Chapter report 2: Teachers: Who are and what tasks?

A.      Introduction

Teacher use about themselves indicates the range of views that they have about their profession. Teaching as the exercise of group leadership (Dornyei and Murphey 2003: chapter 6). It is our role as group development practitioners that really counts, they suggest. Foster good relationships with the groups in front of us so that they work together cooperatively in a spirit of friendliess and harmonious creativity. Teaching style involves an increasing encouragement of and reliance on the group’s own resources and the active facilitation of autonomous learning that is in accordance with the maturity level of the group’.

     Two things need to be said about this view of the teacher’s craft. In the first place, being democratic and letting students participate in decision making takes more effort and organization than controlling the class from the front. Teacher and learner may feel more comfortable with a more autocratic leadership style, and while this might not suit the preference of some, especially methodologist, it is highly attractive to others.

B.       Teacher Roles

The teacher role is making the way we dress, the stance we adopt and out attitude to the class make an immediate impression on students. Teacher is a as facilitator to describe a particular kind of teacher, person who make learner autonomy through the use of groupwork and pairwork by knowledge.

Teachers have 5 functions:

     Teacher as controller

Teacher as controller means act as controllers, they are charge of the class and of the activity taking place and are often leading from the front. In many context it is the most common teacher role, and many teacher fail to go beyond it since controlling is the role they are used to and are most comfortable with.

     Teacher as Prompter

Teacher as prompter means sometimes when teacher are involved in a role-play activity, they may still have the thread but be unable to proceed productively for lack of vocabulary. To make it clear hold back and let them work things out for themselves or, instead, “nudge” them forward in a discreet and supportive way. When we prompt, we need to do it sensitively and encouragingly with discretion.

     Teacher as Participant

Teacher as participant teacher liven thing up from the inside instead of always having to prompt or organize from outside the group. When it goes well, students enjoy having the teacher with organize from outside the group. The danger when teacher act as participant, of course, they can easily dominate the proceeding. But it also due to the fact that even in the most egalitarian classroom, the teacher is still frequently perceived of as “the authority” and tends to be listened to with greater attention than other students.

     Teacher as resource

When we are acting as resources, we will want to be helpful and available, but at the same time we have to resist the urge to spoon feed out students so they become over reliant on us.

     Teacher as tutor

It is difficult to be a tutor in a very large group since the term implies a more intimate relationship than that of a controller or organize. It is essential for us to act as tutors from time to time, however difficult this may be. Nevertheless, as with prompting and acting as a resource, we need to make sure that we don’t intude either too much.

À   Native speaker and non-native speaker

Native speaker, on the other hand, often have the advantage of a linguistic confidence about their language in a classroom which non-native speaker teacher sometimes lack of indeed, it may be difference in linguistic confidence which account for some differences in teaching practices between the two groups (Medgyes 1992).

Non-native speaker teacher have many advantages that their native colleagues do not. In the first place, they have often had the same experience of learning English as their students are now having and this gives them instant understanding of what their students are going troughs.

C.      Comments

So what is teaching? Teaching there are five role as controller, prompt, participant, resources and tutor. Between Native speaker and non – native speaker, native speaker focus on linguistic and so confidence in language whereas non- native speaker non place the linguistic in the first place but they gives more instant understanding in what the student’s studying.

D.      Conclussion

So what is teaching? Teaching there are five role as controller, prompt, participant, resources and tutor. Between Native speaker and non – native speaker, native speaker focus on linguistic and so confidence in language whereas non- native speaker non place the linguistic in the first place but they gives more instant understanding in what the student’s studying.

E.       Bibliography

Brown, H.Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs:  Prentice Hall.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2007a. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited.