Teacher Contribution to Student Development
A teacher’s role has the greatest impact on a student’s ability to learn the language. I have never experienced teaching a language to foreign students yet, but I have been a student of a foreign language. The students always tend to feel overworked, or overly informed, and lose their attention and interest in the class, regardless of their own decision to attend the class.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Beatriz E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
The many responsibilities and roles
It is very important to define a teacher’s role, not just to be the facilitator or resource person, but to be their language model and influence. Being fully aware of your role as a teacher has a great impact on the students. The teacher must create a calm atmosphere that will effectively enable the students to feel confident and to build a good rapport with the students.
Also Read: How do I apply for a student visa to legally teach English in France?
Rapport
Building good rapport has the impact that a student will be able to recognize the approachability of a teacher. Therefore, students feel less intimidated to seek clarifications when in doubt, or confused about the subject matter. About building a good rapport, having the knowledge and ability to be able to properly engage with the students is as well one of the many important roles a teacher must master. Engaging students establish their attention and interest before the complete absorption of the lesson happens, and it promotes interaction which is one of the best possible ways to practice and grasp the context of the lesson being taught.
Flexibility
During the learning process, I believe that it is important that the teacher can be flexible to the learning capacity of its students. When the students need more time to grasp the subject matter, and to seek more clarification and process the information, the teacher should always adjust and have the objective of letting students comprehend the matter before moving forward with the next lesson. As this will make the student gain knowledge at its fullest potential.
Also Read: Can I teach English abroad if I have children?
Organization and Control
The role of a teacher does not just limit to how the teacher delivers the lesson, nor how the teacher-student relationship is defined. A teacher should also have the ability to know how to organize the class and as well as control them. For this to be achieved by the teacher, the ability to be able to assess the students play a major role in organizing and controlling the class. When a teacher assesses the students, it means that she will be able to determine the student’s capacity in acquiring the language, and this can be the basis of the teacher being able to organize the students effectively in class. The organization of the class is a delicate role since this role can dictate the dominance of the teacher, and that has a great effect in the class atmosphere as previously mentioned.
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Above all, I think that the most essential role of a teacher is not really the willingness of the teacher to teach nor it is about the teacher and her excellence in teaching; but particularly how much the teacher cares about the learning and the daily achievement of its students.
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