My Reflection about Theories of Teaching

First time I learned about theories of language teaching, I felt like I open a new window. It is because I just knew about some conceptions in teaching languages. They are science-research conceptions, theory-philosophy conceptions, value-based conception & art-craft conceptions. It is said that all of them are old theories for transferring the language knowledge to the students. Then a voice came from my heart surprising me “so why should I learn this? These are old fashion theories, aren’t they?” I got confused, but then another voice answered that question “Yes you should, because it’s not about their out-of-dated but it’s all about the conceptions. You should learn them for your prior knowledge.” Then I started to learn them unhesitatingly.

After I read all of the theories, I was interested in the art –craft conception. This theory requires teachers’ individual skills and personality. I saw that through this theory the learning can be very fun, because teachers can explore their creativity more to develop their teaching so that students will be encouraged more to learn. I would not say that other conceptions are not good, but art-craft gives teachers more chances to use their sense of “art”. What I mean about “art” is the various way of teaching, so teachers here act as artists. Artists never do their work in the same way every time, they always add or modify something so the results will always be fresher than their previous. While the others do not give enough spaces to be as creative as teachers can be. They stick to the research results too much. Of course they are not wrong, but as human students also need personal touch from the teachers.

However, this art-craft theory is not actually such an easy thing to apply. Even though the learning activities can be very fun, but teachers still have some targets to be achieved by the students. If the teachers enjoyed creating fun learning too much, students will learn less effective. Besides, the time allocated often does not suffice. This is another challenge for the teachers. Yet I am not afraid to use this theory, because I want to make a difference. So I will keep creating my teaching methods with my creativity.