UNACHI - Fourth Year Students - Task 1. Read the article below and post your comments about it. Include the following information: five key terms and definitions, five important characteristics of a great teacher mentioned, how you can become a great teacher.

The Art of Being a Better ESL Teacher
ESL Teaching Methodology

Quotes by my students made about other teachers:

“Most teachers are douches!”

“My teacher doesn’t live in reality.”

“My teacher can’t answer a question without the teacher book.”

Let’s face it. Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. It required lots of planning, gets minimal compensation, endless bureaucracy and the teacher meetings make it a rather thankless job, not only that but generally our roles are under-appreciated by everyone in society. So the obvious question is: why do we become teachers?

However, for the rest of us the answer should be self-evident. (And no, it’s not because we hate money, either!) We teach because we can’t do anything else, or simply don’t want to. 
For whatever assumptions we may have for why we started, and for whatever other reasons we continue to do so – there are a few things we should consider, for our sakes, the sake of society and our students. Let’s face it, study after study has proven that the quality an education a student gets is specifically based upon one thing: the quality of teacher in front of the class.
So… what does it mean to be ‘The Best Teacher’?  The obvious top-8 list below is just that. Obvious. However, without an understanding of the foundation needed to make the transformation from good to great!  We can’t answer our own question without understanding what good teachers do.

1. a good teacher is always prepared.
2. a good teacher knows exactly where they’re taking the class – both on that day and globally.
3. a good teacher challenges their students to look at opposing and/or challenging viewpoints.
4. a good teacher forms strong relationships with their students, and sees them as more than a paycheck.
5. a good teacher knows their materials, their subject and how to present it in an interesting way.
6. a good teacher talks with their students to see how they’re doing as individuals and as a group.
7. a good teacher challenges their students to become better.
8. a good teacher never shouts at their students.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~William Arthur Ward

Barry Stevens writes about an incident when her husband was in charge of a pediatric ward in a New York hospital in the twenties. “There was an infant whom none of the doctors could find anything wrong with, but all of them agreed the infant was dying. My husband spoke privately to a young nurse who loved babies. He swore her to secrecy before telling her what he wanted her to do. The secret was, ‘Take care of this baby as if it were your own. Just love it.’ At that time love was nonsense even to psychologists . . . .The baby took hold and survived. All the doctors agreed on that”.

If we take into account this singular account from the book Successful Psychotherapy: A Loving, Caring Relationship (1997). C. H. Patterson & S. C. Hidore, then we can apply this to classroom dynamics and update our list of what it means to be a good teacher, and so without further ado, this is what it means to be a great! teacher:

1. a great teacher puts themselves in the position of their student

• this means, the teacher needs to understand with empathy where each student is at – emotionally, physically, professionally and/or as a student. They can be proud and afraid of making mistakes or perhaps they’re lazy and need higher degrees of motivation. Each student has more than one subject (or has their job/family/children/sports/etc that make them who they are as people), and most probably they won’t remember everything every teacher ever taught them – but! they will remember the teachers who cared about them as students/people.

2. the teacher’s awareness of student-incongruence

• this means that every student has a good day, and a bad day – just like you as a teacher. A great teacher should be motivating their students to the best of their abilities – for who they are on that day. If a student just won $10,000 in a ERASMUS exchange scholarship they will react to you a bit different than if their grandma died or if they failed an important exam. Your job is to not negate the validity of those emotions – which would make your student inhuman – but to accept the emotions your students are going through and to tactfully bring them on topic so they can cope with their problems and develop their linguistic skills, which will help them in their lives. Step 2 is impossible without first being aware of the need to care about your students as human beings.

3. teacher genuineness

• students can spot a fake, 100 miles away. Even if you’re having an off-day as a teacher, which we can all admit can happen to all of us, it still doesn’t mean that your class will be a total disaster. First off, it should be ostensible that your class is not your therapist and you should never cross that professional border, however – you can still frame the disaster in a way that lets your students know that you care about them as individuals and that you’re there to help them. Teacher’s aren’t perfect, don’t know everything and make mistakes. Admitting this can help bring you closer to your class.  Why? Because most teachers can’t admit to something like this – and everyone knows that it’s impossible for someone to be perfect. (AUTHOR’S NOTE: We’ve already talked about the points of what it means to be a good teacher, so failure to understand your materials doesn’t necessarily that making mistakes will make you a better teacher.)

4. unconditional positive regard

• the teacher accepts the student unconditionally for the person in front of you, understanding that that student needs your help to fulfill their dreams, ambitions, desires or wishes. It’s not our job as teachers to judge people as being right or wrong in their beliefs – but to help them develop as individuals and although we can challenge their beliefs for discussion’s sake – we should ultimately accept them as people similar to us. For universal emotions such as love, hate, fear, jealousy and ecstasy are shared by all of us. Finding out what those similarities are and developing the connection between each other is the first step to creating a positive relationship with anyone.

5. methodological pluralism

• Howard Garner speaks about multiple intelligences so often, he has a tendency to come up with a new one all the time. Yet, how does that really affect us in the classroom? To be honest, if you can’t have an unconditional positive regard for your student, then any methodology you use is a waste of time – regardless of whichintelligence you are trying to aim for. I would purport that the emotional charge that people come to study with is at least as important as multiple intelligences – if not more so. Why? For the simple plain fact that, if you can’t teach to the student sitting in front of you that day, with those emotions at that moment, and for the purposes that they’re searching for on the basis of common understanding that they are a person with dreams, feelings, emotions and ambitions but need understanding – then it doesn’t really matter how good your methodology is. Methodological pluralism is the idea that you are prepared for any emotional state that your students may be in, an ability to recognize those emotions as being real and valid, having a positive regard for them and being prepared to help them accomplish their linguistic goals. Not YOUR linguistic goals – theirs. That means you need to change your methodology to suit the student in front of you – for the person they are at that moment.

6. student perception

• student perception is a form of feedback for the teacher. A great teacher is highly empathetic and should be to such a degree that students know they care about them as people. As such, after following the first 5 steps – your students should then be able to open up, share more, work harder on their language and ultimately walk out of your classroom with a smile on their face saying “I feel great.” Doing so, will help them make more progress than trying to put a square peg (YOUR! lesson plan) in a round hole (their emotions).

Being a teacher ins’t a popularity contest, and your students aren’t there as your therapists. Ultimately, you should be able to guide your students in a direction which show that you admire them as people, give them the proper attention they need in a teacher-student relationship and the affirmations that they can and will succeed in their adventures learning whatever language you may be teaching.

I would love to hear what else you would put inside your list of being a great teacher and what you’re doing to become even greater!

Written by Josh - Pirate, Hero & ESL Activity Mastermind

when Josh isn't working on - well, let's just say working... - he plays with his Golden Retriever Mishka, learns another foreign language, rock climbs or enthusiastically does something to make himself even more interesting than he is today. :)

This ESL master has written 66 articles. See all articles by Josh - Pirate, Hero & ESL Activity Mastermind, or visit his website.