Maria Katondo
186 Mill St, Apt 212
Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone: (740) 591-9582
Email: mk462914@ohio.edu
My interest in teaching languages has been gradually shaped by all the different ways in which I have experienced languages: as a learner and as a teacher. Born in a country that speaks English more as a foreign language than a second language, I developed an immense desire to learn and speak English language. However, it was not until I joined High School that I started to realize that language is more than just speaking, listening, writing and reading. That was 2006 when I was first exposed to such linguistics modules as Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics.
This experience was very significant in my choice of linguistics as a discipline when I was admitted at the University of Dar es Salaam for my undergraduate studies in 2008. This gave me the chance to study more the linguistic aspects of different languages, contrary to the studies in the Secondary School which were mainly in the English language. After my university studies in August 2011, I worked as a Secondary School English teacher in Tanzania. As a language teacher, I developed a greater understanding of questions about language proficiency and linguistic knowledge.
In August 2013, I won a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, where I worked as a Swahili language Teaching Assistant in the Department of African Languages and Literature, for the academic year 2013/2014. Teaching English in Tanzania, and then teaching the Swahili Language in the US gave me a very special experience in teaching languages to foreigners.
My philosophy of teaching has been formed since I started my teaching career in 2011. I learned that teaching and learning have to student-centered, it has to involve ‘to and fro’ communication between the teacher and the student. It has to involve collaboration among students themselves and not competition. A good teaching method has to base on discovery learning in which students themselves through the guidance of the teacher have to learn new contents through observation and discovery. A teacher has to facilitate teaching and learning process in the classroom and he or she is not supposed to mouth feed students but rather students have to learn themselves through the teacher guidance. A good teaching practice has to involve the performance of what has been taught in real life.
In my teaching practices, I have always encouraged pair work in the class. I believe that in language learning there are some shy students who do not feel comfortable talking or speaking in the target language in front of other students in a class so through pair work it helps them to communicate with another student in the target language. I normally use scenario questions in my evaluation of a topic as well as sub-topics which I have taught. Scenario questions help students to apply what they have learned in real life settings. In most of the time, I use role plays in my teachings because I believe that it is also one of the ways which can facilitate a student to speak in the target language.
I believe in teaching a foreign or second language a teacher has to give as many exercises as possible in both written and spoken forms to students and he or she has to provide an immediate feedback. Feedbacks are very essential in language learning, helps learners to know their mistakes and areas where they are improving well. Positive feedback can also motivate a student to learn more about that particular language as well.
Being a foreign language teacher, I normally immense my students to the target language culture through watching movies. Language is part of a culture and if you are teaching a foreign language you have to introduce the culture of people who speak that language to students. My students watch episodes of English movies in classes and then they have to go and write a summary of what each episode was all about using their own words, this helps them to use and manipulate the language knowledge they have in written forms, as well as they, get the chance to know the total ways of life of the people who speak the language.
I consider myself a good teacher because I am a young, energetic, hardworking, visionary, and self-motivated person who always aim at improving individual student's performance.
Thank you,
Maria Katondo.
