i‑Learner Education Centre

Teacher Diaries

Teacher Diaries: Ms. Nordstrom – Teaching Philosophy

Teaching should mean remembering ourselves as students – the subjects we loved, the ones we didn’t, what inspired us, what motivated us and sparked our curiosity, and what ultimately lead us to want to teach others. For me this means planning lessons guided by creativity and keeping students active and interested while ensuring that the material is being understood. This is true for reading classes with younger students  all the way up to higher levels of critical reading and writing.

So much of our learning happens through memorization, I want to encourage students to think beyond the text-book answers to expressing their own opinions and reasoning. It is not only the language skills that students can acquire here at i-Learner but importantly the analytical skills that will serve them in their higher education.

In a competitive academic environment like Hong Kong’s it is especially important to foster a student’s passion for learning. Being able to look beyond the grammar and into the heart of a text, encouraging a love for reading and being able to feel with a text, will inspire a student to take his or her learning beyond the classroom. This is what I remember from my own experiences and what I want to inspire my students to do.