Teach English in Yuli Zhen - Weihai Shi

"I cannot teach without exposing who I am" -(Paulo Freire). And as such is essence of what rapport is. In by a teacher giving their personality to their students, they are showing their own honesty. Which in turn will get the students to show theirs. Not only honesty shown to the teacher but allow the students to be honest with themselves. The importance of establishing this rapport to a classroom is paramount to the success of any classroom for the below reasons. Take for example the idea of motivation. A number of students will have different levels of motivation coming into a classroom for any number of reasons. A student with low motivation is not going to grasp the subject of the lesson as they are not willing to do so. These could be ongoing issues with a student or a one off situation. Whatever the case, even with one student in a classroom with low motivation, it is going to effect the success of the teacher and the lesson. When the teacher notices this lack of motivation, the teacher will need to either establish rapport (if a new class, or student), or use already established rapport. By using this personal connection with the class or student, the teacher can change the attitude of the unmotivated to a more positive and eager to learn attitude. Some possibilities to do this would be creating a fun, engaging activity, personally relating an unmotivated student's interests to the subject, or simply acting motivated and highly positive yourself, be a character the student can emulate. The importance in doing this ensures no student is left behind in learning a subject simply due to low motivation. This means having all students actually learning the subject. Therefore making it a successful classroom. Albert Einstein once said, "I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn". In relation to rapport, I believe what he is saying is creating a comfortable and trusting environment for a student is critical to a students learning and therefore a teacher needing to creating that environment. Consider a hostile or toxic environment for a classroom. An environment where the students would be anxious about asking for clarification on something, constantly working alone, not conversing with anyone, untrusting of the teacher, and not feeling a sense of belonging every time they are in this class. This would be an environment, a student would feel the lesson would be something they, "just want to get through" and not truely focusing on learning or in worse case not even want to attend. A teacher that has created rapport amongst his students would never have this environment as his classroom. A rapport will create an easy feeling amongst students and would never allow them to feel intimidated or make them feel they do not belong. The established rapport would come from, using student's names, speaking to them on a personal level, not being aggressive and following through with said plans or actions. The importance of this comfort and trust created from rapport allows an environment where students can reach their full potential and in doing so creating a successful classroom. In conclusion, the success of a classroom is measured by "Did the students learn the content and gain the knowledge?" and "Has the teacher taught the subject and allowed students to further study the subject and exercise the subject for actual use?" In answering these questions in above paragraph the benefits of establishing this rapport between teacher and student is paramount importance to the success of the classroom. https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/great-best-quotes-about-teaching/