My Teaching Philosophy
Over many years, I have taught in a wide variety of Japanese schools. At first, I taught in private schools and community colleges from 1989-to-2004. During those years, I focused on junior high school first year-to-senior high school first year. But I also taught elementary school classes, vocational college (senmongakko) classes, and private adult classes for professionals (medical doctors, dentists). I taught at co-educational schools, girls’ schools and boys’ schools. I participated in Opening Ceremonies, Closing Ceremonies, Graduation Ceremonies, and School Festivals.
Secondly, from 2004-to-2007, I taught elementary school at an International School in Tokyo, doing everything that a full-time homeroom teacher does. Following that, I taught two years at an international pre-school and experienced working with the very young. Finally, in 2009, I was introduced to the Tokyo Board of Education and began working in public senior high schools in central Tokyo. It has been many years since I’ve taught the younger ages, since I’ve focused on older teenagers since 2009.
Throughout my teaching career in Japan, I have been the primary English teacher while working with a Japanese English teacher for support. I mean, I’ve usually planned my own lessons. But at some schools, that role is reversed, and I have assisted Japanese English teachers in their lessons.
Whether the Japanese English teacher is assisting me, or I am assisting the Japanese teacher, I prefer maximum cooperation with Japanese teachers before we go to class. Twenty or fifteen minutes before first period in the morning to confirm what we will be doing. It’s incredibly important.
In my lessons, I focus on the 3 Pillars: 1) Knowledge; 2) Culture (intercultural awareness; and, 3) Cognition. I want to cultivate competence appropriate to the students’ level, needs, and expectations. The Japanese Ministry of Education aims to develop students as a Global Human Resource by helping them, through English, to continue to develop the sills to live and work in society that other subjects also try to develop. The role of English should not be alien from the roles of other subjects in their curriculum.
I want the content of my lessons to synchronize with communication competence, so that students can develop language that they can use - language they can use to express their own thoughts. With the increasing number of foreign tourism in Japan these days, I think this is a good idea. I also aim to equip them as a global resource - young people who understand language and culture, have pride in Japan, have a positive attitude towards learning, and appreciate multiculturalism and intercultural cooperation.
I believe in translanguaging, using both English and Japanese in the classroom. I deliberately speak slowly and repetitively, and insert Japanese into my presentation so that students can hear me constructing sentences like building blocks; so that students can hear me thinking, and hear to the way I put my thoughts into language in a manner that they can comprehend. Translanguaging becomes a support mechanism for students.