Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is optimistic.  I believe that, with the right motivation and encouragement, anyone can learn a language regardless of their age, background or learning styles.  I had very little exposure to Spanish growing up and it was not my primary course of study when I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy.  After working several years as a pharmacist, my first career, I developed an interest in languages.  I mastered Spanish due primarily to motivation and hours of study, fueled by a love of learning languages that I developed late in life.  It is this kind of motivation that I hope to instill in my students.  It is my hope that the students I teach will come to appreciate the pleasure of connecting with other cultures and people in a foreign language.

The desire to communicate and convey my own motivation to my students accounts for my enthusiasm in the classroom.  My students often comment on this enthusiasm in my teaching evaluations as seen in the following quotes from evaluations of my Phonetics classes in the spring 2002 semester at the University of Texas and classes at Rice University during the 2010- 2011 school year.

• “The professor was very enthusiastic and always seemed interested in teaching which made
  the  class enjoyable to me.” (UT)
•  “I enjoyed the class and learned a lot.  I love how you love what you do and that you enjoy teaching the class.  Your excitement made me get more from the class  and got me much more interested in the information.” (UT)
•  “Great teacher.  I hope I will have the same enthusiasm when I become a Spanish teacher.”
• “I really enjoyed this course and the material was very interesting.  I want to take more
  phonetics classes!” (UT)
• “Dr. Patterson is very good at creating a friendly atmosphere in class. She is always approachable and very understanding. I love taking classes with her!”   (Rice 2011)
• “Dr. Patterson is very enthusiastic about Spanish. The class is small and she makes a point of engaging her students in various activities. Her enthusiasm sometimes carries her away but she always gets back on topic.”  (Rice 2010)
• “Dr. Patterson made me very comfortable speaking in class. She kept the class very interesting by discussing current issues in spanish at the beginning of the classes. Overall, she was an excellent professor.” (Rice 2010)
• “I really enjoyed having Senora Patterson as a teacher. She is very easy to get along with and made class fun and interesting. This was one of my favorite classes this semester because of the lively class discussion and friendly atmosphere.” (Rice 2010)

In the classroom, I aspire to create an atmosphere that encourages students and I endeavor to make them feel comfortable to ask questions and to participate in class discussions in the target language. Learning Spanish late in life has given me insight into the difficulties that students may experience while learning a language as an adult. This insight is an asset for me as I teach the language because it helps me understand the cognitive experiences of the students. In addition, I consider it important to connect to the individual students in the classroom and to be available for the students outside the classroom during office hours and through email.

An important part of learning a language is the ability to apply the language skills in a practical setting.  I believe that students also desire to use their new found language skills to communicate in real life situations.  Consequently, in addition to explaining grammar, I make an effort to incorporate communicative activities in class that involve a practical use of the language.  For example, instead of emphasizing direct vocabulary translations (Spanish to English) I encourage the students to develop the ability to define or describe a Spanish word using the Spanish vocabulary they know.  This teaches them circumlocution.  I point out the practical use of this skill to my students by telling them that when they are traveling in a Spanish speaking country they may need to ask about something for which they are not able to recall the precise vocabulary word.  Using circumlocution they will be able to describe what they want and thus communicate in the target language.  I then set up situations like this in the classroom related to the vocabulary they are learning where they have to ask for something or describe something unknown to them in the target language.

In addition to traditional teaching techniques I believe that technology can be an important pedagogical tool.  The Internet, for example, can open a window to the Spanish world for language classes that was unavailable in the past.  This tool can easily increase their exposure to the language and the Spanish culture and, consequently, enrich their learning experience.  Furthermore, the computer is an important part of the life of students and it provides an additional opportunity to connect with them.  Students relate to computer technology and respond positively to it.  Therefore, I believe that computer exercises with immediate feedback, interactive computer discussions, e-mail and Internet activities are an asset to language learning.

I believe that it is important to use communicative activities in class.  Interaction and Negotiation for Meaning are important elements of language acquisition.  It is essential that the students have the opportunity to interact with each other and other native speakers using the target language.  Through interaction and negotiation their language skills improve.  I incorporate group and/or pair activities in each class period so that the students have the opportunity to talk with each other and create with the language.  While they conduct the activities I walk around the room to answer questions and I often hear students explaining grammar to their partner or explaining why they responded to a question a certain way.  Some students learn better with peer teaching either by doing the explaining or receiving the explanation from another student. I believe that it benefits the students to do activities in pairs because everyone participates.  I also think it is important to provide students with a genuine audience for their work in the target language.    In the past, I have organized email exchanges between my students and  students of English in Mexico and Buenos Aires.  More recently I have worked with English professors in Mexico and Argentina to set up SKYPE chats along with forum discussions with our students in both Spanish and in English.  My students enjoy these communicative activities and gain confidence in their language abilities when they find they can communicate with native speakers.

I teach and test all four language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) in my Spanish classes, as well as culture.  I also include a little history of the language in certain situations because I like the subject and think it may be interesting for the students.  I don’t actually follow one specific teaching methodology in my Spanish classes, but rather I use a balanced approach to teaching with an emphasis on communicative competence.  I don’t believe in always sacrificing accuracy or proficiency at the expense of communication though.  There are times in a classroom when it is important that the students communicate an idea to the listener regardless of accuracy and other times when proficiency is important.   I try to balance these two aspects of language learning.  In the first semester Spanish classes I teach about 70%-80% in Spanish and 20%-30% in English in the first few weeks of the class.  I try to increase the amount of Spanish that I use in order to be speaking mostly Spanish by  mid semester.  I use the target language as much as possible but will use English if I think that the students are confused or do not understand what I am saying.  By the second semester of Spanish I speak only Spanish in class.

In conclusion, my goal is to convey my enthusiasm and motivation for teaching and learning languages by connecting with my students.  I hope to accomplish this by using communicative teaching techniques and incorporating computer technologies into the class.  Finally, by mixing different aspects of teaching methodologies I strive to create a balanced approach that facilitates language learning in my students.  I enjoy teaching Spanish very much and want my students to enjoy learning Spanish as much as I do teaching it so I make the class as pleasant and interesting for them as I possibly can.