Part II

Roles of a Good Language Teacher

What is meant by “Teacher Roles”?

 A teacher has the job of managing

the activities and the students in
the classroom in different ways
while a lesson is in progress.
 Therefore, he/she must act in
various ways at different stages of
the lesson.
 These different kinds of behaviours
are known as ‘teacher roles’.
Following are some dilemmatic questions
teachers may come across when teaching in
classrooms.
 what should be my role in the classroom?
 Should I plan lessons carefully, selecting the
language facts to be transmitted to students?
 Or
 should I be more flexible and let the lesson
flow spontaneously?
 Should I take full responsibility for the choice
of activities, topics, and areas of language?
The roles of the teacher.
• The teacher finds him/herself with many roles to play:
1. Planner
2. Manager
3. Monitor
4. Friend
4. Counselor
5. Facilitator of learning
6. Information provider
7. Motivator
8. Resource person
9. Diagnostician
10.Role Model for the students
Teacher as a planner
Planning for the classroom is
an important part of educating and
behavior management.
Proper classroom planning will keep
you organized and on track
while teaching, thus allowing you to
teach more and manage less.
Part of classroom planning is
developing effective lesson plans.
 Lesson Plans

 A good lesson plan might include

 an objective or goal,
 the steps of the lesson,
 the expected outcome and room to
make changes along the way.
Teacher as a manager
 Classroom management is the linchpin
that makes teaching and learning
achievable in the teaching learning
process.
 It is the teacher who plays the main role in
planning, organizing procedures and
resources, arranging the environment to
maximize efficiency, monitoring students'
progress, anticipating potential problems.
 Proper classroom management and discipline
ensure the success of learning process.

 In order to maintain the effective

management in the classroom, teacher has to
be precise and clear in directions to the
students, as well he/she communicates well.
Teacher as a monitor
What is Monitoring in the Classroom?
Monitoring is a set of activities conducted by the
teachers to keep track of how the students are
performing in class.
Monitoring facilitates decision-making in terms of
what to do next, whether to modify the original
lesson plan.
Maintaining discipline.
Monitoring whether the students are engaged in
assigned activities properly.
 Large groups may become restless and bored if
some learners have finished a task before others.
 Further, the teacher walks around the
class monitoring for difficulties and corrects
where necessary, then talks to the whole
class about common mistakes.

 While this is a necessary task, some teachers

may only be aware of monitoring through a
general assessment test of the learners’
development (monitoring the progress).
Teacher as a friend
 Establishing a positive relationship with their teacher
helps a student feel more comfortable and safe in their
classroom environments.
 As a result, students are more likely to participate actively
in class and challenge themselves academically.
 Teacher comforts students when they are upset or
unhappy.
 It's okay to have a fun relationship with students. When
they befriend you, they feel easy to talk to, they
understand their teachers more, and it can even make
learning more fun.
 If they take the friendship too far that is wrong. It's okay
to have a teacher trying to be a student's friend.
 As a teacher you can use the following
strategies to build better relationships
with your students.
 Learn names quickly and correctly and
call them by their names.
 Show that you are always ready to help
them
 Assign seats, and change them often.
 Simply listen.
Teacher as a counselor
 It is the teachers only who are responsible for
shaping the life of the students.
 In this context, their role is very important as they
know a student better, his strengths and
weaknesses that can help them find the possible
change to bring in his personality.
 The teacher has the
main responsibility in counseling since he/she
spends a long time in the presence of students,
observes them in many contexts, supervises them
better, and evaluate them
 School counselors are trained to address a
range of issues such as broken relationships,
strained relationships with parents, self-
esteem and body-image issues, addiction and
thoughts of suicide or potential career paths.

 However, not all teachers have what it takes

to become one.
Teacher as a facilitator
 A facilitator is the person who guides and
manages a group of people in achieving at their
common targets effectively without any
intervention on his/her behalf.
 However, The teacher should not be the king who
controls the activities of the learners. He /she
should grant the learners some space to let the
spirits of creativity and innovation.
Teacher as an information provider
*Traditionally teacher was expected to pass on
the information to the students and this was
lead the teacher to be considered as an
information provider. Here the teacher
became a mere transmitter of knowledge.
*However, a good language teacher is not
expected to use the traditional method of
transmitting the knowledge to the students all
the time.
 In student centered classroom the teacher is
expected to provide necessary instructions
(information) prior to activities and during the
follow up session simultaneously.
 Teacher becomes an information provider in
clarifying things related to student posed
questions.
 Furthermore teacher can remain as an information
provider where necessary and whenever he/she
wants according to the situation.
 Here, teacher becomes a source of knowledge.
Teacher as a motivator
 Motivation
 can be defined as a reason or reasons for acting in a
particular way.
 arouses, maintains and channels behavior of an
individual towards a goal.
 is goal-directed behaviour.
 plays a significant role in the process
of learning a language.
 helps the teachers to identify students' purposes
and needs and to develop
proper motivational strategies.
How to motivate the learner
 Students look to teachers for approval and
positive reinforcement, and are more likely to be
enthusiastic about learning if they feel their work
is recognized and valued. ...
 Get Them Involved. ...
 Offer Incentives. ...
 Get Creative. ...
 Create fun in the classroom
Motivate your students saying:

You're on the right track now.

You've worked so hard on that.
I heard you say how you feel. That's great,
Oh, that turned out very well.
You've just about got it.
That's the best you've ever done.
That's it!
Teacher as an Assessor
An assessor
 assesses the students' level of learning, giving
feedback and grading them.
 offers the help if students do not understand
something, they give feedback over their activities
and also grades them in different ways.

 checks the students' exam or test papers and

corrects the mistakes. A teacher should always be
fair in assessing students’ work.
Teacher as a role model
 A role model is someone we admire and someone
we aspire to be like.

 We learn through them, through their

commitment to excellence and through their
ability to make us realize our own personal
growth. We look to them for advice and
guidance.

 A role model can be anybody: a parent, a sibling,

a friend but some of our most influential and life-
changing role models are teachers.
Teacher as a resource person
 Sometimes students want to do their work, assignments
or task by their own. Here in this kind of situation
teacher's interpretation is disregarded. They want to be
independent but still they need some help or suggestions
from the teacher. For example: a student is writing a
paragraph and he can have teacher's help to set it in the
right order.
 The students might need a teacher in the middle of a task.
 As a resource the teacher should always be ready to help
but she should not interfere rather the students should
ask for her.
 Through this process students will become independent
and increase their capability.
Teacher as a diagnostician

Diagnosticians are a type of teachers who assess,

diagnose and work with children with learning
problems.
Without labeling the students who have learning
problems as students who are unable to learn or
students with low IQ it is teachers duty and
responsibility to diagnose or at least understand their
real problem and help them.