Final Talk Teacher Roles
Final Talk Teacher Roles
Final Talk Teacher Roles
What is a role?
The concept of role is very wide and extends far beyond the idea of putting on a
following are some examples, for instance; role conflict is the condition where an
individual is unsure of what his or her precise role is in an organization or social
relationship. Other examples are role expectations, which are one’s expectations of the
appropriate behaviour of an individual in a given role. Role relationship is the way
individuals behave when cast in opposing or complementary roles. Finally, the
individuals and groups who influence the behaviour of a role holder are the role set.
Probably most of the roles we play help us to express our ‘real’ selves rather than the
reverse. As long as what we are expected to do is congenial to us, we may not realize
that we are playing a role. Sometimes, of course, we do feel constrained to behave in a
way that contradicts our inner feelings. We may then speak of ‘putting on an act’, as if it
were a stage performance.
The term ‘role’ is borrowed from the stage. Dramatists recognized the significance of
roles in ‘real’ life long before anyone claimed to be a social scientists. The dramatists
show us roles in action. From the spectacle of life presented to us in the theatre, we turn
with fresh insight to the spectacle of life around us, and we may say, ‘All the world’s a
stage’. A simple event will illustrate this and help to clarify the concept of role. The
range of roles open varies depending on the individual’ resources money, age,
appearance, speech, education and so on. Social class is the main factor at work here,
and, where children are concerned, the attitudes of the parents to local opportunities in
education and work. There is evidence that the children of workers are required to live
within restricted traditional settings, one effect of which is to limit the development of
vocabulary and educational ability. In general our complex society appears to be
providing an increasing variety of roles open to choice or competition, and this must be
regarded as an important aspect of personal freedom .Whether our roles have been
freely chosen or not, they cannot be wholly acceptable to us all the time. We may find
some behaviour required of us distasteful, or we may be bored by it. We say we do not
have our heart at what we are doing, and we shall probably show this by a display of
weariness, by seizing upon distraction or striking up an irrelevant conversation. Many
roles are not demanding enough to occupy all of a person’s attention.
When a person is not fully absorbed into his role behaviour and allows it to be seen that
this is so, we speak of role-distance. Some degree of role-distance will clearly help a
person to feel that he is not merely a machine operative or any other artificial object.
One can play these roles in such a way as to suggest ‘I am very much a person, quite
beyond what you can see of me in this role’. In any case, once we are placed or place
ourselves in a role, others will expect certain types of behaviour of us.
What is a teacher?
“Two young men arrived on a Friday night in a Southern town. Having settled in their
lodgings they went in search of entertainment and discovered a local dance hall. There
they met two young girls and spent the night with them. After the dance they took the
girls home. These two young men were students from a College of Education, sent to the
town for teaching practice. On Monday, one of the young men, facing his first class in
the secondary school to which he was assigned, was disconcerted to observe the two
girls sitting in the second row.”
In this classroom situation the three people concerned would behave very differently
from the way they had behaved the Friday before. Differences in dress, speech, and
modes of address would at once be apparent. All three people concerned would be
aware of the differences, and would feel some uncertainty in committing themselves to
the different relationship required by their positions in the school.
One need not be conscious of one’s role, unless some incident makes one aware of it.
On the other hand, everyone is aware of other people’s expectations and the regular
ways of doing things; each person is also aware of his need to find a place in society and
to have regular relationships with at least a few people, based on mutual acceptance.
Roles must embody both social demands and individual needs.
The roles of a teacher
In the classroom "students can pick up much from the way their teacher walks into the
room at the start of that first lesson, writes Rose Senior (Senior 2006: 93). The way we
dress, the stance we adopt and our attitude to the class make an immediate impression
on students. In this sense we need to make some kind of distinction between who we
are, and who we are as teachers. This does not mean that we should somehow be
dishonest about who we are when we face students.
The point is that we should be able to adopt a variety of roles within the classroom
which facilitate learning. Some of these roles come naturally to most teachers, while
others have to be thought about more carefully.
The term facilitator is used to describe a particular kind of teacher, who is democratic
rather than autocratic, and one who fosters learner autonomy through the use of group
work and pair work and by acting as more of a resource than a transmitter of
knowledge. It takes more sense to describe different teacher roles in detail and say what
they are useful for.
Controller: when teachers act as controllers, they are in charge of the class and of the
activity taking place and are often leading from the front Controllers take the register,
tell students things, organise drills, read aloud and in various other ways exemplify the
qualities of a teacher-fronted classroom. Teachers who view their job as the
transmission of knowledge from themselves to their students are usually very
comfortable with the image of themselves as controllers. We can all remember teachers
from our past who had a gift for just such a kind of instruction and who inspired us
through their knowledge and their charisma. However, not all teachers possess this
ability to inspire, and in less charismatic hands, transmission teaching appears to have
less obvious advantages. For a start, it denies students access to their own experiential
learning by focusing everything on the teacher; in the second place, it cuts down on
opportunities for students to speak because when the class is acting as a whole group,
fewer individuals have a chance to say anything at all; and in the third place, over-
reliance on transmission teaching can result in a lack of variety in activities and, Of
course, there are times when acting as a controller makes sense, for example when
giving explanations, organising question and answer work, lecturing, making
announcements or bringing a class to order. Indeed, such leadership may have a highly
beneficial effect on a group, especially in the early stages. In many educational contexts
it is the most common teacher role, and many teachers fail to go beyond it since
controlling is the role they are used to and are most comfortable with. Yet this is a pity
because by sticking to one mode of behaviour, we deny ourselves and the students many
other possibilities and modes of learning which are good not only for learning itself, but
also for our students' enjoyment of that learning.
Prompter: sometimes, when they are involved in a role-play activity for example,
students lose the thread of what is going on, or they are lost for words' (i.e. they may
still have the thread but be unable to proceed productively for lack of vocabulary). They
may not be quite sure how to proceed. What should teachers do in these circumstances?
Hold back and let them work things out for themselves or, instead, 'nudge' them forward
in a discreet and supportive way? If we opt for the latter, we are adopting some kind of
a prompting role. In such situations we want to help but we don't want, at that stage, to
take charge. This is because we are keen to encourage the students to think creatively
rather than have them hang on our every word. Thus it is that we will occasionally offer
words or phrases, suggest that the students say something (e.g. Well, ask him why he
says that) or suggest what could come next in a paragraph a student is writing, for
example. Often we have to prompt students in monolingual groups to speak English
rather than use their mother tongue. When we prompt, we need to do it sensitively and
encouragingly but, above all, with discretion. If we are too adamant, we risk taking
initiative away from the student. If, on the other hand, we are too retiring, we may not
supply the right amount of encouragement.
Tutor: when students are working on longer projects, such as process writing or
preparation for a talk or a debate, we can work with individuals or small pointing them
in directions they have not yet thought of taking, in such situations, we are combining
the roles of prompter and resource - in other words, acting as a tutor. It is difficult to
be a tutor in a very large group since the term implies a more intimate relationship than
that of a controller or organizer. However, when students are working in groups or in
pairs, we can go round the class and, staying briefly with a particular group or
individual, offer the sort of general guidance we are describing. Care needs to be taken,
to ensure that as many individuals or groups as possible are seen, otherwise the students
who have not had access to the tutor may begin to feel aggrieved. It is essential for us to
act as tutors from time to time, however difficult this may be. In this more personal
contact, the learners have a real chance to feel supported and helped, and the general
class atmosphere is greatly enhanced as a result. Nevertheless, as with prompting and
acting as a resource, we need make sure that we do not intrude either too much (which
will impede learner autonomy) or too little (which will be unhelpful). The role that we
take on is dependent, as we have seen on what it is we wish the students to achieve.
Where some activities are difficult to organise without the teacher acting as controller,
others have no chance of success unless we take a less domineering role. There are
times when we will need to act as a prompter where, on other occasions, it would be
more appropriate to act as a resource. A lot will depend on the group we are teaching
since our leadership style may well depend on the particular students we are working
with; whereas some students might be more comfortable with using the teacher as a
resource and a tutor, others may hunger for us to adopt a more controlling role. What we
can say, with certainty, is that we need to be able to switch between the various roles we
have described here, judging when it is appropriate to use one or other of them. And
then, when we have made that decision, however consciously or subconsciously it is
done, we need to be aware of how we carry out that role, how we perform.
The teacher as performer: Knowing that different teachers act differently and that
individual teachers vary they behaviour, depending upon what they are doing, give us
insights into classroom behaviour. It suggest that an alternative to saying what role
teachers should be playing is to describe how they should be playing it Just as stage
directions give actor an insight into what lines mean, so similar descriptions in teaching
may give us insights into how activities can best be managed. Thus, for an activity
where the students are involved in a team game, we will want to behave energetically
(because a game needs excitement and energy, encouragingly, clearly (because we don't
want the game to fail through misunderstanding and fairly (because students care about
this in a competition situation. If, on the other hand, students are involved in a role-play,
we should perform clearly because students need to know exactly what the parameters
of the role-play are) encouraging, but also retiringly because once the activity has got
going, we don't want to overwhelm the students performance and supportively because
students may need help at various points.
Having learned that different teachers, acting are also different, and that they have
different behaviors. It depends on what they will do. Suggestions, even though the
teacher tells us which part to play, we should also be able to describe how they can play.
Therefore, in an activity where students engage in a team game, it is appropriate that we
act full of energy, encouragingly, clearly, and fairly.
Rapport
In order to work well with the different roles, and to develop a good learning
environment in the classroom - we need to establish an appropriate relationship with our
students. We need to spend time making sure that teacher-student rapport is positive and
useful. Rapport means, the relationship that the students have with the teacher and vice
versa. Although it may be, in Jim Scrivener's words, ‘notoriously difficult to define or
quantify' (Scrivener 2005: 23), nevertheless we can recognise it when we see it: a class
where there is a positive, enjoyable and respectful relationship between teacher and
students, and between the students themselves. In part, successful rapport derives from
the students' perception of the teacher as a good leader and a successful professional. If,
when teachers come to the class, students can see that they are well-organised and well-
prepared (that is, they have thought about what they are going to do in the lesson), they
are likely to have confidence in their teacher. Such confidence is an essential component
in the successful relationship between students and their teachers. It extends as well to
the teachers' demonstrable knowledge of the subject they are teaching and to their
familiarity with classroom materials and equipment. All of these things tell the students
that they are in good hands. However, rapport (and effective classroom management,
also depends on the way that we interact with students. We might be the well-prepared
and knowledgeable teachers in our school, but if that interaction isn't working well, our
ability to help students to learn will be seriously compromised. Successful interaction
with students depends on four key characteristics:
Recognising students: students want their teachers to know who they are. They would
like their teachers to know their names, of course, but they also appreciate it when
teachers have some understanding of their characters. It is extremely difficult for
teachers to know the names of all their students, especially at the beginning of a term or
semester when they have, say, nine large groups. As a result, teachers have developed a
number of strategies to help them cope with this situation. One method is to ask the
students (at least in the first week or two) to put name cards on the desk in front of them
or stick name badges to their sweaters or jackets We can also draw up a seating plan
and ask students always to sit in the same place until we have learnt their names.
However, this means we can't move students around when we want to, and students -
especially younger ones - sometimes take pleasure in sitting in the wrong place just to
confuse us.
Many teachers use the register to make notes about individual students (Do they wear
glasses? Are they talk? etc.) and others keep separate notes about the individuals in their
classes. Some teachers study the register or class seating plan before the lesson starts or
when it is finished to try to fix student names in their heads. There is no easy way of
remembering students' names, yet it is extremely important that we do so if good
rapport is to be established with individuals. We need, therefore, to find ways of doing
this that suit us best.
But knowing students' names also involves knowing about students, At any age,
will be pleased when they realise that their teacher has remembered things about them,
and has some understanding of who they are. Once again, this is extremely difficult in
large classes, especially when we have a number of different groups, but part of a
teacher's skill is to persuade students that we recognise them and who and what they
are.
Listening to students: students respond very well to teachers who listen to them.
Although there are many calls on our time, nevertheless we need to make ourselves as
available as we can to listen to individual students' opinions and concerns, often outside
the lessons themselves.
But we need to listen properly to students in lessons, too. And we need to show that we
are interested in what they have to say. Nothing demotivates a student more than when
the teacher is dismissive or uninterested in what they have to say. Of course, no one can
force us to be genuinely interested in absolutely everything and everyone, but it is part
of a teachers professional personality - part of our skill as teachers - that we should be
able to convince students that we are listening to what they say with every sign of
attention. As far as possible, we also need to listen to the students' comments on how
they are getting on, and which activities and techniques they respond well or badly to. If
we just go on teaching the same thing day after day without being aware of our students'
reactions, it will become difficult to maintain the rapport that is so important for
successful classes. Finally, we should point out that listening is not just done with the
ears! We need to show that we are listening and paying attention to our students, and
this will mean approaching them, making eye contact and generally looking interested.
As Hongshen Zhang points out, 'eyes talk' (Hongshen Zhang 2006).
Being even-handed: most teachers have some students that they warm to more than
others. For example, many teachers react well to those who take part, are cheerful and
cooperative, who take responsibility for their own learning, and do what is asked of
them without complaint. Sometimes teachers are less enthusiastic about those who are
less forthcoming, and who find learner autonomy, for example, more of a challenge.
Yet, as a teenage student once told me, 'a good teacher should try to draw out the quiet
ones and control the more talkative ones, and one of her colleagues echoed this by
saying that a good teacher is someone who asks the people who don't always put their
hands up. The reasons that some students are not forthcoming may be many and varied,
ranging from shyness to their cultural or family backgrounds. Sometimes students are
reluctant to take part overtly because of other stronger characters in the group. And
these quiet students will only be negatively affected when they see far more attention
being paid to their more robust classmates. At the same time, giving some students
more attention than others may make those students more difficult to deal with later
since they will come to expect special treatment, and may take our interest as a licence
to become over-dominant in the classroom.
Moreover, it is not just teenage students who can suffer from being the teacher's pet.
Treating all students equally not only helps to establish and maintain rapport, but is also
a mark of professionalism.
The Teacher as teaching aid In language classroom there are specific ways in which we
can help our students both hear and understand language.
DESCRIBING TEACHERS
The teacher as language model
Students get models of language from textbooks, reading materials of all sorts and from
audio and video tapes. But we can also model language ourselves. This does not only
mean the giving of a clear language model as in the PPP procedure, also, for example,
the performance of a dialogue or the reading aloud of a text. One way in which we can
model dialogues is to draw two faces on the board and then stand in front of each of
them when required to speak their lines. For such activities we should make sure that we
can be heard, and we should animate our performance with as much enthusiasm as is
appropriate for the conversation we are modelling. We should judge the appropriate
speed, too, making sure that however slowly we speak, a natural rhythm is maintained
and normal intonation patterns preserved as far as possible.
Many of the same requirements apply to reading aloud. Yet the reading aloud of a
particularly exciting or interesting excerpt can be extremely motivating and enjoyable
for a class, especially when students have been encouraged to predict what they are
going to hear. Poems, too, are very engaging for many students when teachers read
them to the class. For example: the reading circles in primary classes where children
group enthusiastically around the teacher to enjoy the experience of listening to a story.
Story-telling and story/poem-reading can work with adults, too, though the content and
the way it is handled will be significantly different.
Reading passages aloud to students can capture imagination and mood like nothing else,
but in order for this to work we need to 'perform' the reading in an interesting and
committed way and, as with so many other activities, we must be careful not use this
activity too frequently.
As teachers, we are ideally placed to provide appropriate input since we know the
students in front of us and can react appropriately to them in a way that a course book or
an audio track, for example, cannot. We know how to talk at just the right level so that
even if our students don't understand every word we say, they do understand the
meaning of what is being said. At such times the language gains, for the student, are
significant.
As a result, it may be a good idea to consider not just how much the teacher talks, but
also teacher talking quality (TTQ). It is the quality of what we say that really counts.
As to when we say it, that depends on how it fits in with the need for students to get
production opportunities and all the other myriad aspects of the curriculum. Basing a
lesson on using ourselves as language models and providers of input, as in the examples
above, clearly has the enormous advantage of not being susceptible to technical
malfunction, power cuts or unavailability. However, an over reliance on what we
ourselves can offer places excessive demands upon us. It is hard to be permanently
motivating and amusing, and it is taxing to have to offer a perpetually varied diet of
voices, gestures and expressions. Nevertheless, the ways in which we use our voice and
the ways in which we model language and employ gesture and expression are all basic
and important teaching skills.
CONCLUSION
Sometimes the teacher-students or even the own students relationship doesn’t work.
However, it is noticeable that when the connection between the various personalities
making up the class work, the atmosphere in it is better as well as the learning increases.
It may be true that teachers who are predisposed towards communicating with others
and who are interested in learners as people are more likely to succeed in the classroom
than those who regard teaching only as the routine transmission of knowledge. In my
opinion if a teacher doesn’t show a little of his human side, the atmosphere of the class
is not favourable for the learning process. I think that a teacher should always try to
leave a print. On the other hand, a teacher style that is too much centred on personal
relationships rather than learning tasks can only succeed if the learning group accepts
such a strategy or the school authorities sanction such behaviour. We should consider
whether we can modify our personalities and at the same time if that would help to suit
different circumstances. In any case it is not that easy, because we all fix our personality
through the years. But that may be possible if the teacher has a great awareness of the
social psychological reality of the class.
It is very important to state from the first moment what the teacher expect from the
students and it could be very convenient if the students could express their expectations
too.
Finally I think that when we talk about the different roles that English teachers
fulfill, we have to think about the reality in which we are immersed and adapt each
content to the level, number of students and amount of time that the teacher has to
choose how we are going to give a class and what kind of role are we going to carry out
to ensure that students obtain meaningful learning, and also include each of them in an
equitable way.