We all know what it means to be a good language trainer/teacher. It obviously entails a very good command of the langauge being taught, the capacity to control the group of students and lead them through a variety of activities while, at the same time, letting them loose to speak within contexts that resemble real ones. We could also assume as a prerequisite of the above mentioned quality the capacity to relate to your students, what we normally call in the methodology jargon “establishing a good rapport”.

What I would like to do in my first blog entry is to offer my personal list of 10 attributes that make the difference between good and great. The features have come to my mind in a random order, without any priority status. I prefer to leave room for discussion as to which could be the most important ones and also, for other elements that could be added to the list. You’re invited to contribute to the extensive definition of a GREAT LANGUAGE TEACHER

1. Creating hooks that make learning memorable – from a gripping story through which to introduce a grammar topic to a simple gesture or facial expression to render the meaning of a word – the teacher’s body, mind and personal experiences should act as main resources for the learning process. The benefit is that whenever the hook is reactivated, the language item will “miraculously” come back to the student’s mind.

2. Offering equal attention to ALL your students – with larger groups of students it may be quite challenging to involve everybody all the time, the shy as well as the bold; however, the great teacher will always think ahead about how and what to do in the class so that nobody feels bored or neglected throughout all the stages of each activity.

3. Being naturally friendly and interested in your students – the message conveyed by the great teacher’s behavior is: “I’m really curious to find out more about your thoughts and other things you want to reveal about yourself in our lesson and, most of all, I want to turn these 2 hours we spend together into a genuine learning experience for both of us.”

4. Allowing the students to EXPERIENCE the target language – and to experience it for many times and in various contexts throughout the lesson until it is internalized and becomes their own. This is actually the “magic feature” that makes a student exclaim – “I go out from this class with my lesson learnt”- extraordinary advantage especially if you work with adults that have very limited time for homework.

5. Making the lesson unpredictable and surprising – the opposite of which is “a book-based lesson” where the main instruction is “Now let’s open the books at page … and let’s do exercise no. …”and the next number will follow, and then the next, until the class is over. Elements of surprise? Change the students’ seating, dice games, pictures, built-up dialogues in which students take different roles, real fruit, vegetables or other realia to present new vocabulary, the great teacher would know what the best ingredient for each class is that would bring in this element of surprise.

6. Having a global view on your course - laying a good foundation on which to build up, like in the case of a building, brick after brick of contextualized information. And also, coming back to it, revising until you make sure that all your students are confident with what has been taught.

7. Paying attention to the type of learners your students are – and be flexible with your approach accordingly. A great teacher will notice quickly which students are more technically- minded and would want structures, rules and maps to support their learning, and who are the ones more inclined towards an experiential type of approach in which case repeating structures in various contexts will prevail.

8. Grading the level of teaching to make the class challenging to all students – easier said than done especially with multi-level groups. The great teacher will, however, empower themselves with tools and techniques to cater for the needs of all students, more or less advanced on the assigned level of study.

9. Being aware that students, young and adults alike, perceive you as a model – once you are in front of them, they will take in patterns of language usage and pronunciation from you, but also patterns of behavior and reaction to various situations. It is never only language that a great teacher offers. They constantly empower themselves with resources to offer in terms of language and beyond. Students pay attention primarily to what you teach, of course, but also to who you are as a person; they are challenged by your questions and answers alike!

10. Enjoying every minute of it! No comments to this one