This article presents the the roles of a teacher and the roles of the learners in a language class by observing a lesson and evaluating it. The class is composed of 22 monolingual students.
Generally the teacher tried to make the lesson on equal power.Both the Ss and the T were active .Actually the more you do a student powered lesson, the more the language is learned clearly.But in this lesson, the T intervene where it is necessary.if we consider the learner and teacher roles the teacher is the leader or director of the lesson, she was the dominant side but she let Ss to handle the power time by time.
As I had a look at the lesson plan before, I ‘ve just made these predictions below:
In the warm-up session, teacher can direct the students by giving the instructions, model how to do and monitor the students to check their understanding and see what is going on in the activity. In the presentation stage, she can lead and force the students to think and talk about the picture. In the production stage she can be a model to explain how to play the game and then she can monitor the students.
Let’s see what she actually did in the lesson:
In the warm up session, teacher played a song about family members and the activities that they can do at home.Here, the teacher grouped the classroom into two and asked one of the groups tos hake their hands when they hear the family members and she asked the other group to mime the actions that they hear from the song.In this activity, the students are more active than the teacher.Teacher just gave the instruction, she acted as a director or the leader.She started to imply the instructions , that she gave , with the students to model how to do.After that she stopped and just monitored the students.
In the presentation stage teacher showed a picture with the help of a OHP(over head projector) and asked questions about it. Then she and her students started to talk about the Picture and the teacher personalised the subject of the picture and asked students about their own lives.The picture was about the actions that family members do at home.Teacher wanted students to explain their own actions that they and their family members do at home. In this activity she was dominant and she directed and forced students to speak and involve in the subject. She is the forcing power behind the students.On the other hand, the students had to think about the questions and reveal the subjects that teacher wanted.
In the production part, they played a game. Before starting the game teacher explained the game by modeling. She took one of the dices, threw,looked at the picture on the dice and threw the second dice, again looked at the picture on the dice and made a sentence about those pictures. Here she was the model. She tried to make the students’ understanding clear. Afterwards students did the same activity one by one. Students were the producer.They have to produce sentences with the help of the pictures on the dices.
As I evaluated, my predictions became true and the teacher behaved in the manner which I’ve thought before.
There are lots of ways to act in a lesson to enable effective learning and teaching as it is stated in an article in the internet with an unknown author.It says that “ Teachers and students are two parts in language teaching. While students are the main body, teachers play a predominant role, because of students’ ages, character, psychology and lack of English knowledge．The latest Course Standards for middle school English teaching stipulate that teachers’ work is to motivate students’ interest in English, cultivate students’ sense of success, guide students to form good learning habit, enable them to communicate smoothly and develop sound value towards learning and living. Teachers’ guidance is the basis and premise for students to realize the goal．In English language teaching，teachers should work hard to guide students, so as to get them to be involved into learning process，learn to probe, be interested in studies, and learn to learn on their own, and at last turn the still knowledge from books into dynamic ability．”( 6th November, 2006)As far as I experienced and learned from different resources teachers play multiple roles in English language teaching: They are knowledge conveyers, supplying students language knowledge and skills; they are helpers, helping students get English information and analyze it, and helping students to learn, and solve problems; They are companions，staying by students’ side; they are organizers，organizing activities for students; And they are controllers, making sure students are disciplined in the classroom.
As I read in an article of Judit Fehér, I can say that students have various roles in language learning. The article mentions about the four main roles distinguished by Roger von Oech: the explorer, the artist, the judge, the warrior.(17 October, 2007) Here the explorer is the role for searching new information and resources by reading books,going on-line, going to the library talking to people, etc. The artist is the role for turning the information to ideas.The judge means to decide what to do and the warrior is the role for carrying out the idea into action.If the teacher can make harmony of both his/her roles and the learners’ roles effective learning can be achieved.
In these activities, generally the students behave in the warrior role. The teacher gave instructions and the students imply them.For example, in the warm-up session, the teacher told what to do and then they immediately implemented it.Also, in the production part, again the teacher gave the instruction and theh did what they understand.But here they use their imagination and they produce language. Here they are producers too.In the presentation part , even though teacher presented the the language, before that she put the students into the explorer role by asking questions and trying to reveal and make use of their background knowledge about the topic.The students tried to find out the topic and the subtitles by brainstorming.
Besides these, the students were motivated well and eager to learn as they all behaved in the expected roles.They tried to do their best: They explored the new subject, they produced language, they brainstormed , they talked about the subject using the target language within the objectives.
This article obtained me to see that I use the correct roles as a teacher and I can change my roles according to the activity, age and level of the students.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The journal from the internet site :
http://www.jiaoyu123.com/Article/2006/497.html
6th November, 2006
2. Fehér, Judith. Creativite Environment. The journal from the internet site :
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/creativite-environment. 17 October, 2007
3. http://www.totalesl.com/resource_detail.php?id=71&subject=Language%20Arts
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