Teaching Statement
In a separate statement of no more than 600 words, explain your interest in teaching at Syracuse University as part of your graduate program, and describe the skills and experiences that could make you an effective and committed teacher. How is teaching related to your intellectual interests and career goals? Have you ever been a tutor, classroom teacher, or coach? If not, what experiences have prepared you for teaching, including work, community service, or developing your own strategies of learning? Draw on these experiences to explain the skills and philosophy of learning that you would bring to teaching. Although you are not expected to have formal teaching experience before coming to the University, all graduate students in English with teaching assistantships or fellowships will teach at some time while at Syracuse University. Teaching may include: being a teaching assistant for an English Department lecture course, teaching composition courses in the university's independent Writing Program, and designing and teaching one's own courses as a Teaching Associate in the English Department. The teaching statement will be assessed not only for its content but also for its writing.
I want to be a teacher because I believe in the importance of education in a society, and because knowledge we accumulate is valuable only if it is shared. I want to assist with teaching undergraduate students because my dream is to be a scholar and professor in literature. I want to teach during my graduate study because teaching expands my communication skills and tests the depth of my knowledge.
I don't have formal teaching experience, but I know what kind of teacher students like and need. Students like interacting with teachers, because they wish to know teachers as a full man not only as a teacher. Students also need a professional teacher, because "a full man" isn't somebody who boasts of his language skills or academic achievements. Students like encouragement from teachers, because they value teachers' words though they don't say it out. Students also need criticism, because they thoroughly understand "No Pain, No Gain". Students like teachers who use various materials in the class, such as lovely videos and attractive extra books, because only textbook makes Jack a dull boy. Students also need explanations and analysis beyond those physical materials, because these materials have strength only if combined with lecturing. Students like patient teachers because bad scores just mean that they don't find the right way for the moment. Students also need pressure, because too much ease makes them addicted to it. Students are in contradictions because they love truth but always dissatisfied with the way teachers guide them. I know these because I'm a student. I realize a calling to be such a teacher because I used to lack one in my life and I don't want to be regret if I find a chance to become one myself.
I hope to teach, because I want students to know English, no matter writing or literature, is interesting, relevant and fun and because it's the responsibility of the teacher to present the subject in an attracting and engaging manner that show the beauty of English as well as its applicability to solving practical and real-world problems and to nurture each student's interest to learn. I want to teach writing, because writing has always come naturally to me, because writing gives me a great advantage-being able to communicate what I think and feel and need and see in suitable words and logical sentences to someone else. I can teach writing, because writing is more about the ideas which have no huge difference between the Chinese and American than about the vocabularies and grammar. I can teach writing, because I've experienced the terrible struggle of writing-racking our brains and trying to write down the hidden and mysterious inside of us, because students will had the advantage of advice from someone who has struggled with it, and because writing, in fact, it not that difficult.
I can teach, because I have enthusiasm and experience and knowledge and understanding of whom and what I'm going to teach. I want to teach, because I am always contend but never satisfied.
In a separate statement of no more than 600 words, explain your interest in teaching at Syracuse University as part of your graduate program, and describe the skills and experiences that could make you an effective and committed teacher. How is teaching related to your intellectual interests and career goals? Have you ever been a tutor, classroom teacher, or coach? If not, what experiences have prepared you for teaching, including work, community service, or developing your own strategies of learning? Draw on these experiences to explain the skills and philosophy of learning that you would bring to teaching. Although you are not expected to have formal teaching experience before coming to the University, all graduate students in English with teaching assistantships or fellowships will teach at some time while at Syracuse University. Teaching may include: being a teaching assistant for an English Department lecture course, teaching composition courses in the university's independent Writing Program, and designing and teaching one's own courses as a Teaching Associate in the English Department. The teaching statement will be assessed not only for its content but also for its writing.
I want to be a teacher because I believe in the importance of education in a society, and because knowledge we accumulate is valuable only if it is shared. I want to assist with teaching undergraduate students because my dream is to be a scholar and professor in literature. I want to teach during my graduate study because teaching expands my communication skills and tests the depth of my knowledge.
I don't have formal teaching experience, but I know what kind of teacher students like and need. Students like interacting with teachers, because they wish to know teachers as a full man not only as a teacher. Students also need a professional teacher, because "a full man" isn't somebody who boasts of his language skills or academic achievements. Students like encouragement from teachers, because they value teachers' words though they don't say it out. Students also need criticism, because they thoroughly understand "No Pain, No Gain". Students like teachers who use various materials in the class, such as lovely videos and attractive extra books, because only textbook makes Jack a dull boy. Students also need explanations and analysis beyond those physical materials, because these materials have strength only if combined with lecturing. Students like patient teachers because bad scores just mean that they don't find the right way for the moment. Students also need pressure, because too much ease makes them addicted to it. Students are in contradictions because they love truth but always dissatisfied with the way teachers guide them. I know these because I'm a student. I realize a calling to be such a teacher because I used to lack one in my life and I don't want to be regret if I find a chance to become one myself.
I hope to teach, because I want students to know English, no matter writing or literature, is interesting, relevant and fun and because it's the responsibility of the teacher to present the subject in an attracting and engaging manner that show the beauty of English as well as its applicability to solving practical and real-world problems and to nurture each student's interest to learn. I want to teach writing, because writing has always come naturally to me, because writing gives me a great advantage-being able to communicate what I think and feel and need and see in suitable words and logical sentences to someone else. I can teach writing, because writing is more about the ideas which have no huge difference between the Chinese and American than about the vocabularies and grammar. I can teach writing, because I've experienced the terrible struggle of writing-racking our brains and trying to write down the hidden and mysterious inside of us, because students will had the advantage of advice from someone who has struggled with it, and because writing, in fact, it not that difficult.
I can teach, because I have enthusiasm and experience and knowledge and understanding of whom and what I'm going to teach. I want to teach, because I am always contend but never satisfied.
