Teach English in Panzhuang Zhen - Liaocheng Shi

Five weeks ago, I signed up for the ITTT course in teaching business English. I did not have much knowledge or work experience in this highly specialized field of teaching. Having now completed the six units that make up this course, I can say that I learned many new things about what it takes to be successful in teaching a foreign language. In this paper, I would like to focus on one specific topic, namely the role of the teacher in the classroom. The question that I will answer is: ‘what role does the teacher adopt when teaching a group of students?’. Teaching a foreign language to a group of students is a serious business that comes with a great responsibility. In order to be successful in teaching English to a group of students, a teacher will generally be required to work hard. In the classroom, a teacher will have to be versatile in his approach. Not every student or situation that can be found or occur during a lesson can be approached in the same way. In this course, we learned that it is possible to make a distinction between six different roles that the teacher can adopt. There are three main roles that a teacher will adopt in the classroom. First of all, the teacher will act as an instructor during the course. He is the person with the knowledge. In his capacity of instructor, the teacher will teach the students new vocabulary and grammar. He will also help the students with any difficulties they experience during their learning process and will bear the responsibility to do whatever he can to stimulate students to participate. Secondly, a teacher will also act as a facilitator. He is responsible for providing a learning environment. This means that the teacher will, for example, organize the classroom in a specific way so as to allow for a better setting when planning to undertake a specific class-activity. This will help the teacher to get the most out of the activity and to thereby enhance the student learning process. Thirdly, a teacher also functions as a mentor. He functions as a positive role model for his students. This role is not situation-specific and also not limited to the teacher’s behaviour in the classroom. It is not enough for a teacher to show good manners during a lesson. Students need to feel that their teacher is someone who provides a good example of how to behave in society. Especially for younger students, it is possible to learn from the teacher how to behave and communicate with each other in a respectful way. Next to these 3 standard roles of the teacher, there are also some roles that are more situation- specific. For example, a teacher may be required to act as a counsellor. This can be expected from him when he is talking to his students about future career possibilities. He can provide the students with professional advice and information on how to create a C.V. and what to do during a job interview. Two other roles that are very situation-specific are the roles of psychologist and policeman. Let us start with the role of psychologist. When a teacher suspects that one of his students is not performing up to standard because of personal problems he can try to talk to the student about it. He is now not acting as an instructor, but rather as a professional who cares about the emotional well-being of the student in question. This is a very difficult role to adopt as it will require the teacher to find an appropriate balance between helping the student out while keeping enough distance as a professional. He will approach the student and offer comfort to the student so that the student can focus again on participating in the lesson. The teacher will need to be discrete and attentive to the student’s feelings when adopting this approach. Last but not least, a teacher can also adopt the role of policeman. This will be required if one or more students hinder the lesson by not participating (for example, very young children) or by showing bad behaviour. The teacher will then have to take the necessary measures to ensure that he can proceed with his lesson. This means that he will address the inappropriate behaviour by, for example, placing the student(s) in question apart in the classroom so as to prevent them from causing any more casualties. The older the students are, the less likely it is that the teacher will have to adopt the role of policeman. To conclude, a teacher is expected to play a number of different roles in the classroom. He is expected to be very knowledgeable on the topics covered by the course he is providing. He is the person who will guide students through the course materials. He will also be required to re-organize the classroom if this would enhance student participation during an activity. For the students, the teacher will also act as a role model. Furthermore, a good teacher will know how to deal with any sort of problems that can occur in the classroom. He will adjust his behaviour to provide an appropriate reaction, while always acting in the students’ best interest and focusing on optimizing their learning experience.