Ministry of Education and Training

Hanoi National University of Education

Faculty of English

ASSIGNMENT ON ELT
TITLE: THE ROLE OF A TEACHER

INSTRUCTOR: Mrs Nguyen Thi Huong Lan

STUDENT : Nguyen Thi Huong

CLASS : 68B-FOE

ACADEMIC YEAR: 2019 – 2020

Hanoi, December 2019

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PART 1. INTRODUCTION

As far as we know, teachers play important roles in the lives of

the students in their classrooms. And it cannot be denied that
teaching is one of the most difficult and complicated job in life
nowadays. The teacher have to have broad knowledge of
aspects, curriculum, and standards. Beyond that, teachers
need to have  enthusiasm, a caring attitude, and a love of
learning, desire to make a difference in the lives of young
people. They listen and share student troubles. Teachers
seem like a second parent, and students look to them as
examples of right model in life.
In the classroom, the teacher can assume some roles to
teach what they want, a teacher can be a controller,
assessor, organizer, prompter, participant or a resource. Let
find each one.

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PART 2. SIX ROLES OF A TEACHER

1. Controller
When the teachers act as controllers, they are in complete
charge of the class, and the activity of students taking place in
class. They know and control what students do, what students
say and how they say it. Everything happen in the class are
controlled by the teacher. Controllers take the roll, tell
students many things, organize drills, read aloud, and in others
way exemplify the qualities of a teacher-fronted classroom.

That teacher act as a controller has some great advantages:

 Be useful to make announcements, give instructions and
restore order
 Constitutes a good language model for the students
 Well-organized class activities
 Efficiently class time

In the classroom, all attention is focused on the teacher, they

convey knowledge from themselves to their students. The
teacher takes the floor and tell students things, ask them to do
this or that. While the students just need listen and listen and
follow the instructions of teachers. Students are working at the
same beat and are taught in the same level.

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Example:

Teacher: “Last two weeks, I asked you to make a dialogue…?

Do you still remember about that, class?” (Stood in front of
class and held a board marker)

The teacher and students were discussing about what they had
done two weeks before. The teacher acted as a controller when
he was in front of the class in order to express his authority in
the class. That was showed from non-verbal interaction which
is from his action in front of the class to control the class. Thee
teacher acted as a controller when he reminded what they had
done in two weeks by sayings “I asked you to make a
dialogue”. The teacher tried to remind his students about the
activities before by asking a question “Do you still remember
about that, class?”

This role is also really useful in some situations. For example,

in the lesson of English grammar, the teacher presents the
past tense and its use to students. The teacher can give
students an explanation of specific grammar structure and how
to use it. Besides, it is easy for teacher to control the class
time and organize well class activities.

However, this role remains some disadvantages:

+ Denies students access to their own experiential learning
by focusing everything on the teacher.
+ Cut down on opportunities for student to speak
+ Lacks of variety in activities and classroom atmosphere
+ Denies teachers and students many other possibilities and
models of learning
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Although with this role teachers can inspire the students with
their own knowledge and expertise, does this role really allow
for enough student talk time? When the class is acting as a
large group, students will not have the opportunity to speak
and express themselves, use the language independently and
creatively. Moreover, this role make the teacher is only a
person who convey knowledge to others people. Lack of
variety of activities easily makes the classroom atmosphere
boring and unattractive. The students need feel that they are
learning rather than be taught and to participate properly in
the communicative activities.

2. Organizer
The second role is the important role of teacher as an
organizer of learning. Perhaps it is the most difficult and
important role that teacher has to play in the classroom.  It is
extremely important that teachers are comfortable in this role,
as chaos could be caused if students are not aware of the task .
The main aim of the teacher when organizing an activity is to
tell the students what they are going to do, to give clear
instructions about their task and to get the activity going.
 
The teacher need to give the students information and
instruction, tell them how they are going to do the activity. The
teacher can divide students into pairs or small groups of four,
five or more, give them limited time for the activities and tell
them the result or feedback when it is time to stop.

For instance, the teacher divide students into groups of four

and offer that :”And now, each group has to make a dialogue

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about sport. Each person must have five sentences to be
talked in the team. Each team has 10 minutes for this
activities. Let’s start.”
In this situation, the teachers give their students one topic
which is used for making the dialogue. Furthermore, the
teachers told the students how many sentences which each
person should be made in the group. The teacher was giving
the information about what they should do in their group and
how many sentences they should make for everyone in the
group. Finally, teachers tell them time to stop.

The organization of an activity:

engage instruct start feedback

The first thing we need to do when organizing something is to

get the students involved, engaged and ready. They need to
feel enjoyable and interested when joining the activities that
teacher organizes. Instead of just doing something that
teachers offer, students will have to prepared, feel interested
in activity and hope with some enthusiasm.
For example, teacher can engage students like: “We will
continue unit 1, ”Home life” with Speaking part. Now, please
open your book on page 65 and answer some questions about
family and yourself.”

Then, when the students are really ready for the activity,
teachers should give them some necessary information and
instructions. Tell students what they have to do first, what they
should do next, etc. The teachers need to give clear
instructions for students. This may be especially changing as
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the students do not speak English as their first language. And
it is extremely a good idea to get students to give the
instructions back, in English or in their own language. This is
an effective way for teachers to check that whether their
students have understood it or not.
Example:
Teacher: “Today we will continue with “Home life” topic.
Please open your book on page 65.
You are going to ask and answer some questions
about family.
OK, so now I want you to work in pairs and discuss
the question in your book. After 15 minutes, I will call some
pairs to present your discussion in front of class.
OK, will you work individual or in pairs?”

After understanding the activity, it is time for students to start

or initiate the activity. Students need to know how much time
they have got for activities and exactly when they should. Turn
back to the example mentioned above, ten minutes is the
limited time which each group got to do the activities.

Finally, teachers stop students from the activity, and give them
the feedbacks or comments. For the above example, after ten
minutes, teachers should offer students have finished. This
might be because they are bored, or some groups have
already finished before the others.
Example:
Teacher: “Huong’s presentation is really good. She mentioned
to her parents, her siblings and herself. I appreciate her
sharing about some activities of her family to the class. It is

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the good point. This makes your presentation more interesting
and informative.
But, you should pay attention to your pronunciation.
To summarise, teachers find themselves having to organize
students to do various activities, giving instructions, organizing
students into groups/pairs, initiating activities, bringing
activities to a close and organizing feedback.

3. Assessor
The third role is acting as an assessor. Sometimes the students
are producing English mistakes and this is where the teacher
will need to act as an assessor, giving feedback and correction
as well as evaluating and grading for them.

Students need to know whether they are getting their English

right or wrong. This is extremely important. In this situation,
the teacher gives feedback and correction and grades students
to show if they can pass to the next level.

For example, while the groups performed, the teacher was

paying full attention
to the students and enjoying the performance. At this time, the students are
expressing their group dialogue. While the students performed, the teacher was
sitting at his chair and giving full attention to the students’ performance. The
teacher not only paid full attention but also took a note for their performance.
The note was used to grade their performance. Giving his/her attention and
writing his/her notes showed that he played the role as an assessor who
prepared the note and grade the students from it. For instance, the teacher
says” That is not quite right, Linh. You should be used the present perfect.

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Repeat after me: My brother have finished his course in the university for two
years.”
The role of the assessor is important because the students
always need to find out how their learning process is going and
what can they do to improve their skills.

It is vitally important that the teacher is fair with all the

students as well as being very sensitive to the students'
reactions and providing necessary support. When the students
are criticized or score low grades, they want to know that why
others students have better scores.

4. Prompter
The fourth role is explaining how and when the teacher can act
as prompter. This role saw how the teacher supported the
students during the teaching and learning process. Sometimes,
when the students are joining the activity or the game which
the teacher organized, they may lose the thread of what they
are trying to say, become unsure how to proceed or run out of
ideas. The teacher must encourage and support them in a
suitable way.
In this stage, the teachers should encourage the students think
creatively, rather than take charge of the activity. The teachers
can give the students some suggestions if they have not yet
think of ideas, or suggest what could come next in a paragraph
a student is writing.
For example, in the class, the teacher offer students to write
down names of wonders in the world. One group of student get
stuck and can’t continue the task. Thus the teachers can say
that:” Why don’t you think about some attractions in our

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continent?” Often we have to prompt students in monolingual
groups to speak English rather than using their mother tongue.

The second option explains the role of a prompter. When

prompting the teacher have to be careful not to take the
initiative away from the student. Therefore a great deal of
sensitivity and encouragement is required.
For instance, when a student doesn’t remember a word to
express himself and the teacher must encourage him to finish
his speech without using his native language. It is necessary to
be patient and careful to not take the initiative away from the
student.

5. Participant
The next role is when the teacher is acting as a participant. At
certain stages of the lesson the teachers may wish to
participate in the lesson as an equal in their own right, not as a
teacher. They engage themselves into the activity or
discussion without performing error correction purely for the
purpose of being “a participant” knowing where to draw the
line while offering the support to the learners. This role
improves the atmosphere in the class when the teacher takes
part in an activity.

In this stage, the teachers can do things better from inside

instead of always having to prompt or organize from outside
the group. This role helps teachers feel truest how their
students take part in the activity as a participant, not a
teacher. The teacher sits down with one group and joins in the
activity which they are doing. Besides, it is extremely good

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chance for students to practice English which someone to
speak it better than they do. Moreover, that teachers
participate in the activity with the students will make the
atmosphere of the whole class more enjoyable and exciting.
Perhaps it may help mutual understanding and close more
together.

For example, below is a conversation between teacher and

student:
Student: My family has three members.
They are my parents and me. I am the only child in
my family.
Both of my parents are farmers. I love them so
much.
Teacher: Oh, you are such a lucky child. My family has four
people. And my parents are also farmers too. Of
course, I also love my parents so much.
In this situation, the teacher can talk to her/his students, share
to them and of course, understand them more. Besides, the
teacher can find the problem of students in grammar or
pronunciation, he/she immediately help students improve their
English skills.

Or situation like:” The teacher has a word in her mind and asks
the student guess by asking only yes or no questions until they
make the correct guess.”

However, the teacher takes a risk of dominating the activity

when performing as a participant. It easily make the teachers
become the center of the class, because they have more
English disposal than their students do. Here the teacher can
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enliven a class, if a teacher is able to stand back and not
become the center of attention, it can be a great way to
interact with learners without being too overpowering.

6. Resource
The sixth role is being as a resource. The teacher is a kind of
walking resource center ready to offer help if needed, or
provide learners with whatever language they lack when
performing communicative activities.

The role of ‘a resource’ (Harmer, 2007: 110) corresponds to

the teacher’s identity in the classroom and is one of the often
encountered teacher’s roles during certain tasks given to
students, writing task or a group project, for example. The
teacher must make her/himself available so that learners can
consult her/him when (and only when) it is absolutely
necessary.

Example:
One of the students asked the teacher about one element in the generic
structure of the text
Student: Sir, I want to ask a question. Why does interpretative recount use
present tense?
Teacher: Because it is recount, but actually we should use past tense, so there
is a mistake with this example.
Student: I saw many review text, but it always use present tense.

In other words, the teacher serves students as their ‘resource’

when the need arises to gather some information for instance,
to check the meaning of a certain word or to consult
information needed to complete the project. Specifically, the

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teacher is a walking dictionary, grammar book or is a person
giving advice to students.
Students may need of their teacher as a resource to ask:
+how to say or write something
+what a word or phrase means

Example :
Student: “Dear teacher, I have a question for you. What does
“responsibility” mean?
Teacher: “It just like what you have to do, in your family such
as washes the dishes after meal, or takes after your younger
brother.
“Responsibility” is a noun. In Vietnamese, “trách nhiệm” is its
meaning.

The purpose of this role is to encourage the learner autonomy

in learning and provide them with guidance regarding where
they can find the answers to what they search for instead of
providing them with an instant answer.

However, no teacher knows everything about the language. In

some situations, the teacher cannot give the student an
appropriate answer or do not have certain information enough
to solve problems of students. Questions like What is the
difference between A and B or Why I cannot say C? are always
difficult to deal with. For example, students can ask:” What is
the difference between hear and listen? Thus, we should say
that:” I don’t know the exact answer right now, but I will tell
you tomorrow.”

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As a resource the teacher can guide learners to use available
resources such as the internet, for themselves, it certainly isn’t
necessary to spoon-feed learners, as this might have the
downside of making learners reliant on the teacher.

PART 3. IMPLICATION AND

APPLICATION OF VIETNAM’S
SCHOOL

Our world is changing, and in order to prepare our children for

this new world
we need to change the way we educate them. And the teacher
play an important role in the 21st century.
The roles not only the teacher plays but the learners engage
in.
Ho Chi Minh said: “What is more glorious as the training of
future generations to actively contribute to building socialism
and communism? The good teacher - the teacher who
deserves to be the teacher - is the most glorious. Although the
names are not published in newspapers, not awarded medals,
good teachers are anonymous brothers. The Resolution of the
Second Conference of the VIII Central Party Committee
affirmed that the contingent of teachers played a decisive role
in the quality of education and was honored by society. The
role of Vietnamese teachers in this day and age is concretely
expressed in the following contents:
 Teachers are the people who educate and train students -
the future generation of the nation.

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  In schools, teachers play a leading role which means that
teachers are not only communicators but also organizers,
instructors, controllers, regulators of cognitive processes
and personality formation processes of the student.
 Today, the characteristics and development trends of the
world are placing high demands on the quality of human
resources, requiring a comprehensive education
renovation. The fundamental innovation trend is
changing from a "teacher-centered" style of teaching to a
"student-centered teaching".

Nowadays, the teacher cannot just play a role in communicating.

knowledge, but also must be able to develop students' emotions,
attitudes, and behaviors, ensure that students master and know how
to properly apply those knowledge ...

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PART 4. CONCLUSION
From the analysis, we find that the teacher played six roles during
the learning and

teaching process.

Teachers should use variety lectures, because students need

surprises, they get bored writing all the time or listening all the time.
Despite this teachers need to be careful, they have to find a balance
in which all students will feel good and satisfied. Some students like
changes some not. Some of them feel unsafe in these changes and
are afraid to speak or be part of classroom activities. Nowdays
teachers use plans for each class, but in my opinion we should not
use plans, because good teachers should be always prepared or
better say they should be flexible.

In any society, at any stage of human development, teachers are

very important, because they are the people directly involved in the
education and training of the next generation.

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*Reference:

[1] The implementation of teaching-learning cycle of

genre-based approach and roles of the teacher in
twelfth grade acceleration class _Sma negeri 1 gresik

[2] https://etoninstitute.com/blog/the-7-roles-of-a-teacher-in-the-
21st-century

[3]https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c4e1/0127065c24385a63c03184
de46b93844bd7c.pdf

[4] https://www.scribd.com/doc/47777493/1-Teacher-roles

[5] Theoretical Background to ELT Methodology_Compiled and

edited by Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, Hanoi National university of
education, Faculty of English

MAIN CONTENT
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PART 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………. 2

PART 2: SIX ROLES OF THE TEACHER ……………………………………. 3

PART 3: IMPLICATION AND APPLICATION OF

VIETNAM’S SCHOOL …………………………………………………………... 12

PART 4: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………….. 14

*REFERENCE ……………………………………………………………………. 14

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