Google survey Case about successful practices of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Progr

4.- Describe your teaching approach style, (your philosophy as a teacher) that works best to achieve the learning of your students

My teacher philosophy is that education is trans formative and empowering, my teaching style is relationship based, forging a strong connection and establishing trust and respect are the key components

Just focusing what the child can do and not what the child cannot do makes it easy to make lesson plans. Also understanding the child's preferred learning styles helps the child learn better.

I believe that students should take responsibility for their learning. Thus in classroom teaching I often allow my students to determine their weekly learning objectives and goals. This is to create greater ownership and engagement in the students. My students and I share a fairly informal relationship while ensuring that boundaries are maintain. I try to ensure that I am not just an authoritative figure to them but someone whom they can discuss, talk to and approach in times of need. I keep in contact with many of students even after they leave school.

I am a firmly believer of inquiry based learning; that knowledge is situated in a group and constructed with peers. The rich questioning in inquiry learning elicits student prior knowledge due to lived experiences and cultural knowledge. This prior knowledge can be used to build upon different ideas and perspectives that seek to uncover truths and sharpen conceptual understanding eg. principles and theorems etc.

Engaging students in ideas/ problems then guiding them to understand issues and find answers.

My students generally enjoy my lessons as I often teach with passion. I am a visual learner myself, I simplify the concepts for the students to help them understand better. This has made my lessons engaging for the students. I am very passionate about trying new things and new pedagogies. So my students get excited by my own enthusiasm.

I believe that they are able to learn whatever I teach to them. That I must teach them how to learn by themselves, that the greatest skill of all. I try to be open, patient and very tolerant. I demand a lot of work for them but I checked everything I asked and in a very detailed manner. My assessment rules are very clear stated since the first day. I believe that the best way to show respect to them, they work and they will get grades for that. I offer them my best practice and I try to motivate them daily to be the best that they can be.

I believe in active learning that is connected to real world problems/to real world.

Group learning based on an activity or project is hihhly recommended as students take ownership of learning and learn democratic skills while interacting with another.

We go through certain things with the whole group during the lesson, but most of the time I let my students work in pairs or groups practising sentences, words, etc. in as "real" situations as they possibly can in a classroom. I try to provide them with writing, reading, listening and speaking exercises in almost all my classes. I believe language can best be learned in contexts, so vocabulary and structures are learned from different texts and situations, not so much from simple lists.