Subject: Advanced Teaching Methodology
Instructor: Dr. Nguyen Thu Huong
Student: Nguyen Le Ba Tong
Class: TESOL 13B

REFLECTION PAPER
That ‘teaching is simply the process of transferring knowledge from teachers to students’ is what I used to think. However, since I started studying Advanced Teaching Methodology, my point of view has changed dramatically. The course has provided me with valuable knowledge which not only broadens my horizons but also help me develops my own professional competence. This paper will focus on some main points of the course including theories about learners’ characteristics and influences of the setting as well as important pedagogical approaches and techniques, and demonstrate how they help to shape my teaching style.
The very first lesson in the course was about learners’ characteristics. Lightbown and Spada (2006) have mentioned some factors such as ‘intelligence, aptitude, learning style, personality, motivation, attitudes, identity, beliefs and age’ which may affect the language learning ability and the teaching process. Talking about ‘intelligence’ and ‘aptitude’, they explained that individuals have different strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, a method which is effective in teaching a group of learners may prove to be ineffective when applied to another. Learning vocabulary by memorizing, for instance, seems to be suitable for ones who have good memory but not for those who lack this ability. Learners also have different learning ‘styles’ and ‘personalities’. It is usually thought that some types of people tend to easily achieve success in learning language and some learning styles seem to be more efficient than others. However, those ideas are not always true. In some situation, for instance, the quiet observers who are usually thought to be less successful achieve greater success (as cited in Lightbown and Spada, 2006).