Daffodil International University
Faculties and Departments => Faculty Sections => Faculty Forum => Topic started by: shibli on July 14, 2009, 04:15:21 PM
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Education aims to facilitate change and learning, which is only possible if one facilitates learning by establishing an interpersonal relationship with the learner.
To be a facilitator a teacher must:
Firstly, discard his/her superiority and be genuine and true in his/her efforts.
Secondly, s/he must genuinely trust, accept and prize the student as a worthy individual.
Thirdly, s/he must openly communicate with his/her students and vice versa.
The following are some of the things that teachers can do to add a little humanistic touch to teaching in the classroom:
We should learn students' names--it reduces student anonymity and gives them a sense of individuality and responsibility;
When interacting with students we should always maintain eye contact; smile with the students and try to appear open and accessible to them;
We should come to class on time or a little early and stay after class and exchange a little chit chat with the students---it makes them feel 'important and human';
We should move around the class--it makes the class seem smaller and increases student involvement and participation. It also allows the students to move about freely in class;
We should get student feed back about the course for suggestions, problems, expectations, and reactions through informal discussions and students' responses. (To be continued)
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Reflective teaching can be an effective way of teacher development
We teachers begin with an initial philosophy about teaching but we change our practice according to the needs of our students. We frequently talk about our teaching and especially our students and problematic classroom situations. We often say “My students are not motivated,†“They don’t want to talk in the class,†“It is difficult to make them work in groups,†“The materials I am using are not satisfactory,†“I am not satisfied with time management,†and so on. In this way we, teachers are always evaluating our teaching. But if we follow a systematic procedure professional development can be more effective. Many models of teacher development exist in recent years the reflective model has gained popularity among practitioners. In the reflective model teachers apply their ideas into the classroom, observes and reflects on the results and bring about changes. Observation and reflection help the teacher refine the theory s/he started with and adjust classroom teaching accordingly. This cyclic process of practice, reflection, plan and change continues throughout the teacher’s career and enables him/her become an expert teacher.
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When employing role-plays, debates, topic discussions, etc., I have noticed that some students are often timid in expressing their viewpoints. This seems due to a number of reasons:
* Students don't have an opinion on the subject
* Students have an opinion, but are worried about what the other students might say or think
* Students have an opinion, but don't feel they can say exactly what they mean
* Students begin giving their opinion, but want to state it in the same eloquent manner that they are capable of in their native language
* Other, more actively participating students, feel confident in their opinions and express them eloquently making the less confident students more timid
Pragmatically, conversation lessons and exercises are intended to improve conversational skills. For this reason, I find it helpful to first focus on building skills by eliminating some of the barriers that might be in the way of production. Having been assigned roles, opinions and points of view that they do not necessarily share, students are freed from having to express their own opinions. Therefore, they can focus on expressing themselves well in English. In this way, students tend to concentrate more on production skills, and less on factual content. They also are less likely to insist on literal translations from their mother tongue.
Implementing this approach can begin slowly by providing students with short role plays using cue cards. Once students become comfortable with target structures and representing differing points of view, classes can move onto more elaborated exercises such as debates and group decision making activities. This approach bears fruit especially when debating opposing points of view. By representing opposing points of view, students' imagination are activated by trying to focus on all the various points that an opposing stand on any given issue may take. As students inherently do not agree with the view they represent, they are freed from having to invest emotionally in the statements they make. More importantly, from a pragmatic point of view, students tend to focus more on correct function and structure when they do not become too emotionally involved in what they are saying.
Of course, this is not to say that students should not express their own opinions. After all, when students go out into the "real" world they will want to say what they mean. However, taking out the personal investment factor can help students first become more confident in using English. Once this confidence is gained, students - especially timid students - will be more self-assured when expressing their own points of view.