Caitlin Sauvey
ESL/Spanish Instructor & Linguist

 April 2022

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   I am currently an undergraduate at Ohio University following my desire for language while discovering other interests along the way, like the TEFL program. I wanted to become a teacher for most of my youth, but I decided to change my double major of Spanish and Education to Spanish and Linguistics during my first semester. Once I was introduced to the idea of teaching English in another country rather than a foreign language in America, I could not stop dreaming about the breathtaking opportunity and directed my academic path towards that career goal. I’ve always had a love for immersing myself in a language and learning the culture integrated with it, so now I wish to share this passion with my students. My teaching style is still freshly developing as I had no previous teaching experience nor taken any other sort of linguistic courses before enrolling in college, but I have found what I consider to be the most important aspects of my teaching. I plan to be more meaning-focused, student-centered, aiming mostly for fluency but still touching on the accuracy, aware of my students' attitude, give clear feedback while still allowing self-correction, and show my love towards the language I am teaching in the classroom to bring a positive learning environment. Although I have these preferred styles to teaching, all of the concepts I continuously learn, I plan to keep in mind as they may become useful with the many different types of classrooms I will have and the individuals within. This will require a lifelong process of teacher development, but that is what will allow me to adapt and best teach. I will follow the characteristics of peak performers, such as setting realistic goals and taking calculated risks. I plan to regularly have self and peer classroom observations that would provide useful feedback, as well as collaborate with other inspirational teachers, as this would allow me to learn from other professionals outside of my institution such as local support groups or professional conferences.

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     I believe the purpose of education is to expose students to the knowledge humans have developed with enlightenment as well as prepare them for the endless opportunities the world offers. Therefore, one of my goals for teaching is to be guidance they may learn from and turn to as they choose their path in life. My role is more than an instructor of a specific subject, but to be that friendly resource they reach out to if they become interested in a profession related to languages. Within the classroom, I know to be adaptive as there are many factors that affect the learning environment. Being so, there is not a single ultimate method or approach I follow since the effectiveness depends on each individual student. Some of the methods I do find effective include the Direct Method, the Silent Way, Total Physical Response, and especially Communicative Language Teaching. Upon reading “Teaching by Principles” by H. Douglas Brown and Heekyeong Lee, I was able to examine the different types of teaching methods. I enjoyed learning that the Direct Method did not primarily use the student's native language, but I think grammatical rules and incorporating the first language are still important for a better understanding of difficult concepts. I liked the discovery learning and self-correction with the Silent Way as well, however, I would want my learners to be more involved in their language acquisition with an interactive classroom. The Total Physical Response method was stress-free and hands-on, which I personally found helpful when I took foreign language courses, but it reduces the mental challenges older or advanced students are able to learn from. Communicative Language Teaching was my favorite of all methods above. It resembles what was used for my language learning, which I greatly benefited from as it focuses on all grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic components. In my learning environment, I plan to use more general approaches as I do not plan to teach for specific situations to use any specific approaches. Within the general approaches mentioned in the textbook, I also had a few preferred types of instructions. With the Learner-Centered Instruction, I liked that it includes forward-thinking, less fears of failure, student innovation, and still some teacher control. Then with Theme-Based Instruction, I liked that it still focuses on curriculum while serving the interests of students with meaningful topics and improves linguistic skills across the four domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Most importantly, my teaching style will be sure to emphasize the importance culture has on a language and how it is nearly impossible to completely isolate the two. 

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     For my students, I of course want them to learn from my class, but more importantly, I want them to enjoy the experience of learning a foreign language, regardless if they continue with the subject or not. Discovering their agency, expressing their identity, developing a system of motivated self-reward, using self-regulated strategies, enhancing automaticity, and being versed in languaculture is what I expect of my students. However, it is not expected that they do so by themselves. With the direction of my teaching and the encouragement within the classroom, learners will be able to meet my own expectations, as well as their own. I do not expect my students to be fluent, nor close to perfect, as natives make mistakes just as often as learners of a language. I want my students themselves to understand they are not expected to consistently be within the boundaries of a specific proficiency level, as each individual learns and retains information in different ways. As long as they show progress and effort, I will continue to be proud of my students. 

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     It will take getting to know my students and the environment they create themselves to correctly and proficiently teach. Although teaching a foreign language to a multitude of individual students can seem intimidating, I am excited that I am successfully following this career path with the offered courses and direction at Ohio University. The sense of social responsibility also directs me to be this "agent for change", to make a difference with purpose and dedication. Although being a teacher may not bring direct changes like curing cancer, I remind myself that it was my past foreign language teachers who made an impactful difference on my future. By helping me find my passion and purpose in this world, I now have the opportunity to do the same for my students. I want to continue this eye-opening experience to gain fulfillment in knowing I am making a difference in a diverse world in need of communication through national borders, as well as experiencing joy over seeing my students’ attainment of linguistic proficiency and creating a community of learners.