Teach English in KAifAqu - Anqing Shi

Role of the teacherThe teacher has the most important role in the class. On the one hand, he has to make sure to keep the discipline in class, to teach the students successfully, to solve problems and to explain and follow the rules. On the other hand, the teacher should make sure to make the students feel comfortable, to keep a nice harmony in class and to build up a good relationship amongst the students and the teacher. The teacher?s role must demonstrate how to behave in class to be a successful learner and how to keep the harmony. Fun activities or simply talking about private interests and problems can help support a positive and comfortable feeling within the class and amongst the students. (There are exceptions where private topics should be avoided, such as with business people.) In the very first lesson it is the teacher?s job to introduce himself and get to know the students. If the students don?t know each other either, it is important to break the ice and make them feel comfortable amongst themselves. The teacher has to make sure to give the students a secure feeling in the class, so he shouldn?t focus too much on a student but treat them all equally. Weaker students might need more support but shouldn?t get the feeling of weakness or failing. Stronger students are not allowed to become dominate in class and should always know their position. The teacher needs to figure out how to keep the balance between these different factors. Different tasks and using varying materials can help a lot; working groups can be a good way of supporting individual students as well (e.g. stronger students can support weaker ones). If the balance isn?t kept, the students will start feeling uncomfortable and start disliking the lessons. Pair/group work like most activities should be observed by the teacher; sometimes actively helping the students. As soon as troubles appear the teacher has to solve them. The teacher must know how to teach successfully. Therefore he must be creative and make his lessons interesting by using different materials and by letting the students work together in groups or pairs as well. If the lessons are too difficult, too easy or do not vary enough, the students will get bored and their concentration will decrease. It is the teacher?s task to keep the students motivated by using suitable activities, giving positive (negative as well though) feedback and figure out how to solve problems, which the students have. Lessons need to be well prepared, including the engage, study and activate stage. Materials and tasks/activities have to be researched and tested so no problems will appear and no students will get bored or will feel lost. The teacher should still be aware of problems which might come up during the lesson and should know how to deal with, and solve them. It makes sense to plan not only the upcoming lesson, but also up to 20 following lessons (especially for business people). Previous lessons need to be documented as well to keep an overview not only for the teacher himself but also teachers who might take over the lessons for a while and for the students (if someone was missing in one lesson). Finally, as mentioned before, the teacher?s role is the most important in class because he holds the class together and keeps the structure in a harmonizing way. A teacher will find out how to deal best with his class over time as he gains more experience.