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Most important in my teaching philosophy is my commitment to student- centered learning. I believe that the role of the teacher is to facilitate discussion, but that students must be trained to be independent life-long learners. To do this, I concentrate on sharing habits and strategies with my students that encourage self-reliance. In my language classroom, for example, students are often taught grammar inductively in that they are first exposed to different grammar patterns by reading authentic texts. Once the patterns are highlighted together, students are then encouraged to make their own associations and deduce the grammar rules amongst themselves before I explicitly summarize everything for them. This way, students are encouraged to recognize logical patterns and independently come up with explanations. An example of this teaching style is available in this unit lesson plan.

 

In the context of teaching writing, to give another example, I generally start any writing consultations by asking my students to read their own work out loud. Very often, while doing so, the student would catch their own mistakes without my help and thus, be able to edit their own work without the instructor’s help. Another strategy I often use is reverse outlining, where I ask students to summarize the main points of their essays, and sometimes each paragraph that they have written. In doing so, students realize on their own when their work is badly organized, as they would face difficulties in trying to summarize their work for me. Doing these exercises strengthen the student’s self-confidence level and breaks down the myth of the instructor as the sole subject-matter expert. With these habits and strategies, I hope to equip students with applicable skills beyond the classroom.

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I recognize that students come from different race, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. As such, to be inclusive, I make sure that materials in class are representative of my students’ stories. When using a German textbook made for mainly European audience, for instance, I supplemented stories of traditional celebrations provided in the book with my own experiences with Ramadan, a muslim celebration celebrated in my country, Indonesia; as well as with other stories of Chinese New Year that a lot of students in my class could identify with. A demonstration of this teaching unit can be seen in this teaching video demo. As an educator, I also recognize the student’s individuality in learning styles and outcomes. To do this, I make sure to design balanced lesson plans with different learning stimuli that include reading, speaking, videos, etc; this helps students with different learning styles to get the best out of their classroom instructions. In the above-linked video, for example, students must follow along in reading a particular text before they are asked to practice speaking by discussing their thoughts on the topic of the reading material.

 

In recognizing individual personalities, I also conduct many small group discussions to give shier and quieter students the chance to express their thoughts in a more comfortable setting. These examples make sure that no student is left out from the classroom learning experience.

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While instructors often encourage students to be creative, the reality is such that the cost of being creative can be high and result in a worse grade for students. This often discourages students from thinking outside the box and encourages them to stick to familiar things. As such, it is the job of the instructor to create low risk environments where students can feel comfortable making mistakes. In one class I designed, for example, students routinely have peer writing-workshops in small groups where they take turns sharing their essays while the other group members give suggestions on how to improve their writing. This activity lets the student sharing their essay avoid doing so in front of the whole class, while the other students giving advice learn to be confident in their own editing skills. A sample syllabus that reflects this regular workshop schedule and instructions for it can be found here.

 

Moreover, I design classes with a lot of examples and modeling from me, followed by controlled step-by-step activities where students can use my examples while applying their own ideas and experiences. These controlled tasks allow students to be creative in using newly learned concepts and structures, but still ensures that they will be successful in doing so. Such fail-proof activities raise students’ confidence and give them a sense of accomplishment. Most importantly, I put a lot of emphasis in getting to know the individual student’s background, interests and motivations, so that I can also adapt classroom topics accordingly.

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I have teaching experience in English writing, linguistics, Asian Studies and German studies at the University of Georgia (UGA) as well as at Cornell University. I have also had the chance to tutor international graduate students on academic writing and presentations, where I get to work with non-native English speakers on many different projects. Specifically for English writing, I taught a writing in the disciplines class. In this class, I discussed many aspects of linguistics and translation that became prompts for student essays. In this capacity I designed an innovative syllabus where we covered formal theories in translations, but also played around with translating different genres. My students were even able to practice some translation without knowledge of another language other than English. Crucially, they were then able to reflect on their own experience of applying the theories of translation that they learned in class. This type of learning by doing that stimulates self-reflection is always an integral part of my classroom.

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My most extensive experience teaching at the college level is in the field of foreign languages, namely German. A typical syllabus for my German class can be found here. These classes are typically taught in a collaborative team teaching environment, where the instructors, under the guidance of the course coordinator work on the syllabus, unit lesson plans and student assessments together. As can be seen from the syllabus, a large part of the student's grade comes from participation, so these classes are designed to be very communicative and content-based. Written assignments, on the other hand, are assigned in the form of online blogs called ePortfolio. Students are required to self-reflect on their writing process and difficulties for every blog entry and are additionally also involved in their own progress and self-assessment at the end of the semester. These kinds of student involvement in their own progress is rarely built into a language course, but have been crucial in my students' language acquisition journey. A summary of the latest student evaluations for one of my classes can be accessed here. As is indicated in the evaluations, this originally offline class had to be modified for online due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, I have also had some experience with online instructions.

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As Instructor

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Spring 2020.       Elementary German II (GERST 1220), Cornell

Fall 2019.             Elementary German I (GERST 1210), Cornell

Fall 2016.             Intermediate German I (GERST 2000), Cornell

Spring 2016.        Accelerated Elementary German (GERST 1230), Cornell

Fall 2015.             Accelerated Elementary German (GERST 1230), Cornell

Spring 2015.        Elementary German I (GERST 1210), Cornell

Fall 2014.              English Writing Seminar (LING 1100), Cornell

Spring 2013.         Intermediate German I (GRMN 2001), University of Georgia

Fall 2012.              Intermediate German II (GRMN 2002), University of Georgia

 

 

As Teaching Assistant

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Spring 2019.        Introduction to Linguistics (LING 1101), Cornell

Spring 2018.        Introduction to China (ASIAN 2212), Cornell

Spring 2017.        Introduction to Linguistics (LING 1101), Cornell

Spring 2012.        Intermediate German II (GRMN 2002), University of Georgia

Fall 2011.              Intermediate German II (GRMN 2002), University of Georgia

                                   

As Tutor

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Fall 2018-                TESOL Writing, Cornell

Spring 2019

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As Guest Lecturer

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2020.       Linguistic Diversity: Indonesian and closely related languages. Krida Wacana Christian                          University. Jakarta, Indonesia.

2020.       The Role of Semantics & Pragmatics in Translation. Christian University Krida Wacana.                           Jakarta, Indonesia.