Becoming A Teacher: What Makes A Good

Teacher
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Some people are born to teach, whilst others must constantly strive to reinvent
themselves and recreate their lessons in the perpetual pursuit of perfection. It is
an ever evolving yet challenging and lifelong learning environment of which we
are an integral part. This article attempts to summarize top qualities of a good
teacher, looks into what makes a good teacher, and provides ideas on becoming
a better teacher.
Hope you find it interesting and make another step on the road to even better
teaching!
What Makes A Good Teacher?
Creating a positive learning atmosphere and developing a good rapport
without showing favoritism. Having the ability to engage and involve students
with your personality.
Being patient for slow learners, needy students requiring attention and
those lacking motivation.
Clarity answering questions in a clear and concise way.
Organized punctual, producing well-planned lessons with suitable material.
Sense of humor miming and body language often require this quality, without
resorting to circus antics.
Adaptable being resourceful.
Imaginative in creating and adapting teaching materials and also empathising
with students in building rapport.
Becoming A Teacher. One Teacher = Many Roles
Controller - the person in control of class management.
Assessor checking and deciding the method of giving feedback e.g. error
correction.
A Resource this is especially the case in developing countries, where there
are limitations
Coach encouraging class participation, especially for shyer students.
Tutor in one-to-one teaching.
Organizer instruction of students for activities and providing feedback.
Facilitator for student interactive communication.
Counsellor solving any language learning problems.
An instructor in the traditional sense on language points such
as pronunciation, vocabulary orgrammar.
A provider of experiences in order for students to practise the four skills they
require, as many language examples as possible are needed.
A model particularly for pronunciation.
A motivator balancing activities to achieve language targets and student
interest.
An authority students rely heavily on teacher pronouncements and so
generalizations should be avoided/explained as such.
An arbiter balancing fluency with accuracy in assessing error correction.
An examiner continuous monitoring and testing.
A disciplinarian essential to maintain class control.
A balancer a sliding scale which constantly changes.
A mentor giving language insight to another culture.
A prompter without taking away the initiative from the student e.g. role-play
activity vocabulary support.
A participant e.g. discussion.
A performer with suitable behavior according to the activity being undertaken.
Rapport builder recognizing, listening to, respecting and being even-handed
with students, in a professional manner.
What Other Attributes Must A Good Teacher Have?
The teacher has to exploit his/her talents as a visual teaching aid to incorporate
mime, gesture and expression to convey meaning and atmosphere in the
classroom.
Language modeling is important as students may find video and audio
recordings difficult to understand.
Teacher Talking Time (TTT) should be used productively and the importance
of our voices never under-estimated.
Observation skills in assessing student performance and progress are also vital.
Teachers must be culturally aware e.g. Japan has a masculine collective
culture, virtually all classes are monolingual, long-term oriented with a high
degree of uncertainty avoidance.