5.1 Teaching language

As a teacher I wouldn't necessarily choose for one method only, but use a combination of them. You have to explore in order to find your own way of teaching, which can be very hard on itself. If I look at how I teach at my TP, I must say that my teaching method has the most similarities with the the Direct Approach method. I think the use of the target language has a very important role in the learning process. Otherwise they would learn about the target language in class, but never really use the language. That wouldn't really make sense. In order to learn a language, it is important to actually use that language and practice it. Even though my teaching method has similarities with this method, there are also a few differences. It says that in the Direct Approach method, the mother tongue is never used. I do use the mother tongue, in this case Dutch, when I need to. I try to speak as much English as possible, but I do have to take into account that not all of my pupils understand me. Therefore, I always ask if they understood me and if not, I repeat myself in Dutch. 

Of course my teaching method hasn't developed fully. I am still trying new things so that I can find out what fits me and what doesn't. This is also something that changes over the years. One method that sparked my interest was the Audiolingual method. This method mostly focuses on pronunciation. I think this is a very important skill to focus on when learning a new language. Correct pronunciation is underrated. If you pronounce a word incorrect, it could change the whole meaning of that word or your sentence. I also don't think that grammar skills are the most important skills and this method provides little or no grammatical explanations; grammar is taught inductively. 

You can't use one method only, because you come across a lot of pupils that all have different needs. That's why you have to try new methods. I am excited to see whether I can combine these methods.