to read
What kind of book would you like to read next?
________________________________________________________________________
Materials should help students to actively acquire knowledge
These days, learners are no longer passive receivers of knowledge, and teachers have
taken the role of facilitators and mentors. Therefore, TEFL materials used in the
classroom should be those that prompt students to, through the English language,
actively activate their prior knowledge (which, again, differs from students to students),
construct new knowledge through experiential learning, and reconcile it with previous
ideas so as to choose what knowledge to keep and to discard.
One example of such materials is illustrated below. Here, I acknowledged that a lot of
my students were preparing to go travelling abroad with their family as holidays were
approaching, and so I asked them to do a web research on public transport where they
would be visiting during the holidays.
The procedure was that I gave my students instructions on the web quest in class and
explained any terms that needed clarification. The students then did their own research
on the Internet at home, made notes of all the information they could gather from
different sources, and during the next class meeting, they shared the information with
their classmates through a group talk.
The rationale of such an activity is that students become active seekers of knowledge
that are relevant to their real-life experience. After they have gathered all the data, their
analytical thinking is activated through the evaluation of those data, and the integration
of computers and the Internet into the acquisition of such knowledge actually save
students more time researching rather than interfere with their thinking. Furthermore,
the sharing of information among students adheres to the communicative environment
that I want to create in the classroom.
 Web research: public transport
Destination’s name: ___________________________
What are the main forms of transport there?

Which form of transport seems to be the most common or most popular?

How do you pay the fares?

How much is the cheapest ticktet? Or how are the fares calculated?

How much does it cost to travel from the airport/train station to the centre of town?

Is there a traveller or “go-anywhere” ticket? How much does it cost?

Do you have to buy a ticket in advance?

Find some news articles about this place’s Do you think it is a good system of public
transport? What problems are there? Is it transport? Why or why not?
safe? What do users complain about (e.g.
punctuality, cleanliness, cost etc)?

Note: Convert all the prices into Vietnam Dong.

Materials should facilitate the development of necessary skills for jobs of the
future
As discussed above, the fourth industrial revolution and globalisation 4.0 have been
bringing us a lot of challenges, and if the Deloitte Millennial Survey 2018 has pointed
out that the majority of young workers think they are unprepared for changes that
Industry 4.0 will bring, and they do not possess the skills and knowledge they need to
thrive, educators have the right reason to doubt whether we are doing enough to equip
students with necessary skills for the future.
Many task-based materials that target the exhibition of separate skills in my opinion no
longer work in the current era. We need materials that require students to combine and
make use of difference skills at the same time.
Take for example a lesson that I modified based on the Speaking section in Unit 1 of
the new English for 9th graders.

The activities proposed above are actually quite stimulating and relevant to Vietnamese
students’ learning context, and they foster a plethora of skills from students. However,
there is room for modification. I wanted to turn these into student-generated materials.
First, I asked my students to each think about the benefits of traditional crafts and
challenges that artisans may face at home before they went to class. During our class
meeting, I divided the class randomly into groups that would talk about the benefits and
groups that would discuss the challenges. Then, students had some time to share their
ideas with their classmates and justify for their opinions. After that, the groups presented
their ideas with the whole class and I helped them to take notes of their short
presentation on a public Padlet board for storing and referencing purposes. These
activites help to activate students’ analytical thinking skills and reasoning skills, and I
purposefully tried to fabricate the environment of a meeting at work where people
propose ideas for a new project.
For the main task, I retained the original idea that my students would have to propose
an action plan to deal with the challenges but altered the methods. In class, the students
had to decide on one traditional craft that they would promote in groups and outlined a
plan of steps to complete my task within the allotted time of one week. These were to
teach all students to work together in an organised manner, and to help me assess them
individually. In the next class meeting, the groups presented their proposal to the whole
class in a method of their choice in 15 minutes.
Below are examples of some documents students should fill in so that both they and
teachers can keep track of the progress. These tools are important in a sense that they
give teachers data for formative assessment and facilitate the development of leadership
skills and emotional intelligence in students (when they have to think about how to
cooperate effectively with their groupmates).

Group ___ member management

Person in
Task Description Deadline Status
charge
Break down the
What the task Name of 25% / 50% /
assigment into Date
includes student Complete
smaller parts
…

…
 Group ___ evaluation
Your name: ____________________________
Group How well do you think this What was your experience
members member completed their tasks? collaborating with him / her?
Name 1

Name 2

Name 3

Self evaluation
Your name: ____________________________
How well did you complete your assigned tasks? (Tick a score and explain)
Not satisfactorily Excellently
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
How well did you collaborate with your group members? (Tick a score and explain)
Not satisfactorily Excellently
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
In conclusion, my views on the application of TEFL materials, following the fourth
industrial revolution, are that materials should facilitate a tailored learning path;
materials should help students to actively acquire knowledge; and materials should
facilitate the development of necessary skills for jobs of the future. These principles, in
my opinion, are the rudiments of education 4.0 (if we are to give the current global
education system a name), and since their values are universal, they are true in the
Vietnamese teaching and learning context.