Harmer, J. (2012). Chapter 65: Teacher Roles.
Essential teacher knowledge: core concepts in English language
teaching. PP 146-147. Pearson Longman.
Teach er roles
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A variety of roles
VVhen we think of people who have taught us, we can, perhaps, remember times when
they stood at the front of the class and told us things; there may have been times when
we were working in groups and they came to help us; or perhaps sometimes we were
working on our own and the teacher didn't seem to be doing very much at all. In each
case they were fulfilling one or more of the different ROLES OF THE TEACHER.
• Teachers are at all times FACILITATO RS of learning. This means that we must always do
eve1ything we can to make learning happen smoothly and appropriately for the
learners - making learning possible, but without making it too easy.
• TRANSMISSION TEACHING (when we are giving the students information or explaining
things) is only one way for students to learn things. We must make sure that that we
also play many other roles in the classroom.
• We need to be CONTROLLERS when we are explaining things, taking the CLASS REGISTER or
telling the students what to do. This often involves standing at the front of the class
and being ve1y clear.
• VVhen we are acting as ORGANISERS in order to set up and start an activity, we should
1 ) ENGAGE the students in the task, 2) give our INSTRUCTIONS clearly and where possible
demonstrate the activity, 3) start the activity and 4) organise FEEDBACK -+72. We look
at instrnctions in detail in -+69.
• We often act as EVI DENCE GATHERERS. When students are doing a groupwork activity, for
example, we will want to MONITOR and make notes (gather evidence) of what they say
or do so that we can provide feedback later. We will check that the students know
what to do and are doing the right thing.
• We often act as PROMPTERS, pushing students to make new sentences and encouraging
them to speak when they are reluctant. We can offer words and phrases to help them
say what they want to say. However, we must be careful not to intervene too much if
they are trying to learn how to communicate on their own.
• We need to act as a RESOURCE for our students. They can ask us questions about things
they don't understand. \Vhen they are involved in individual or groupwork activities,
we should be available to help them and answer their questions. However, we should
remember that no teacher knows eve1ything about the English language and so we
also need to be able to tell them where they can find the answers to their questions
(in a GRAMMAR BOOK, a COURSEBOOK, a DICTIONARY, etc.).
• vVe often act as FEEDBACK PROVIDERS when we CORRECT students' mistakes, make a
comment on what they have said or praise their efforts. Feedback is discussed in -+72.
• \i\Te often act as a kind of EDITOR, for example, when the students are writing in English
or preparing an ORAL PRESENTATION . This means responding to what they have written
(or what they plan to write or say) with comments, questions and suggestions. We
should try not to insist on what they should do, but instead try to make them think
more carefully about what they want to achieve.
• We can act as TUTORS to individual students. This means giving them personal advice
and information about English and going through their work with them. We can
correct or edit their work- or make suggestions about what they can do. It is helpful
to organise tutorial sessions while the rest of the class is working on some other task.
If we can tutor a few individual students in a lesson, we can, over a period of time,
see all of them individually.
• \i\Te should remember, too, that one of the teacher's most important jobs is
COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT PROVIDER to the students, speaking to them in ways that will help
their language acquisition -+35.
 Teacher roles

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What scaffolding means

Many people use the term SCAFFOLDING to describe the ro l e of the teacher. Scaffo lding
derives from the work of Jerome Bruner, amongst others. It means su pporting the students,
providing the framework to hang t heir knowledge on, just as we use scaffolding to support a
structure that is being built.

People who tal k about scaffol ding say it is like a music teacher guiding a child's arm as they
move the violin bow from side to side until the child can make the correct moment alone -
or like parents hel ping their c h i l dren to ride bicycles: they hold on u ntil the child can keep
u pright on their own, but even then they stay close to provide emotional support until the
child is truly independent.

Although both exam p l es concentrate on teaching children to d o t h i ngs, scaffolding is,

perhaps, a good METAPHOR for supporting students at any age.

We discuss scaffolding for YOUNG LEARNERS in ,91.

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The teacher's role, the teacher's place

Because we have many different roles in a classroom, we tend to move around quite a lot.
For example, if we are transmitting information or taking the register, we will often be at
the front of the class. But if we are gathering evidence, we may want to move round the
class listening to (and observing) the different groups at work.

• Sometimes we wilI act as a prompter, resource and feedback provider while working
with just one pair of students.
• Sometimes we will set up a desk at the side of the class so that we can tutor
individual students.
• We need to think of the best place to be for the different roles we play.

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