Teach English in Wuli Zhen - Huai'an Shi

Facilitating adequate learning in an ESL classroom requires more than just providing students with language points and practice; a stimulating environment that keeps students engage along with adequate consideration of catering to the different needs and levels of students is equally important. There are various elements to consider to this end, including selection of materials, activities and lesson structure, but one often overlooked strategy is planning the lesson around varying roles of the teacher in order to aid learning through fluctuating class dynamic. This essay will consider how adapting the role of the teacher and considering the roles during lesson planning can enhance student experience and learning by first expounding on existing theory and then considering application paired with various activities and lesson phases. The most prominent role employed by teachers is that of manager or controller. This is evident when watching demo classes online as well as past consideration of the author’s own experience in school and university. This role is especially prevalent in the engage and study phases of lessons, with other roles often introduced only during the activate phase, most commonly that of organizer. During the engage and study phase one might also see elements of prompting or modeling, but these are yet more teacher-centered roles and ultimately amounts to more control with the teacher. This means that the lesson relies heavily on teacher input, eliciting student response through questions or cold-calling, class discussions propelled by the teacher, study phase activities with heavy teacher input and students becoming comfortable with taking little responsibility for their own learning, especially in large classes. The first step towards altering this teacher-centered dynamic is thus relinquishing control and considering alternative roles to facilitate different approaches to learning, particularly the more neglected roles of participant, observer or monitor, resource or facilitator, tutor and assessor. Considering the phases of the lesson thus, during the engage phase, an alternative approach would be to allow a student or group of students to plan an activity, game or discussion questions. This can be arranged in the previous class allowing for adequate preparation or the activity can be introduced at the start of the lesson with students reacting to prompting from each other rather than the teacher. The teacher could thus take the role of participant, sitting at a desk with the students and taking part in the conversation. Alternatively, the teacher could merely act as observer, standing at the back of the class and stepping in only when it is time to move on to a different phase of the lesson. During the study phase, despite the use of various materials such as worksheets, listening materials, gap-fill exercises, group work, pair work or individual work, it is still common to see the teacher at the front of the class taking control of the learning process, providing answers after the work is completed, providing model speech and rigidly controlling the time of activities, thus acting as observer only for short periods of time while students are working. An alternative strategy could be to focus the role of the teacher on resource or facilitator, tutor and participant. The materials for the study phase can be given to students in bulk and in organizing the activity, instead of running one study phase activity at a time, the order of study phase activities can be left to the students. This can be particularly effective with group or pair work scenarios, allowing the students to split the work, decide together which tasks they should focus on together, learn from each other or figure things out for themselves (teacher as observer), or ask the teacher questions only when necessary instead of the teacher offering information (teacher as resource). To bolster such activities, the study phase can be arranged such that worksheets, writing tasks, etc. be checked through a process of peer review rather than the teacher going through each answer immediately upon completion of the task. This will also allow more time for the teacher to move through the class, acting as tutor, or to become a participant, working with the weaker students as an alternative to pairing weak students with strong students. The activate phase lends itself well to the teacher acting first as organizer and then as observer, however, acting as participant can add greatly to the class dynamic and help weaker students, as mentioned above. Though overcorrecting students is not conducive to adequate participation, the role of assessor should not be neglected during this phase either. Students need and expect feedback and correction. However, an interesting alternative to merely providing feedback after completion of a roleplay, presentation or other productive activity would be to allow student feedback first, thus acting as organizer and observer. Considering the roles of the teacher as a way to plan lessons with altered class dynamic in the various phases can alleviate monotony in the classroom and give students more autonomy in their learning process. Though it is extremely important to consider the level, age and class size before becoming overly creative with possible role switches, planning lessons in this way provides a different way to think about structuring lessons and choosing and organizing activities, helping teachers to think outside the box and come up with teaching ideas they might have neglected in their regular comfort zone roles, thus enhancing student experience and learning.