My enthusiasm for languages is the key motivation I have to offer my students. It is this enthusiasm that helps me keep a positive attitude in my classroom and see myself more as a facilitator for my students. My positive attitude helps ease tension in the classroom. It is my belief that a learning environment should never be tense. Seeing myself as a facilitator, rather than stereotypical “traditional professor”, who holds all the knowledge, helps my student realize that we are working together to reach a goal, the acquisition of new language.
There is no recipe for what I am as a teacher. And I certainly do not carry a label that identifies me as the strict follower of a certain teaching methodology. Instead, I see myself as an adapter and a recycler of various tendencies. In other words, I try to use the best of each teaching methodology, and whenever something does not seem to fit the reality of my students, I make the necessary changes to best suit my learning environment.
In sum, I would say that as a teaching I am more concerned with learning than teaching. I do not think I can do all the teaching on my own, for I believe that a lot of it my students do for themselves. This is so, simply because the time the students spend in my class is minimal is so is the amount of teaching I provide them with in the classroom. Even in the classroom, the students are learning for themselves as they figure things out. Meaning that part of the classroom teaching comes from the students themselves. With no more to add, my students are the voices heard in my classroom. I am just a guide to making sure their voices are heard.