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In a classroom teaching context, the role of the teacher is indispensable and important. The role varies in relation to the teaching aim. It could be a manager, a prompter, a tutor, a participant, an organizer and others. Among these roles, organizer is one of the most important, because teachers always have to organize students to do various class activities. Despite of the importance in giving instructions and things alike, the subjectivity and activeness of students should also be put into play. At certain stages of the lesson, the teacher may wish to participate in the activities, be a part of the students, and give students room for developing their talent. So, what kind of activities can be directed by students rather than the teacher? 1. Activities whose instructions are clear and have already been known to students. Take myself as an example. I am a teacher currently teaching IELTS listening in a high school. One of the activities my students and I often play is word memorization. Before conducting this activity at the beginning of the semester, I made a PPT, selecting the words that I thought are confusing and easy to be spelled wrong. At the first time of playing this activity, I gave instruction and told the students what to do next. At the second time, as I wanted to put my students’ talent and enthusiasm into full play, I participated in this activity in the role of a student and asked one student to direct the ongoing process. To my excitement, the student prepared a PPT in advance and showed us some useful and interesting learning materials that he searched from the Internet. For those activities that are usually done in the classroom, the teacher could free himself or herself from the role of organizer. It is better to let students be the master of the activities. 2. When there are some students who are not so active in class, a teacher can ask one of them to organize an activity so as to stimulate his or her enthusiasm and sense of belonging in this class. For example, another activity I play in my class is exchanging presents. We have done it on Teacher’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. Before the activity on Christmas, I told one student Bowen in private that he would be the host of the activity and asked him to prepare the instructions in English a little bit. He was reluctant to begin with. However, under my encouragement, he accepted. Surprising, he did a very good job by leading all the students to play the game. The process was filled with laughter and I saw happiness on his face as well. 3. For those activities which are put forward by students, it is better for them to direct the activities. Sometimes, the teacher may ask students’ advice and thoughts on how to conduct a class. Often at this time, students would share the activities that they like to do in the class. If some of these activities are conducive to the learning outcome, the teacher can consider playing them in the following class and asking students to direct the activities. Usually, students would feel that they are the master of the class instead of a passive recipient. As a result, it will assist the teacher to better and more smoothly go on with the teaching content. As a teacher, it is thought to be reasonable to be an organizer when there is a need to control the class discipline and direct students in the activities. Meanwhile, a teacher should consider at times as to which is the right time to let students direct the class activities. Only in this way can the teaching outcome effective and productive.
