My first academic year at TIU has been an interesting but challenging journey where I had to revise my teaching approach to the needs of my Japanese students. When we learn different linguistic theories related to language teaching, we analyze different classroom scenarios where certain methods are commonly used for that specific situation. I realized that my teaching experience and some of the methods I have employed in the American ESL classroom had to be reexamined for a homogenous Japanese classroom. The following are some self-reflective thoughts that came about at the end of my first year as a GTF.
The first thing I had to consider was how to engage culturally shy students and to make the classroom more interactive. Although I was raised in Japan, I had forgotten that young Japanese learners are less expressive than the average immigrant learner in an American city college classroom. I realized that in order to have a meaningful relationship with my students, I had to be patient and invest extra time to raise their comfort level. For example, I had to interact with students individually and allow additional time for the students to respond. I also had to do away with the notion that students will take the initiative to ask questions on the subject matter.
Another thing I realized was that due to the younger age range of my students, they did not have the experience in and knowledge of a lot of the topics covered in American published textbooks. I needed to adapt the material to the students’ interests and make the lessons more relevant to their mindset. For example, if the textbook topic focused on music and entertainment, I had to research the genre of music and places of entertainment that many of the students were familiar with. This was personally challenging for me since I was not familiar with what young my Japanese students enjoyed outside of the classroom.
In addition to modifying some of the lesson contents, I also introduced more game type learning activities that younger students seemed to like. This was another area I was not familiar with, and I had to research and inquire other instructors as to what activities worked in their classrooms. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a wealth of information and experience, and this collaboration with other GTFs has been a very important part of my revision of my teaching methods at TIU.
Finally, I realized that it is important to incorporate some common online tools used for classroom management and language learning. In the past year, I have upgraded myself to comfortably use Schoology, Engrade, and Google Forms to name a few in order to not only make instructional work more efficient, but also to make learning a lot more accessible and productive for my students. My goals for this coming year is to continue learning the latest trends in educational technology and therefore continue to make the effort to improve my teaching approach here at TIU.
The first thing I had to consider was how to engage culturally shy students and to make the classroom more interactive. Although I was raised in Japan, I had forgotten that young Japanese learners are less expressive than the average immigrant learner in an American city college classroom. I realized that in order to have a meaningful relationship with my students, I had to be patient and invest extra time to raise their comfort level. For example, I had to interact with students individually and allow additional time for the students to respond. I also had to do away with the notion that students will take the initiative to ask questions on the subject matter.
Another thing I realized was that due to the younger age range of my students, they did not have the experience in and knowledge of a lot of the topics covered in American published textbooks. I needed to adapt the material to the students’ interests and make the lessons more relevant to their mindset. For example, if the textbook topic focused on music and entertainment, I had to research the genre of music and places of entertainment that many of the students were familiar with. This was personally challenging for me since I was not familiar with what young my Japanese students enjoyed outside of the classroom.
In addition to modifying some of the lesson contents, I also introduced more game type learning activities that younger students seemed to like. This was another area I was not familiar with, and I had to research and inquire other instructors as to what activities worked in their classrooms. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a wealth of information and experience, and this collaboration with other GTFs has been a very important part of my revision of my teaching methods at TIU.
Finally, I realized that it is important to incorporate some common online tools used for classroom management and language learning. In the past year, I have upgraded myself to comfortably use Schoology, Engrade, and Google Forms to name a few in order to not only make instructional work more efficient, but also to make learning a lot more accessible and productive for my students. My goals for this coming year is to continue learning the latest trends in educational technology and therefore continue to make the effort to improve my teaching approach here at TIU.