What makes a good teacher great?

The speaker, Azul Terronez, was

perplexed with this same question. He gathered 26,000 responses in different
institutions, may it be in poor, suburban and elite schools; collated them and
presented a very enticing and meaningful speech at TED X - Santo Domingo.
His speech revolved around the responses of the learners on how they
reacted to the question given to them. The speaker’s message presented the
views and perceptions of learners, and how these will affect educators of
today. It is timely and relevant especially now that the education system has
adapted to the new normal in education. There are challenges with the
adjustment, and the speech brought about realizations and touching answers
with deep connotations.

The context of the speech was the question “What makes a good
teacher great?”, and the varied responses of students from different
educational institutions. It clearly built the circumstance having been very
eager to give justification to every answer. It was a memorized speech, and it
was very appealing to the listeners. It really showed that the speaker is a
master of his speech, and that with technology thru interactive slides, the
message was clearly delivered to the audience. It was efficient to the point
that everyone reacted thru laughter, because although it was a memorized
speech, there were puns from the responses of the students with clear
illustrations that made the presentation quite humorous and interactive.
Further, there were illocutionary acts present in the speech, mostly found on
the responses of the students, and the message were revealed thru the
interpretation of the teacher. One was “A great teacher is not a teacher.” If
read, it is vague, however, according to the speaker, a great teacher is not
someone that teaches the parts of the bike for a person to learn how to bike,
but to model and to execute the said act. Another illocutionary act was a
student response saying “A great teacher has a life outside the school.” It
implies not the literal, but for teachers to understand what students’ lives are
outside the school. Furthermore, when one student said “The Great Teacher
Sings.” The student did not ask the teacher to sing, however the next day, the
teacher sang, and Danny (student) said, “See, I told you, a great teacher
sings.” These were all illocutionary acts because although the sentence or
locutionary statement meant differently, it has another meaning, or request for
teachers to do such.

As a viewer, I was attached with the speech that I laughed together

with the real-time audience. I was able to nod many times, and realized I
agreed with how Terronez presented his arguments. But, one thing really
caught me. It was the last response about a great teacher that listens. We
were taught how to write well, how to speak in public, and how to read and
comprehend, but little did we know we have virtual zero percent in listening
lessons. If teachers are just hired without the qualification of being a fountain
of content, but instead a fountain that understands, what a great school would
it be. I would like to commend the speaker and how composed he is in
presenting every important detail of his speech. It was beyond expectation, I
did not even yawn. Lastly, it would have been better if the lapel is not echoing
hush or winds from the speakers voice, for some information when spoken
with little volume could not be clearly grasped because of the wind from the
speaker’s voice. Overall, “What Makes A Good Teacher Great” by Azul
Terronez, thru TED X - Santo Domingo, was a very effective speech.