Jane | Teacher #4616

Teaching Philosophy

I believe that music is for everyone, and everyone has certain musical talents to be unfolded as we are all musical creatures. My primary goal as a piano teacher is to introduce piano playing to my students and inspire them to enjoy music and practice regularly, whether it is for leisure or for personal development. My teaching philosophy comes from my mother who taught me piano since I was five. I was inspired by her enthusiasm on teaching and caring about her students. Therefore, I see that establishing a good rapport with students is the key for success in coaching students in addition to teaching them ample musical knowledge and piano techniques. Establishing a relationship needs time and so as learning the piano. Therefore, I believe that learning piano is a long-term project which could not be replaced by any short intensive piano courses or piano learning apps. It takes months and years of learning and practicing for an individual to acquire skills in a proper way. Hence, my job is to motivate my students to keep their passions in learning piano. To keep them motivated, I want my students to learn through discovery. This would be done by asking questions and having them to think on their own or sometimes even asking them to figure out some solutions to tackle the problem rather than giving them instructions and corrections instantly. About my teaching focus, it would not merely be piano playing (performance). Sight-reading, aural skills and essential music theory knowledge would also be incorporated in my lessons. There are very important elements to develop one’s musicality. In my lessons, I will teach my students a good range of variety of piano pieces from the Baroque period to modern period and perhaps including pop music in order to engage them in my lessons while fingering exercises should never be ignored. Also, I would like to build my students' competency in reading music by introducing them to various brief reading exercises regularly. For young learners, I will have more activities such as body movement and four-hand playing during my lesson to make learning piano more fun. Suitable method books for different young learners will be used according to their strength and characters to motivate children to practice. For immediate level students, I would like to cover creative composition or improvisation to further unfold their musicality. My lessons would not be exam oriented. I believe that it takes time for most young learners to acquire fundamental techniques and to develop ample musicality before they are ready to perform examination pieces. At the same time, I strike to offer customized individual lessons, hoping my students could learn something out of each lesson. Therefore, different learning styles would be accommodated since I see my role as a coach to uncover students' strength and to help them overcome their weaknesses. I look forward to becoming my students' guidance, and it would be my honor to be their companion on their music learning journey.