Senanur Çetgin / 18093010 TEACHING PHILOSOPHY ‘’Six Sigma of My Teaching Methods’’ Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. – John Dewey For years, I have wanted to teach and inspire others because being a teacher is all about being a light to people and leading them in their life journey. In particular, according to the roots of my teaching philosophy, education is not a process carried out in institutions but also an inseparable part of life. So, students should approach lessons as a part of life and be able to use what they have learned practically. Education is not a one-size-fits-all discipline. For this reason, I have acquired a sophisticated education philosophy by benefiting from numerous views, various sources, many studies in the field of education, and my own experiences. My teaching philosophy is rooted in creating a learning cycle that allows students to learn, make mistakes, have fun, and monitor their learning processes. Six main qualities comprise my teaching philosophy which I named the six sigma of my teaching philosophy. My teaching philosophy is I embrace the constructivist and communicative approaches, so I want to create a comfortable classroom environment where student and teacher interaction is at the top level, where students can express themselves freely, and where they communicate through the target language without feeling oppressive authority. There are two main reasons for me to consider these approaches in my classes. Firstly, communication is crucial for students to become selfadvocated individuals. I am planning to teach students to become confident communicators by creating opportunities to work in groups, present their research to their classmates, and perform in front of their families with my teaching philosophy. The other reason is the importance of language. As we know, language is the touchstone of society. Based on this idea, the thoughts of individuals are shaped according to the languages they speak, and the cultural transfer processes proceed in this way. I believe we should not take language away from reality. For this reason, lessons in which synthetic dialogues take place, excessive grammar knowledge is exposed, and theory-focused rather than practical-focused courses are insufficient for foreign language teaching. So, my teaching philosophy offers students to use the language in the most natural way. I believe living with a language is more precious than learning a language. My teaching philosophy aims to have fun at the same time. I have been teaching since I was 17 years old. The first week of my job, when I had my first teaching experience, I was congratulated by the school principal due to the great interest shown by the parents towards my class. Was I too experienced? No. So, were the teachers before me less knowledgeable than me? Of course not! I was 17, and there was only one thing I knew. To enjoy! At that time, I realized from my experience that the more teachers have fun in their jobs, the better they offer their students an educational process. For this reason, I always try to teach the lessons more enjoyable to keep the motivation in the classroom high even in the most complicated subjects. The easiest way of this is to smile and use humor. I believe, when we laugh together, we build community and foster collaboration. Therefore, while planning my lectures, I empathize with students and ask, Would I listen to myself if I were a student? It is crucial to be a versatile educator with an innovative approach according to my teaching philosophy. I believe that the use of technology should be infused into the curriculum as much as possible. In particular, I prefer to use WEB 2.0 tools that support classroom interaction and better serve the new generation, instead of using old-fashioned note-taking and drowning my students in thick textbooks. In a world where everything is digitalized, limiting education through black-andwhite grammar books does not fit my educational philosophy. Skill-based teaching is one of the teaching methods I have adopted. When I rooted this idea in my teaching philosophy, I benefited from the Multiple Intelligence Theory. I strongly believe that each student has a unique learning style. I strive to teach students how to write essays, listen to podcasts, or read critically on different topics to nurture my students' language competencies receptively and productively. Established on my educational experiences, when I attended university, in preparatory class skill-based lessons have been quite enlightening for me over the years. I have to admit that I learned how to write an essay in two months in the preparatory class, as someone who could not comprehend it for two years before getting into the university. Moreover, my role as an educator is to make students think critically about language and interpret it. I design my lessons to target higher-order thinking skills from Bloom’s Taxonomy, such as creating, inquiring, and critiquing. I am against offering the same language patterns to follow for each learner. Language is a phenomenon that requires creativity and contains subjective values. For this reason, it is against my teaching philosophy to expect students to only answer questions with the same patterns and to maintain a lesson full of activities that only involve finding the correct answer through multiple-choice questions. In line with this idea, I aim to design lessons that allow my students to limit their ideas less and give them more interpretation rights. For instance, taking advantage of classical works, watching a theater play in the target language, or asking students to write an opinion writing an essay are the methods that I plan to use. Feedbacks, monitoring, and assessments have particular places in my teaching philosophy. As we all know, assessment and evaluation are integral for the teaching processes blending the unique learning needs of students and teaching methods. Having an idea about the characteristics of my students will contribute a lot to me in terms of evaluation. When it comes to assessment and monitoring, as can be understood from my student-oriented teaching approach, I prefer to let my students discover their own mistakes. For example, If I have a student who gives a wrong answer, I do not say "The correct answer is X" directly. Instead, I ask questions such as "Why did you think so?" and I guide him to find the answer. Instead of answering, working toward the answer with students is part of my teaching philosophy. My philosophy of education aims to create a stimulating educational environment where students can grow mentally, emotionally, and socially. I aim to do my best to get to know my students so I can focus on not only their cognitive development but also their social and emotional well-being which is equally necessary for learning to occur. I desire to unleash the full potential of my students. I will be always trying to create classrooms that empower my students to improve their selfconfidence and critical thinking style. I believe that it is possible to overcome any deficiency through education in this world. For this reason, I will do my best to provide my students with the all-purpose educational process they are involved. Because being able to touch other lives and create meaningful changes in them is a valuable feeling, and as a teacher, I should experience this feeling the best way by deserving it.
