By: Jonathan Nelson
Teaching and learning go hand in hand with each other. While the burden lies with the student to learn well, it also lies with the teacher to teach well. The responsibility of the teacher is to promote learning by using various teaching methods that enhance education for multiple learning styles.
Students come from a multitude of environments and experiences, causing them to look in different ways at the same information. A great teacher is one who responds creatively and adapts to the needs of the class, without sacrificing the standard of learning. In this way, the students benefit from an education that is engaging, personal and alive. That being said, the importance of an authentic context in the lesson not only brings pertinence and relevance to the lesson but also interest. When you bring that aspect of realism and usefulness to a lesson, the students are able to visualize the purpose behind it and therefore comprehension will increase.
Input needs to be meaningful and rich in context so that the students visualize the purposefulness of the lesson. According Krashens Input Hypothesis, it’s more than simply going over vocabulary and then adding grammar rules to your lesson. The input and main stock of the lesson needs to be integrated into something more meaningful that the students can relate to.
Therefore structuring a student-based lesson around free time activities becomes more pertinent to the learners not only through relevancy but also because of their existing prior knowledge and experience with the material.
One teaching style that I wish to attain consistently throughout my lesson plan is that of a warm demander. This idea of a warm demander is based around a teaching style that looks at students with “unconditional positivity and regard.” This teaching style takes into account the students best intentions and maintains high expectations for that student. A warm demander is someone that builds positive relationships with students by lowering the affective filter and being personal with them while still keeping that sense of academic respect. This teaching style has been proven to be the most effective not only for teaching but also for foreign language comprehension. My goal is to incorporate clear and high expectations while showing the students that I am emotionally available to help them scaffold their way to complete comprehension.