Teaching Philosophy

Up until now, there has been a lot of experiences in which has shaped my teaching philosophy. Some experiences that have shaped me are my teaching experiences in m time as a preschool teacher, my volunteer hours with children from infancy to high school, and my time as a student teacher.

Although it will continue to evolve as I go through new experiences, there are a few theories or strategies which I find important to my teaching. Those theories are culturally responsive teaching, translanguaging, zone of proximal development, and communicative competence. I find these important because I believe that as an educator, it is important for there to be awareness of cultural diversity within the classroom, language support, scaffolding in learning, and communication with students, staff, and parents.

One of the important theories that I find important as an individual and as an educator is culturally responsive teaching. "Culturally relevant teaching honors the racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences of students of color who are marginalized in school curricula, featuring “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically [because it uses] cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 20)(Yuan & Jiang, 2019). Alongside high expectations, CRP respects and responds to students’ individual cultural backgrounds, prior knowledge, and lived experiences to connect students’ home and school lives, which contribute to academic achievement (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009, 2014)(Yuan & Jiang, 2019)." With this knowledge of Culturally Responsive teaching, or culturally relevant teaching, and coming from an Asian American background, not only does it resonate with me, but it also has influenced me to be an educator that takes multiculturalism into consideration of my students and hopes to support their learning. There has been a lot of teachers who teach from a monolingual principle and are not aware of the different cultures and how those cultures or different language may be a benefit for those students who are or are becoming multilingual. I don't want my students to feel like they are seen at a disadvantage because of their way of thinking due to the multiple languages flowing through their minds. Some may be English learners and that may affect their learning in the classroom, but the thinking shouldn't be thinking that they are not capable or have a special need but it should be that they have an extra resource of another language. How can you use that and incorporate it into their learning so that they are able to use it to learn English?

Teaching isn't a one-way street. It is a two-way street working with the students to help them learn their academics, but also the students working with you to help you learn different ways that students function and being able to come up with different strategies to better help students who come from different cultural backgrounds.

Yuan, T., & Jiang, H. (2019). Culturally Responsive Teaching for Children from Low-Income, Immigrant Families. Young Exceptional Children, 22(3), 150–161. https://doi-org.lib.pepperdine.edu/10.1177/1096250618756897