Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[tracy chiang]

From the kindergarten to the college, I have met a lot of teachers during the process of pursuing my studies. Almost all of them I remembered very clearly, but there were still some teachers I couldn�t recall at all. Therefore, I learned to classify teachers according to their different teaching styles, and knew why I had different impressions toward these teachers. Some teachers treated students strictly, and always gave them lots of homework. Besides, there were many quizzes waiting for the students to do in every class. All these teachers wanted to do is to make the students get good grades. They were very tough, so the students were afraid of getting close to them, and always felt stressful in these teachers� classes. The second type of teacher was completely different from the above one. These teachers treated students in a permissive way, and they always promised students� requests without any rules. In their classes, there was no discipline. It was hard for them to teach students, because in the student�s eyes, the teacher was just a push-over. The third kind was my most favorite one. These teachers treated students kindly, but they had their own principles. They would punish the students at proper time. Besides, they made students feel easy to get close to, so there were always many students gathering around them. While in class, they won�t emphasize so much on the schoolwork. Instead, they would spend some time sharing their life experience with students. I regarded these teachers as my mentors, because I benefited a lot from their invaluable advice whenever I faced problems.

[cgage2]

Well said. There is more to teaching than vocabulary and grammar rules. I teach children and therefore have an opportunity to teach values, as well.
I also teach creatively and more often design my own lesson plans.
American children are subject to horrible, depraved values that they witness in movies, TV, and on crime-ridden streets. In my city, foreigners are very often preyed upon by criminals. In some neighborhoods, foreign children are not allowed by their parents to play on the street I have to deal with hatred, fear and resentment. Each year, I teach a unit on Mahatma Gandhi. It helps.

[RedRose]

I am not any of the three kinds of teachers tracy chiang listed above.

I think it's necessary for a teacher to make his/her class a complete fun so that the students can get the knowledge easily, in a happy way. But I also think that a teacher should emphasize the schoolwork to the students, as much as he/she can. Otherwise he can be an unqualified teacher. he doesn't have to emphasize the point of schoolwork in a strict way, but he has to do it, maybe in a fun way.

I do make some jokes in my class to keep my students interested in the point I am trying to make, I just don't want my teaching to become a boring song that might keep my students asleep. However, I don't see it's necessary to share my life experience with my students. if the experience happens to have something to do with the lesson, as long as it's not too private, I would like to give away. I just don't think a teacher's life experience has anything to do with his teaching, In front of his student, he focuses too much on his life experience instead of emphasizing the schoolwork, he would be a terrible teacher.

[ad-miral]

Maybe it's also good to listen to an opinion from the student's point of view...

I like teachers who treats us like dudes, who also talks with us about their daily life, who tries not to be the ruler etc.
But on the other side he should also tell us the tasks which could be tested in the exam and he shouldn't tell us puzzles, which may lead to the answer of what could be in the next exam. I hate suchg puzzles because I always guess wrong in such situations.
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If I say "I love you" to someone, then I also have to say "I also love everyone else inside you, I love the whole world because of you, I also love myself inside you." -- Erich Fromm, the Art of Love