Job Discussion Forums

[TEECHER]

Ben Round de Bloc, You got my vote!

[scot47]

Good teachers ? Most of them go to Korea.

(GOVERNMENT WARNING : THIS POST CONTAINS IRONY AND/OR OTHER FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. IT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR LITERALISTS AND THE SIMPLE-MINDED)

[nighthawk]

Kent asked:

[Mike_2003]

In my opinion loving your job is the most important trait in a good teacher.

This will lead to many things advantageous to the student: contagious dedication and motivation, an eagerness to see improvement in themselves and thus their students, reliability, a thirst for knowledge...

Most importantly, a teacher who thoroughly enjoys their job will invigorate their students. I always recall my secondary school history teachers. For the first two years I had a teacher who was clearly bored and disillusioned and I, along the rest of the class, detested his lessons. In the third year a new teacher took over. I'm sure the original teacher was better educated and more knowledgeable, but the infectious enthusiasm of the new teacher spread to many in the class and as a result grades improved and I was instilled with a love of history (which previously I perceived as pointless and boring) which has stuck with me until the present.

For a student to see genuine pride and pleasure in their teacher's face when they (the student) perform a task well or improve their grades is a wonderful thing and deeply inspiring.

[Jojo]

I wholeheartedly agree with Mike
Having passion and joy for what you do shows in your teaching style, how you interact with the students and spreads to motivate your students to believe in themselves.
I also think being Flexible, having a great Sense of Humour(ability to laugh at yourself:)) and Patience as important qualities as a Teacher.

Jojo

[itslatedoors]

Sentimental tosh.

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Good Day Forum:

My sincere 'thanks' to everyone who contributed their thoughts, insights and good humour to this thread.

I promised I'd eventually jump back in here with my own 2 cents, and since Russians will be on holiday from this evening until Monday, I thought now would be as good a time as any to do that.

First, I agree with so many points that were made by so many of you, but in particular with Ben Round De Bloc, Johnslat, and Mike_2003, et al. who expressed the idea of 'loving what you do'. I couldn't have said it any better than that. Enjoying what you do is a prerequisite to success in the classroom; no doubt whatsoever.

As for the 'one' personality trait that has worked best for me over the years: In a word, humor. I'm not talking about the dancing monkey, always-be-a-clown kind of in-your-face humor. That gets old fast, and most students don't really want a clown as their teacher anyway.

I'm talking about everyday, good old-fashioned 'fun' in the classroom. Cracking up over the 'blooper' of the moment, finding humor in our own mistakes, in our lives, even in our textbooks sometimes. Humor is all around us, if we look for it; if we see it.

In our not-so-perfect World of today, laughter seems to be the 'one' and maybe the only universally spoken language. When combined with sound teaching methods and a solid grasp of the subject-matter at hand, you create an awesome presence in the classroom; a warmth; a feeling of 'family'; a friendly atmosphere conducive to actually teaching your students something they'll remember after the bell rings.

Let's face it; learning English can be a very dry, very boring and very difficult task. On top of that, many students come to class after a hard day at work or school. They have problems of their own, before they ever walk into your room.

IMHO; Developing the talent to get students to smile or laugh can be the single best way to get the language-oriented results we're after: If they're laughing, they wake up and 'tune in', and when they 'tune in', you've won the hardest part of the battle. Hopefully, a good teacher will win the other half of the battle by knowing his stuff.

It's the combination that works for me.

Best wishes,
kENt

PS: Where the Hell is MartinK ??? I've been looking all over for my dry-wipe markers and I can't find them anywhere.

[itslatedoors]

... good teachers cannot be found outside bnix's classroom...unless they're in Hamish's that is.........yawn.Time for a beer.

[richard ame]

Hi
I saw quite a few relative comments on this thread most of them I agree with ,but ,for me personally the one thing I discovered about myself was my strong sense of self preservation,not just those 45- 50 minutes in the class room if they got as much as I did that is iceing on the cake ,the really hard part is doing again the next day,every day ,the same faces ,trying to undermine you ,dealing with it and then having to cope with harrasement and back biting from so -called collegues and superiors who weren't fit to lick your boots ,smiling in their faces when you wanted to break someone or something and then finding your new boss is just the same ,maybe worse,but I still wake up every morning looking forward to going in ,thats something else I found something I enjoy doing,well,and I get paid .