The good language teacher

The Good Language
Teacher
Luke Prodromou
British Council
Thessaloniki, Greece

Teacher centred vs. Learner centred
• The demands on the teacher in a learner-centred
methodology are greater, not less, than in conventional
“teacher-centred” approaches.
• There was a survey designed to discover students’ views of
good and bad language teaching.

The Good Language Teacher
1. Friendly.
2. Explained things.
3. Gave good notes.
4. Group work.
5. Played games.
6. Told jokes.
7. She knew psychology.
8. She was forceful, but not strict.
9. She made sure everyone understood.
10. She was funny.
11. She was more like a comedian.

The Bad Language Teacher
1. Very strict.
2. Didn’t let us speak.
3. Gave marks all the time.
4. Shouted (for no reason).
5. Didn’t smile.
6. Very nervous.
7. Talked and talked.
8. Avoided answering questions.
9. He was the teacher, I was the student.
10. He had a blacklist and said “YOU, YOU, YOU”
11. No communication, nothing

• It would be not only difficult but counterproductive to
generalize from the diverse and often contradictory comments
made by students about good and bad teachers.
• Luke’s own experience of observing many teachers at work for
many years suggests that both introverts and extroverts, soft-
spoken and outspoken people can all hold the attention of a
class and make learning enjoyable and effective.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Widdowson (1984) has this to say about the “incentive value”
of theory in teacher education:
No matter how concerned teachers may be with the immediate
particularities of the classroom, their techniques are based on
some principle or other which is accountable to theory… We
have the responsibility of representing teaching as a challenging
intellectual enterprise… If adherence to formulae is unnatural,
stultifying, and an enemy of incentive, in teaching as in any other
human activity, then an over-emphasis on technique in teacher
training, without indicating its link with theory, will be ultimately
self-defeating.

It is suggested that fostering dependence on technique alone,
without at the same time developing awareness of how
technique relates to theoretical principles, militates against
healthy development in ELT profession. Furthermore, it is argued,
teachers who see research as part of their role are likely to view
their work more positively than teachers who are exclusively
concerned with the practical.

Teacher development
• Ways of improving one’s knowledge of ELT and thereby
increasing one’s confidence as a teacher include the following:
1. Subscribing to ELT magazines and journals.
2. Joining professional organisations such as TESOL and
attending their conferences when “possible”.
3. Forming local teachers’ groups and holding regular meetings
to discuss common problems.
4. Reading teachers’ handbooks published by most ELT
Publishers.

Authority, errormania and
testomania
• Teacher authority is often asserted over a difficult class by
adopting a testing rather than a teaching approach to
language learning.
• Power lies in the teacher’s dispensing of marks and in the
detection and penalisation of error.
• The failure to distinguish between testing and teaching is a
major obstacle to the development of a wider range of
teacher roles.

• Both testing and teaching are essential in language learning,
but it is vital to distinguish between them.
Testing Emphasizes:
Failure.
Impersonality.
Anxiety.
Marks.
Boring content.
Judgement.
Extrinsic motivation.
Competition.
Teacher control.
Solemnity.
Fragmentation.
Crime and punishment.
Stick and carrot.
Product.
Teaching Emphasizes:
Success.
Personalisation.
Pleasure.
Results.
Interesting content.
Support.
Intrinsic motivation.
Cooperation.
Student control.
Humor.
Integration.
Give and take.
Ripeness is all.
Process.

The outer circle: The roles of
the teacher.
• The teacher finds him/herself with many parts to play:
1. Friend
2. Manager
3. Monitor
4. Counsellor
5. Facilitator of learning
6. Reliable
7. Informant on the language
8. Social worker
9. Model for the students and so on.

ACTIVITY
The teacher gives instructions for students to get into groups.
The teacher asks students to repeat a sentence after his/her
pronunciation practice.
The teacher goes round listening to pairs practicing a dialogue
The teacher advises students how best to approach a task.
The teacher explains when we use the present perfect for recently
completed actions.
The teacher provides material and guidance to enable students to
work on their own.
The teacher stays behind after class and discusses one of the
student’s personal problems which is affecting his/her work.
The teacher chats with students over coffee or arranges a cinema visit
with the class.
ROLE
Manager
Model
Monitor
Counsellor
Informant
Facilitator
Social worker
Friend

Classroom management, or
how to make a lesson fall apart
The
Teacher
Doesn’t
use their
names
Doesn‘t
check or
cross-check
Ignores
time
Ignores
space
Doesn’t
look at
students
Doesn’t
use the
board

• The use of space.
• The use of students’ names.
• Eye contact.
• The use of the blackboard.
• The “togetherness” of a class.
• Space: a mixed-ability class easily falls apart.
A badly managed large mixed-ability class not only falls apart
very easily but will probably find it difficult to come together
again.
What’s interesting and challenging for one learner is boring and
too easy for another.

Things the teacher can do to
make it more difficult for a
class to fall apart

• Open space. A lot of classrooms traditionally look something
like this:
Figure 5
T

• Figure 5 is militaristic, fine for drilling and testing, but too rigid
and fragmentary for the mixed-ability class with its need for
flexibility and variety.
• The suggestions that follow are for situations where there is
some flexibility in the way the furniture can be arranged.
• Use the space in a way that encourages students to listen to
each other and to enable the maximum number of students to
see the board and any visual material the teacher may be
holding up.

• For general classwork a semicircular formation is best for this:
T
BB

• Use a circular formation for general discussion, with the
teacher either joining the circle as an equal in the discussion
or sitting outside the circle to monitor the discussion or
whisper useful language to students trying to express
themselves but at a loss for words:
T
(T)

In a large class with desks fixed to the floor, encourage
students to work with students behind or in front of
them or across a gangway to form groups of four or six.

• The teacher’s position. If the desks are immovable objects,
the same cannot be said for the teacher; the way a teacher
moves around the room at different points in the lesson can
have a significant effect on students’ concentration.
• A golden rule is to vary your position in the classroom
depending on the activity.
• To barricade the teacher behind a desk for most of the lesson
and for most lessons not only ignores the dynamics of the
open space but is asking for apathy and lack of involvement in
the learners too.

Teachersoftengoupclosetothestudentspeaking,butthis
actuallyexcludestherestoftheclassfromwhat’sgoingon.
BB

• If a student’s voice is not audible from the other end of the
room, those students who can’t hear will get irritated.
• The teacher’s position encourages a student with soft voice to
speak up, and it allows the teacher to keep an eye on a
maximum number of learners at the same time.
BB

Time: Friend or Enemy?
• It becomes conspicuous and often catastrophic when we
ignore it.
• In a mixed ability class time is particularly significant because
good learners and weak learners sometimes differ not so
much in knowledge but in the pace at which they like to apply
that knowledge.

TEN WAYS OF TAKING TIME
INTO ACCOUNT
1. Don’t plan to do too much in a lesson.
2. Tell students at the start of a lesson roughly what you intend
to do and how long it is going to take.
3. Tell students how long they have for a particular activity.
4. Warn the class one or two minutes before an activity is due
to finish.
5. Use the last few minutes to check that learning has taken
place.
6. Allow students to copy important information.
7. Don’t wait too long for a student to answer.

• Cross-checking. Attention in a large mixed-ability class can be
focused and held if the teacher follows a simple routine for
involving students in what their fellow students are saying, the
technique is one of “cross checking.”
• Students are used to think that only the teacher is worth
listening to in class, and that the only reason the teacher asks
questions of a particular student is to check up on that
student.
• This is all the more true when the student speaking happens
to have acquired a reputation for contributing nothing but
mistakes to the lesson.

• Checking: The Power of the Written Word. Pairwork should
involve written answers.
• This has a number of advantages in the mixed-ability class:
1. It encourages reluctant learners to complete the task.
2. It discourages them from using only the mother tongue.
3. It gives better students more to do while you go round
helping weaker students.
4. It gives the teacher something to discuss with early finishers
if their answers have been written down.
5. When answers are written, the checking and cross-checking
process has a greater chance of success.

• The teacher will have to train the students over a period of
time to ask as well as answer questions and to learn to
interact with each other.
• Paying attention to others and interacting with them should
become a normal classroom routine.

Eye Contact or Star Gazing?
• Why is eye contact considered to be so important in
interaction between people?
• Numerous studies have shown that people who make higher-
levels of eye contact with others are perceived as being:
• More dominant and powerful.
• More warm and personable.
• More attractive and likeable.
• More qualified, skilled, competent, and valuable.
• More trustworthy, honest, and sincere.
• More confident and emotionally stable.

• Eye contact is one such detail of teacher style that may have
surprisingly significant effects, especially in combination with
the other factors that were mentioned.
• Try looking at the class as you are speaking, allow your gaze to
travel gently round the class, without staring inhibitingly at
any one student.

Voice
• A sure way of making students switch off is to speak in a
monotone.
From Luke’s experience of observing teachers, points in the
lesson where there are significant voice changes include the
following:
• Beginning the lesson
• Stating the points of the lesson
• Interrupting students to point out something important.
• Telling students that time is up
• Telling the class to copy something from the board.

The Magic Board
• Use the board to record grammar, vocabulary, and content.
• Use the board as one way of ensuring that instructions are
clear.
• Write example sentences of the target structure on the board.
• Use the board to jot down points made by all students.
• At the end of the lesson, make sure students have copied into
their notebooks any useful information from the board.

The good language teacher

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