Teach English in GuAnyinge Zhen - Huaihua Shi

To teach in a classroom is a privilege. To have the opportunity to impart knowledge onto others, such as young learners who will shape future generations of this world, is a gift. Not everybody can be a teacher, however, and those who do have the desire to teach must have certain qualities and personality traits. The first on the list of qualities is patience. This is an incredibly important skill for teachers to have; it is quite possibly the most important attribute for a teacher to possess, more so when teaching children (particularly younger children or rambunctious teenagers where discipline may be an issue). Simply put, a person cannot be an effective teacher without having a significant degree of patience. For example, losing one’s patience quickly and/or getting angry will demotivate and likely frighten students, especially those of tender years. In collaboration with patience, kindness is also a most important skill/asset for a teacher to possess, as is the ability to control one’s reactions to problems such as noisy classrooms. Approaching students in a kind and mindful way ensures that the teacher is doing what they can in order to establish a good rapport with the students. Being fair and reasonable is also a necessity when teaching as the teacher must ensure to be reasonable with requests and assignments as well as deal with all the students in an equal manner so as to not segregate the students from each other and to avoid offending any student. This leads to another vital attribute/skill that teachers must possess, and this is the ability to establish and maintain a good rapport with students as well as interact with the students in an effective yet easygoing manner. This helps to ensure that the relationship between the teacher and the students is set up and remains to be one of mutual respect, understanding and effective interaction. If students do not get along with or respect the person teaching them, then they will already have a sort of mental block to being receptive to what that teacher is teaching; making the class being taught redundant at best. Teachers should also have an entertaining and lively personality, making them more likeable to the students. This is an important foundational element of establishing a good rapport with students. If the teacher is fun to interact with as well as learn from, the students are more likely to pick up the subject matter in a quicker manner than if the material was presented in a dull and lifeless way. Additionally, teachers must be able to motivate their students into wanting to learn the subject matter as well as being happy to learn the subject matter. This can be done through methods such as praise for work well done and fun games played in the classroom (learning games). Another vital attribute that a teacher must have is an active and creative imagination. This will allow the teacher to be more creative with lesson plans and methods of teaching; it would make potentially challenging material fun to learn as well as appear to be not quite as difficult as a student may have initially thought. A teacher must also be able to adapt to changing situations as and when they come up; this could take the form of needing to change a lesson plan to incorporate an area that the teacher has noticed needs extra work or perhaps the mood of the class requires a different strategy in order for the lesson to be effective. Closely related to being adaptable, and equally important, is the ability to work with the students. That is, a teacher must have good interpersonal and teamwork skills. This ensures that the teacher is capable to intermingling and otherwise interacting with students from all walks of life as well as from varieties of cultures. All in all, and as mentioned above, being a teacher is a gift, a privilege. Those who possess the qualities outlined above stand a good chance of being effective and inspirational teachers.