Good qualities of a good teacher

John Rogers in 2013 asked fifty first-year students at Qatar

University to write essays on what they thought about good and
bad teachers. They highlighted a teacher’s ability to motivate
students, and most of them wanted their teacher to be a mentor
and a guide, rather than learning in “an authoritarian, teacher-
centred classroom”
Wei-Wei Shen asked fifty-one writing students at a university in
Taiwan the same question, and one of the qualities that was most
often mentioned was patience (Shen, 2012).
Sandee Thompson’s respondents of her investigation about “what
makes a good teacher” told her that good teachers
build rapport, are knowledgeable of their subject matter and have
very good classroom management skills.

Specifically, respondents valued teachers who were caring,

creative, enthusiastic, patient, well-planned and respectful”
(Thompson, 2007).
One of the things that effective teachers frequently do is to build
good rapport with their students and between the students
themselves.
The magic of rapport
 What is Rapport?

Rapport is the “friendly agreement and understanding between

people”

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

- In classes with good rapport, anything is possible because the students think
their teacher is a good teacher.
- They trust the teacher to be even-handed, and they know that they will be
listened to with interest.
- Teachers should get to know who their students are because, as an eleven-
year-old once said, “a good teacher is someone who knows our names”
(Harmer, 2007).
There are several things we can do to make learning our students’
names easier:
- Have the students sit according to a seating plan.
- Have the students put name cards on the desk in front of them.
- Have the students wear name badges.
- Write notes about the students (what they look like, etc.) in the class register.
- Study the register before going into a lesson to try to fix the students in our
heads.
- Take a photo of the class and attach a name to each student.
- Have the students always say their names before they say anything in a lesson.
Things we can do to try to ensure that good rapport is created

Being welcoming and

Being ‘with’ the students,
encouraging and
remembering positive things rather than against
about the students. them.
Things we can do to try to ensure that good rapport is created

“Eyes talk”
A lot
We should show, by our facial
expressions – depends on exactly how we
by raised eyebrows to denote respond to what our students
interest say and do
Inside the classroom
Teachers have to “think on their feet”

Teachers frequently have to

make snap decisions about what to do
next.
Margit Szesztay ( 2004) suggests that in the act
of teaching, we draw on skills, knowledge and
intuition all at the same time in order to react to
things like experiencing difficulties or deciding
whether to correct or not.
 Therefore a lesson plan has to be
treated as a proposal for action rather
than as a blueprint to be slavishly
followed
The position of the teacher in class
also matters!
A good rule of thumb is to ask ourselves how we
would feel if our teacher behaved as we are doing,
and the second is to try to see ourselves through
the students’ eyes.
 Roles that teachers “play”

MONITOR AND
PROMPTER
CONTROLLER EVIDENCE
AND EDITOR
GATHERER

RESOURCE ORGANISER/
AND TUTOR TASK-SETTER
Reference

Harmer, Jeremy (2015). The practice of english teaching. (5th ed.).

Pearson.