Teacher
From Teflpedia
A teacher can often be decisive in a student's present and future progress in language learning.
Contents |
Responsibilities
Teachers are responsible for giving and preparing lessons, and frequently for carrying out some kind of assessment of the responses to these lessons.
Adult teaching
Many language teachers, especially of adult students, now consider themselves more as "facilitators" or "trainers" - far removed from the more traditional image of the person who stands up in front of a class and "lectures" or lays down the law.
The role of facilitator may include giving students the "tools" or material with which to produce effective communication, but the teacher may then stand back and let group dynamics take over from there.
An important task of the facilitator is to provide feedback, which may take several forms, depending on the needs and format of the lesson or class.
Where to teach
The two main possibilities are in a school or freelance. Our articles, "school" and "freelance" look at the positive and negative aspects of these options.
Methodology
Teachers should be aware of differing teaching methodologies and perhaps be prepared to move between them depending on circumstances.
The title "English teacher"
It is sometimes difficult to find a good title to give teachers who teach English, especially so if one wishes to differentiate between those who are native speakers of the language and those who are not.
- English teacher is ambiguous because it is not clear if it says that the teacher is English and may or may not teach English; or the teacher is a teacher of English but may or may not have English as their mother tongue.
- Teacher of English unambiguously identifies the subject being taught, but not the teacher's relationship to the language.
- Native English teacher is ambiguous because it is not clear if "native" refers to the country in which the teaching is being carried out, or to the mother tongue of the teacher. (Or indeed, if the teacher teaches natives.)
- English teacher of English is unambiguous but cumbersome. Furthermore it would also necessitate the creation of the title non-English teacher of English which is even more cumbersome. There is also the problem of "American; Australian; Indian etc. teacher of English" - to all of whom it is a native tongue, but they aren't English. Or even British.
Consequently,it seems to be difficult to come up with a short unambiguous title which identifies:
- The subject being taught.
- The teacher's native language.
- The teacher's country of origin.
