The Role of Teachers in Students ESL Journey

I think the teacher plays an important part in teaching English. And to be an English teacher needed professional teaching methods and cultural background. Because for many learners, the teacher is the font of all knowledge on English grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, and in these areas, they have particular responsibility and authority. At the same time, in different lesson parts, teachers need to switch roles to help students learn English.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Shu Y. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Lesson Stages

During a different lesson, the teacher will have a different role. And different roles have different effects on the entire classroom and student learning. When setting up a new class or lesson, the teacher is usually a controller. When teachers take on the role of a controller, they are effectively in charge of the class and the activity in away. The teacher would normally be standing at the front of the class giving explanations, reading aloud and so on to inspire the students. Of course, the teacher as a controller has its place in the classroom but certainly shouldn’t be overused. During the lesson, teachers are frequently to organize students to do various activities. Often this will involve giving instructions, organizing students into groups or pairs, initiating activities, bringing activities to close and organizing feedback.

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Teacher’s Comfort

Teachers must be comfortable in this role to avoid chaos in groups. At the other part in an activity or lesson, the teacher will participate as an equal, especially being able to liven activities up from the inside of the group as opposed to prompting from outside the group, or evening the number of students for pair work activities in classes with an uneven number of participants. And students are usually very keen to find out whether or not they are producing correct English, teachers act as assessors to give feedback and correction as well as evaluate and grade. It is important in this role that the teacher is fair and consistent with all the students as well as being very sensitive to the students’ reactions and providing necessary support.

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Encouragement Skills

There are times when students will lose the thread of what they are trying to say or become stuck for ideas. At this time, teachers should gently encourage students along by using English not their native language to be a prompter. When prompting we want to help, but we have to be careful not to take the initiative away from the student. Therefore a great deal of sensitivity and encouragement is required. Sometimes teachers will often be employed in a tutor when students are working in pairs. We need to encourage students and give equal attention to all students without much intruding. Often during a lesson, the teacher will be a monitor to get some information about how long an activity taking and how successful the lesson being. During oral communicative activities, the teacher may also want to make notes for correction or praise at a later stage. While observing the teacher must generally maintain a distance from the students so as o does not distract them from the activity that they are involved in.

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In summary, the role of the teachers in a class is very rich, we need to adjust it according to the situation of the students and lessons, then to be a good teacher to help students study English.

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