Why I Teach: The Philosophical Case for Language Education
Promise
After this page you can explain my three reasons for teaching: language as a world, purpose as a need, and teaching as a way of directing attention.
Audience: Adults in Réunion (French first language), plain English A2–B1. Context: language learning and teaching, philosophy.
Time to read: 8 minutes · Format: web page
Before you start
You will be able to: name the three ideas, link each to a thinker, and write your own one-sentence “why”.
Three words you need first:
- framing — the way you describe something, which changes how you see it.
- purpose — a reason to keep going.
- philosophy of language — thinking about how words create meaning.
You need: a pen to write your own “why”.
In my words (the original essay)
Language is not a pipe. It is a world.
There is a question I return to regularly, usually on the mornings before a difficult lesson: why do I do this? Not in the existential spiral sense, but as a genuine inquiry. Teaching English is not the obvious career choice for a man who spent eleven years in Sydney running luxury hospitality operations. But the question has an answer, and the answer is philosophical.
Language Is Not Just a Tool
The standard framing of language teaching treats language as a communication instrument — a pipe through which information flows. Learn the pipe well enough and the information reaches its destination. This framing is useful for exam preparation but inadequate for everything else.
Wittgenstein understood it differently. “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” When I help someone move from B1 to B2 English, I am not upgrading their pipe. I am expanding their world. The concepts you can think, the positions you can occupy, the rooms you can enter — these are all shaped by the language you have access to.
I came to English as someone who also had to learn French as a working adult. I understand viscerally what it means to arrive in a new language — to feel simultaneously intelligent in your first language and inarticulate in the new one. That gap is not comfortable. But it is also not fixed. I have watched it close in students dozens of times. That closing is the work.
Purpose as a Philosophical Necessity
Viktor Frankl, writing after he survived Auschwitz and other Nazi camps, observed that those who survived the unsurvivable tended to be those who had a why. Not necessarily a religious why — just something to do, to build, to return to. He was not making a motivational poster. He was describing a structural feature of human psychology.
Teaching gives me that structure. It is not that teaching is painless or that every day is rewarding in the way productivity culture describes. Managing ADHD, bipolar disorder, and Complex PTSD in a second-language country, while delivering classes — this is not easy. But it is purposeful. And purpose, I have found, is the most practical thing there is.
Teaching as Philosophical Act
The best CELTA lesson planning does not start with grammar. It starts with meaning. What are the students trying to do in the world? What language do they need to do it? How does that language work, and why does it work that way? These are questions you cannot answer without at least some philosophy of language.
When I design a lesson, I am making claims about how meaning is constructed, how attention works, how motivation drives acquisition. These are not neutral technical decisions. They are epistemological commitments, dressed up in a lesson plan.
The Socratic tradition holds that education is not the filling of a vessel but the turning of a soul. I am not certain about souls, but I am certain about attention. Teaching at its best is learning to direct your own attention — and then helping someone else direct theirs. That is philosophy in the classroom, whether we call it that or not.
The Honest Answer
I teach because I know what language can do. I have seen it open careers, cross borders, rebuild confidence, allow someone to argue with their employer for the first time in a language that is not their first. I have seen it fail students who needed more than a course could give them.
The philosophical case is real. But the practical case is simpler: when it works, someone leaves the room with more capability than they came in with. That matters. I know it matters. So I keep doing it.
Start with the 60-Day ELT Masterclass to see these ideas in practice. For the mental health dimension of this work, read My Mental Health Journey.
Lecture notes
Segment 1 — Language is a world, not a pipe
One view says language is a pipe: information goes in one end and comes out the other. I prefer Wittgenstein’s line: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” More language means more ideas you can think and more rooms you can enter.
Visual 1 — Before / after pair
What it shows: the pipe and the world.
How to draw it: Draw a thin pipe on the left and a growing circle on the right.
The point it makes obvious: Learning a language grows your world, not just your message.
PIPE VIEW WORLD VIEW info ==========> info ( B1 ) -> ( B2 ) "send the message" small world bigger world
EXAMPLE (learner in Réunion): Jean, a bus driver in Le Port, learns English to B1. Now he can help tourists, read a manual and watch a football interview. His world is bigger, not only his messages.
Check 1: Who wrote “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”?
Show the answer
Next: purpose.
Segment 2 — Purpose: having a “why”
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Nazi camps, often quoted Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” For me, teaching gives that “why”, even on hard days with ADHD, bipolar disorder and Complex PTSD.
Visual 2 — Flow diagram
What it shows: how a “why” keeps you going.
How to draw it: Draw a hard day at the top, the “why” in the middle, the next lesson at the bottom.
The point it makes obvious: The “why” carries you from a hard day to the next day.
hard day | v [ WHY: someone leaves with more ability ] | v next lesson
EXAMPLE (learner in Réunion): a learner preparing a job interview in English has a clear “why”. On tired evenings, this reason helps them still practise for ten minutes.
Check 2: Whose words is the “why … how” line, which Frankl quoted?
Show the answer
Next: teaching as attention.
Segment 3 — Teaching as directing attention
Good lesson planning starts with meaning: what do learners need to do in the world? In Plato’s Republic (Book VII), Socrates says education does not put sight into the soul; it turns the soul in the right direction. I say: teaching helps someone direct their attention.
Visual 3 — Step strip
What it shows: the planning questions in order.
How to draw it: Write four questions in a row, joined by arrows.
The point it makes obvious: Meaning comes before grammar.
[What do they need to do?] -> [What language?] -> [How does it work?] -> [Why does it work that way?]
EXAMPLE (teacher in Réunion): before planning “past simple”, a teacher asks: what do these learners need to do? Answer: tell a doctor what happened. The grammar comes from that need.
Check 3: According to Plato’s Republic, what does education do?
Show the answer
Worked example — write your own “why”
The task: Write one sentence about why you learn or teach English.
| Step | What happens | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name what language will open: “a job in tourism”. | The world view: what grows. |
| 2 | Name the purpose: “so my family is secure”. | The “why” that carries you. |
| 3 | Join them: “I learn English to work in tourism so my family is secure.” | One sentence is easy to remember on hard days. |
Self-explanation prompt: Why join the two parts? Because the goal and the reason together make the “why” strong.
Your turn (guided): Now write yours. Step 1: what will English open for you?
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Why it happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing English only as an exam subject | Exams shape classes. | Ask what English lets you do in the world. |
| Waiting for every day to feel rewarding | Productivity culture promises that. | Purpose is enough on hard days. |
| Starting a lesson plan with grammar | Coursebooks start there. | Start with meaning and need. |
Glossary
| Term | Plain definition | Where first used |
|---|---|---|
| framing | the way you describe something | Segment 1 |
| B1 / B2 | levels on the CEFR scale (intermediate, upper-intermediate) | Segment 1 |
| purpose | a reason to keep going | Segment 2 |
| epistemological | about how we know things | Segment 3 |
| CELTA | a Cambridge certificate for English teachers | Segment 3 |
Quick review
- What are the two views of language in this essay?
- What does Wittgenstein’s line say?
- What did Frankl quote from Nietzsche?
- Where should lesson planning start?
- What is the simple practical reason I keep teaching?
Show all five answers
2) The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
3) “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
4) With meaning: what learners need to do in the world.
5) When it works, someone leaves with more capability than they came in with.
Fact check, 28 October 2026
One correction: the essay said Frankl was “writing from Auschwitz”. Frankl was held at Auschwitz only briefly, then at Kaufering and Türkheim (Dachau subcamps); he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning in nine days in Vienna in 1945, after liberation, and it was published in 1946 (Viktor Frankl; Frankl’s own 1984 preface). The essay now says “writing after he survived Auschwitz and other Nazi camps”. The “why” idea is a line from Nietzsche that Frankl quoted. Checked: Wittgenstein’s line is Tractatus 5.6 (Ogden translation). Note: the “filling of a vessel” image is closest to Plutarch’s essay On Listening, and the “turning of the soul” to Plato’s Republic VII, 518 (Quote Investigator); my sentence about the Socratic tradition is kept as written.
Status: rewritten in lecture-notes style on 28 October 2026. Not tested with readers.