The 9 Different Roles A Teacher Takes On In The Classroom
Being a teacher is my everyday dream since I was a child. As I believe that the future is mainly based on education and students, how they can make a progress and improve their skills. So I decided to take apart in this great cycle hoping that one day I can leave a mark in student's life.
The teacher's responsibility is not only about teaching students and correcting their pronunciation or grammatical mistakes; his/her responsibility includes a lot of roles.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dina I.
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Nine Basic Traits of a Good Teacher
Before talking about the roles of a successful teacher, I learned from my TEFL certificate that there are nine basic traits of a good teacher. These traits are divided to four points related to teacher's personality and the other five are related to the relationship between the teacher and the students. Since I had started my TEFL course, I recognized that I have to apply these features to be a good teacher and can really affect students' progress.
The first four points related to personality stated that a good teacher should be kind, patient, really loves teaching and able to motivate learners. While the other part is explaining that teacher should be a subject matter expert, can build a rapport with students and involve all students within the class. Moreover, the good teacher should be able to correct students' mistakes without affecting their motivation in a friendly way and he has to recognize their strength and weakness points and how to develop their strength areas and how to handle the weakness ones.
After analyzing these traits, I think I should be distinctive by applying the mentioned traits. The major value added from the TEFL certification is learning the different roles of teacher inside the classroom, how to shift from one role to another based on the class's circumstances and the students and the benefits of each role.
The Controller
During a typical lesson a teacher will have some, or all, of the following roles: The first role is controller in which teachers are effectively in charge of the class and of the activity in a way that is quite different from an activity where the students are working on their own.
The Organizer
The second role is being an organizer. This role is one of the most important, as teachers find themselves having to organize students to do various activities, giving instructions, organizing students into groups/pairs, initiating activities, bringing activities to a close and organizing feedback. It is extremely important that teachers are comfortable in this role, as chaos could be caused if students are not aware of the task.
Also read: Top 5 Skills Teachers Need To Set Their Students Up For Success
The Assessor
The third role is acting as an assessor; sometimes students are producing English mistakes and this is where the teacher will need to act as an assessor, giving feedback and correction as well as evaluating and grading. It is vitally important that the teacher is fair with all the students as well as being very sensitive to the students' reactions and providing necessary support.
The Prompter
The fourth role is explaining how and when the teacher can act as prompter. When students lose the thread of what they are trying to say or run out ideas, the teacher decides whether to allow the student to work it out for him/herself or should the teacher gently encourage the student along. The second option explains the role of a prompter. When prompting the teacher have to be careful not to take the initiative away from the student. Therefore a great deal of sensitivity and encouragement is required.
The Participant
The next role is when the teacher is acting as a participant. At certain stages of the lesson the teacher may wish to participate in the lesson as an equal, not as a teacher. There can be a number of reasons for this such as being able to participate in activities with students or balancing the number of pairs during an activity. As a participant teacher; it is essential not to dominate the activity or focus attention upon him/herself.
Also read: 4 Easy Ways to Build Confidence and Persistence in Students
The Tutor
The sixth role is being a tutor. This role will often be employed when students are working individually and need some guidance and support or when they are working in pairs and teachers stop briefly to give encouragement. Again, care needs to be taken to ensure the teacher gives equal attention to all students and to avoid intruding too much.
The Facilitator
A facilitator; the seventh teacher's role is stating that the teacher devises activities that allow the students simply to get on with the process of learning a language for themselves. There are many occasions when the teacher will wish to withdraw completely from the activity and leave the students to participate in tasks without any interruption or interference.
The Model
The eighth one is related to the learners who have an advanced level in English language. The model; many adult learners particularly want to benefit from the speech or pronunciation model that the teacher offers. They also want to learn as much vocabularies as much from their teacher so at this stage, the teacher is called a model.
The Observer
Finally, the last role is explaining the teacher's task when he acts as an observer. During the course of a lesson the teacher will wish to monitor what is going on in the classroom. This can give the teacher information as to how long an activity is likely to take and how successful it has been. During oral communicative activities the teacher may also want to make notes for correction or praise at a later stage. There are occasions when the teacher may also need to move in a little, to hear spoken work or to look at writing in progress, in order to monitor effectively.
Also read: 6 Steps To Becoming a More Confident Teacher
Do you have what it takes to be a teacher?
As well as having the attributes of a 'good teacher' and knowing which role to take and when, an experienced teacher will know how to involve and engage the students, how to effectively use mime, gesture and his/her voice.
This is what I gained from the TEFL course and materials and I will keen on continuous learning and studying to fit the eighth role and being a model teacher for my students, supporting them whenever they need to.
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