From my two years and a half teaching experience in the U.S.

, I understand the word teaching

from a deeper perspective. In the US, the role that the teachers play is so different than that in
China. To be a teacher in American public schools is more likely to be a guide rather than an
authority in class. The students in American schools are able to choose their own courses to shape
personalized course schedules. Thus many extracurricular teachers are always nominated for the
Teachers of the year because their courses are able to arouse the students and/or their parents
interests more. Students are always the centers in the class. The student involvement and their
interaction are considered as essential factors to determine if a class or a teacher was successful.
Parental involvement focuses more on their childrens personal development and/or the
individualization than on the school rules and/or the academic scores. Each student has his/her own
counselor to offer him/her professional suggestions on the course choice, and to help them negotiate
and/or solve the problems occurred in the study with the teachers. In a word, being a teacher in the
US public schools is more likely being a spiritual guide, who needs to always consider the students
as the center of the class. The teaching objective is to help the students improve their interests and
their learning abilities in certain academic areas rather than to simply have the students focused on
their scores. Therefore, my teaching philosophy and related practices focus on four aspects, which
include listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The practices vary based on the different kinds of
practices that the students are required to accomplish.
For listening practices, I would guide my students to practice their listening in my authentic
teaching by totally immersing my teaching in Chinese, the target language. All the instructions and
the teaching are presented in Chinese, and the students are required to answer the questions based
on their understanding of their listening to the target language. In this way, all my students would be
able to get immersed in a target language teaching environment which allows them to listen to no
other language except for the target language, Chinese.
For speaking practices, I would encourage my students to answer all the questions in Chinese, the
target language. The more my students speak in the target language, the more they practice their
speaking in the target language. In the instructional requirements that my students would make
during class time, such as asking for permission to go to the bathroom, or asking for permission to
go to get some water, I also require my students to ask for all these instructions in Chinese. All the
instructions were printed in their syllabus, and were posted in both Chinese and English on the front
wall of the classroom. All the instructions were taught the first day they entered into my classroom
as well, so that each student would be able to speak the instructional language in Chinese with no
difficulties. The posts on the front wall enable the students to memorize the instructional language
in Chinese when they forgot how to pronounce certain words, and they also encourage the students
to speak more in target language and avoid the students from being embarrassed of forgetting how
to speak the instructional language in Chinese.
For reading practices, I would implement the reading articles in Chinese in my teaching to
maximize my students' reading ability in Chinese. Reading articles are well chosen and organized
by me as the preparation for my students' reading practices. Questions based on the understanding
of the articles are designed by me based on the teaching objectives of assessing the students'
language acquisition, application, and understanding of the reading articles. Each of the reading
articles are composed by the vocabulary, words and phrases, sentences structures in target language
based on the curriculum with very clear instructions. The contents of the reading articles are also
deeply considered, so that the reading would be appropriate for my students' ages and would be able
to inspire and encourage my students' positive behaviors in class at their biggest extents, or to
enable my students to learn positive lessons from the reading articles by using their language ability
in Chinese. The Chinese culture is implemented in the reading articles as well, so that the students
would be able to feel the Chinese culture form all aspects.
For writing practices, I would always require my students to practice the writing of the Chinese

characters together with their learning on the new vocabularies in . Certain in-class activities
are well designed and organized to strengthen the students' writing abilities, such as dictations,
translation, charade in writing, and guessing and writing. The students' interests towards
Chinese writing are significantly increased via these fun activities. Chinese characters
recomposition and painting competitions are monthly held in my class to broaden the students'
imagination, to deepen the students' understanding towards Chinese characters and Chinese culture,
and to strengthen the students' interests towards Chinese learning. Answering the questions in
writing in Chinese would also strengthen the students' writing ability in Chinese, such as answering
the designed questions of the reading articles in Chinese, or writing a paragraph in Chinese based
on their understanding of a video or an audio in Chinese.
The reason why I would implement Chinese in my entire teaching and immerse all my teaching in
Chinese is that I do believe the best way for my students to learn a second/foreign language that is
so different than their native languages is to create a completely authentic environment for them in
Chinese, the target language, so that they would be able to acquire the language at their biggest
extents in the highest efficiency.
I also implement my teaching philosophy into the assessments for the students. The assessments I
use to assess the students' learning are in-class communication, quizzes, tests and exams, and
projects. The reason why my methods of assessment work is that my students would be able to
assessed by me from all aspects, so that I would be able to master their real learning levels with rare
misconnection or misunderstanding. In-class communication enables me to assess my students most
effectively and directly. This is the method that could be most easily adjusted based on the students'
behaviors and learnings. Quizzes, tests, and exams are relatively stable with grades marked to track
the students' academic achievement. Projects assess the students on not only the academic
achievement, but also on their understanding and application of the acquired language knowledge,
and also on their cooperation in a team work.
All in all, being a teacher in the American schools is more likely being a counselor, a guide, and a
leader instead of a manipulative authority. The teaching objective under my teaching philosophy is
to enable the students to achieve the highest academic expectation with the teacher's teaching,
instruction, differentiated instructions, respect, patience, responsibility, and the passion towards this
career.