Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Describing Teachers (V)
Describing Teachers (V)
What is a teacher?
- How teachers see themselves:
a) Actors
b) Orchestral conductors
c) Gardeners
- ‘Teaching means to give (someone) knowledge or to instruct or train (someone)’.
- ‘to show somebody how to do something or to change somebody’s ideas’.
Controller
- Teachers are in charge of the class and of the activity taking place.
- They take roles, tell students things, organize drills, read aloud and in various ways
exemplify the qualities of a teacher-fronted classroom.
- In many educational contexts, the controller is the most common teacher role
- Moments when acting as a controller makes sense: making announcements, bringing
class to order, giving explanations, lecturing, organizing question and answer work.
- Drawbacks: it denies students access to their own experiential learning by focusing
everything on the teacher, it cuts down on opportunities for students to speak, lack of
variety in activities and classroom atmosphere.
Prompter
- When we prompt, we need to do it sensitively and encouragingly, but with discretion.
- Drawbacks: if we are too adamant, we risk taking initiative away from the student, if we
are too retiring, we may not supply the right amount of encouragement.
Participant
- Teachers may want to join in an activity not as a teacher, but as a participant in their own
right.
- For the teacher, participating is more enjoyable than acting as a resource.
- Students will enjoy having the teacher with them.
- Drawbacks: teachers can easily dominate the proceedings.
Resource
- When we are acting as a resource, we will want to be helpful and available, but not to the
extent where students become over-reliant on us.
- No teacher knows everything about the language!
- However, we should be able to offer guidance as to where students can go look for that
information.
- Teachers can be one of the most important resources students have when they:
a) Ask how to say or write something
b) Want to know what a word or phrase means
c) Want to know information in the middle of an activity about that activity or wher to
look for something
Tutor
- Teachers work with individuals or small groups, pointing them in directions they have
not yet thought of taking (combining the roles of prompter and resource – i.e. a tutor).
- The term implies a more intimate relationship than that of a controller or organizer.
- In this more personal contact, the learners have a real chance to feel supported and
helped.
Organizer
- Teachers organize students to do various tasks.
- Organizing students involves: giving them information, telling them how they are going
to do the activity, putting them into pairs or groups, stop the activity it is time to stop.
- When organizing something teachers need to get the students involved, engaged and
ready.
- Drawbacks: if the instructions are not clear, students will no understand what they are
supposed to do and may not get full advantage from an activity.
- Summary of the role on an organizer:
Engage Instruct (demonstrate) Initiate Organize feedback
Assessor
- A teacher acts as an assessor when:
a) He/she offers feedback and correction
b) Grades students in various ways
c) Indicates whether or not students are getting their English right
- Students need to know what for and how they are being assessed.
- In this way, they will have a clear idea of what they need to concentrate on.
- Drawbacks: misuse of fairness, when facing a poor performance and constructive
criticism is not offered; students tend to feel unhappy, we should not make them feel that
they are being unfairly judged, a bad grade can be made more acceptable if it’s given
with sensitivity.
Observer
- He/she observes what the students are doing, as well as the materials and activities.
- Success – gives us a different feel for how well our students are doing.
- Teachers need to be able to switch between the various roles, judging when it is
appropriate to use one or the other.
- Teachers need to be aware of how they carry out selective activities and tasks.
Rapport
- The relationship that the students have with the teacher and vice versa.
- Successful interaction with students depends on four key characteristics:
a) Recognizing students: students want their teachers to know who they are (their
names or some understanding of their characters). Good rapport involves knowing the
students’ names (although it is difficult).
b) Listening to students: students respond well to teachers who listen to them. Teachers
need to make themselves available in order to listen to students’ individual opinions
and concerns (along with eye contact and generally looking interested).
c) Respecting students: being too critical might demotivate the students, while too
much praise will result in them needing approval all the time. Students need to know
that teachers are treating them with respect, and not use mockery or sarcasm.
d) Being even-handed: treating all students equally not only helps to establish and
maintain rapport but is also a mark or professionalism. ‘A good teacher is someone
who asks the people who don’t always put their hands up’.
- Disadvantages;
a) Rapport
b) Some teachers find individual students difficult to deal with
c) Some students are lacking confidence or untalkative for other reasons
d) Some students find the teacher’s methodological style difficult to deal with
e) Students and teachers can often become tired or sleepy
f) Students can be very demanding
Guidelines:
1. Make a good impression: a good impression is created by the way we present
ourselves and how we behave during the first lesson.
2. Be well-prepared: think beforehand what we are going to do in the lesson (if we
come well-prepared and with a range of possible activities, it will boost the students’
confidence in us).
3. Be flexible: if language work is proving more or less difficult than anticipated, we
will it easy to change the pace, move forwards or go back to something we studied
earlier.
4. Adapt to the student: we can adapt what we do to suit particular student’s
preferences and learning style.
5. Listen and watch: we need to be extremely observant about how individual students
respond to different activities, styles and content.
6. Give explanations and guidelines: it is important to explain what is going to happen,
and how the student can contribute to the programme they are involved in.
7. Don’t be afraid to say no: we should say no in two specific situations: when the
personality match with a student is unsuccessful (be prepared to terminate the classes
or make alternative arrangements) and when the student’s demands are excessive (we
cannot do everything they are asking for).
Large Classes
- Key elements:
1. Be organized: the bigger the group, the more we have to be organized and know
what we are going to do before the lesson starts.
2. Establish routines: the daily management of large classes will be enhanced if we
establish routines that we and our students recognize immediately.
3. Use a different pace for different activities: if we are conducting drills, we may be
able to work at a fast pace, but if we are asking students to think about something, we
need to slow down the pace.
4. Maximize individual work: the more we can give students individual work, the
more we can mitigate the effects of working with a large group ‘as a whole’.
5. Use students: we can give students a number of different responsibilities in the class
(collect homework, hand out worksheets, etc.).
6. Use worksheets: when the feedback stage is reached, teachers can go through the
worksheets with the whole group.
7. Use pairwork and groupwork: they maximize student participation.
8. Use chorus reaction: it may be appropriate to use students in chorus.
9. Take account of vision and acoustics: we have to ensure that what we show/write
can be seen and what we say/play can be heard.
10. Use the size of the group to your advantage: the lecturing, acting and joking
offered in such a situation can be beneficial.
Disadvantages:
1. The teacher may not always share the students’ L1
2. It can restrict the students’ exposure to English
3. Teachers can sometimes find themselves using the L1 more than they intended
4. When we are encouraging students to use English in communicative speaking tasks (to
give them a chance to try speaking in English)
Conclusions:
- Acknowledge the L1
- Use appropriate L1, L2 activities
- Differentiate between levels
- Make clear guidelines
- Use encouragement and persuasion during speaking activities