Teach English in Xiying Zhen - Luliang Shi

We are all familiar with the saying “people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their boss” I think the same thing can be said about learning, in this particular case, a foreign language; students don’t quit learning English, they quit their teachers. Most of us have met at least someone who has tried learning a foreign language but has quitted at some point in their journey, some make it midways, and some barely advance pass the beginning of it. Before we can point out the reason why this is more common than not, we have to analyze what the role of teachers is, and how this affects the relationship between them and their students, which in the end, accounts as an important aspect for the decision making of the students to continue or not. According to Jeremy Harmer in his book The Practice of English Language Teaching (2007: Chapter 6), one of the principal responsibilities of teachers is to foster good relationships with the groups in front of them so that they work together cooperatively in a spirit of friendliness and harmonious creativity. We can infer then that the foundation for a successful learning experience starts by establishing a good rapport with and within the students. A teacher can assume different roles in order to increase the opportunity to achieve this, usually depending on different factors such as stage in the class, kind of students, the topic being work on, age of students, etc. In the same book, Jeremy Harmer identifies five different roles, which include Controller, Prompter, Participant, Resource, and Tutor. If we analyze each of these, we can recognize that they are all important in their own way, and teachers should be able to switch back and forth as needed throughout a lesson. The controller is when teachers are in charge of the class in almost the same way as music directors conducting their orchestras, this role is especially useful when giving instructions, lecturing, organizing activities, etc. Some teachers might find themselves being in this role most of the time, for necessity, working with children might be one, or perhaps because this role fulfills the commonly believed image of the teacher as an autocratic ruler commanding everything from the front of the classroom. Prompter, on the other hand, is when teachers interfere as little as possible during student-centered activities, just giving enough input to help them carry on with the task without taking over whenever students seem stuck or confused. This role is very important for building students’ self-confidence since it gives them the change of taking the lead, and prevents them from failing, possibly crushing their spirit and jeopardizing future participation. Participant is when teachers include themselves in the activity, not as the person on charge, but, as its name implies, one more partaker within the students, this is beneficial for both students and teachers; for students, it might help change the perception they have created of the teacher and see him/her like someone more approachable; for the teachers, it relieves some of the tension created from always being on charge, if done properly it is a win-win situation for everybody. The resource is when teachers provide material or sources of information and students are encouraged to research something on their own in order to answer a question they might have asked the teacher about grammar, meaning, pronunciation, spelling, etc. Note that it is not beneficial to give all the answers to the students all the time, in this role teachers can direct students to resources, helping them develop independence and self-confidence. The tutor is the last role teachers can assume and it usually combines being a prompter and resource. This role is often used when students are working in longer projects in small groups or individually, and the same rules apply in each case. Now that we have discussed these tools available for teachers, we can start looking more into how much a teacher can affect the outcome of an English course. Let us go back to the roles, imagine what the reaction could be from a group of students under a teacher who feels the need to be in control at all times, who would not leave the role of controller despite seeing the great attitude towards learning and participating in the students, limiting the amount of input, setting strict no-talking-to-one-another rules, and on top of that, correcting every mistake students make when they have a chance to participate. Maybe this could have been the standard of teaching methods years back, but now we have information available on how successfully teach something, and we have the necessity to adapt and evolve to fully accomplish that need. Similar scenarios can be applied to the other roles, with probably the same outcome, unsatisfied students. This is why I consider that teachers should be assessed by the rate of students who successfully complete their course, considering, of course, the situations outside his/her range of control.