What makes ateacher special?

Issue Fourteen January 2000 ENGLISH TEACHING professional 43

What makes ateacher special?

Paul Bress researches

the qualities we should be

aspiring to.

In recent times, the focus in the ELTclassroom has moved more andmore towards learner autonomy,and consequently away from the

teacher. The teacher is no longer thefount of all wisdom. Teachers havebecome facilitators whose job is tocreate the right conditions for learning.This, combined with the increasingmomentum of CALL (ComputerAssisted Language Learning), couldmean that teachers are in danger ofbecoming increasingly redundant.

hypothesis or preconceptions. Idistributed the simplest ofquestionnaires, namely:

Write down the five things which, inyour opinion, make a teacher special.

The questionnaire was completedby 40 adult students of many differentnationalities, and 20 experienced teachers.

The bar charts on the next page showthe six most common comments made bystudents and teachers, and it is interestingto note how similar the responses were,with a slight difference in emphasis.

As with all trends, however, therealso seems to be an opposite view. PennyUr warns of the dangers (and, indeed,hypocrisy) of forcing students to beindependent; C Crouch suggests thatstudents like teachers who put on ashow; Jeremy Harmer made animportant point when he said that thenurturing of learner independence makesteaching more difficult, and the teacherwho is able to do this even more special.

While the role of the teacher is beingdiscussed, though, surprisingly little hasbeen written on what actually constitutesa good teacher. Apart from Nick Owensarticle on teaching excellence (ETp IssueThirteen), more has been written on whata good teacher isnt. There have been twoarticles in ETp on this subject How tobe a boring teacher, by Luke Prodromouin Issue Eleven, and The teacher fromhell, by Paul Bress in Issue Eight andJulian Collinson defines really rottenteachers as people who: insult and patronise students over a

long period of time see themselves as omniscient are extremely critical of students are always in lecture mode never consider changing teaching style dont realise theyre bad teachers

(and wouldnt care anyway)

A surveyAgainst this background, I was curiousto find out what students and teachersconsidered to be the qualities of a goodor, indeed, a special teacher. I had no

Students (who were both articulate andkeen) tended to stress the caring nature ofthe special teacher, while teachers focusedon the ability to give individual attention.Both affirmed the importance of theteachers role in enthusing a class, andof turning the classroom into a richlearning environment; both referred tothe importance of being flexible and of

adapting the lesson when necessary.Finally, both considered humour to beimportant but not as important as theprevious points.

Teaching observedTo add some weight to my research, Iobserved four highly experiencedteacher trainers (while they taughtgeneral English) for 90-minutes each,and noted down all the aspects of theirlessons which I would describe not asmerely good but as special, ie the kindof teaching which goes beyond the callof duty.

Now clearly this kind ofobservation is qualitative and subjectiverather than quantitative and objective.Moreover, it involved just one person(me!) observing and evaluating.

Surprisingly littlehas been written onwhat constitutes a

good teacher

T E A C H E R D E V E L O P M E N T

ETp 14 Imposed 1/5/01 2:40 pm Page 43

that there is a considerable difference inteaching ability amongst teaching staffin all institutions. But should specialteachers be rewarded accordingly? Andif so, according to what criteria?

That particular debate is not one Iwant to continue here, but perhaps

there are morerelevant andpractical ways theseindividual qualitiescould be recognisedin the workplace.For example, wherea particular teacheris known to beparticularly good incertain respects,others could beencouraged toobserve their lessonswith a view toimproving thoseaspects in their ownteaching. And

simply observing other people teachingon a regular basis can itself be beneficial.

The more emphasis we put on theimportance of teaching excellence, andthe qualities that this entails, the morelikely it is that teachers will beencouraged to improve their own skills.What a difference it would make if allteachers shared that specialness whichinvolves constantly firing on allcylinders, communicating clearly,maximising learning, and, last but notleast, offering a genuinely caring,selfless presence.

44 ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue Fourteen January 2000

Paul Bress is a teacherand teacher trainer atHilderstone College, Kent,UK. He is also an assessorfor the RSA/UCLESscheme. He has publishedmany articles, contributedto TESOLs New Waysseries, and written booksfor Cornelson. His mainareas of interest arelearner independence andinterdependence.

T E A C H E R D E V E L O P M E N T

Collinson, J How to be a really rottenteacher Modern English TeacherJanuary, 1997

Crouch, C Performance teaching inELT ELT Journal May 1989

Harmer, J Taming the big I: teacherperformance and student satisfactionELT Journal October 1995

Ur, P The learner-centred classroomrevisited Practical English TeacherDecember 1990

However, I felt that alternative methodsof gathering data would also be flawed.For example, doing something moreobjective, such as mapping interactionpatterns, would probably have cast littlelight on the qualities of a specialteacher. Sharing out the responsibilityof subjective evaluation (eg byvideotaping the teacher and showing thefilm to a number of observers) wouldput more pressure on the observedteacher and render the teaching/learningexperience less authentic.

I therefore decided to carry out myoriginal plan, with the specific aim oftrying to identify any common threadsof specialness. I started with a blankpiece of paper and, again, nopreconceptions.

My conclusion was that the lessonsdemonstrated an ability on the part ofthe teachers toexemplify not onlyall the criteriamentioned in theresults of the survey,but other qualitiestoo. In my opinion,the key additionalqualities were: an extraordinary

clarity ofcommunication(without beingmachine-like)

an ability tomake the most ofevery learningopportunity

a finely-tuned sense of how to teachvocabulary

an awareness of what is going to bedifficult for students to understandor do, and the ability to pre-emptproblems

The following traits were not quite soubiquitous, but seemed to me to addthat special quality to the teaching: flexibility of voice, profile, and pace the empowerment of students

through praise, elicitation, andrelinquishing control

an ability to link lessons, or partsof lessons

an ability to teach more than justlanguage

an awareness of the particularproblems faced by students ofdifferent nationalities

Finally, there were certain qualities andpractices which struck me particularlyin some of the lessons I saw, eg leavingon the board a crystal clear writtenrecord of the language covered in thelesson. Clearly, different teachers bringdifferent qualities into the classroom,

and one of the elements of beingspecial is that each one of us isunique, and displays certain uniqueindividual characteristics.

Certainly, one clear conclusion Ireached was that teachers do indeedstill play an important role in studentlearning, and that there are teacherswho are special.

RecognitionAt the time of writing, the UKgovernment is considering changing thesalary structure of teachers to reflectperformance. In particular, theMinistry of Education seems to want toreward excellence in the classroom sothat excellent teachers do not leave theprofession. Few people would argue

What makes ateacher special?What makes ateacher special?

Students think a special teacher ...

has caring

qualities

interests/motivatesstudents

uses avariety of up-to-datematerials,topics andmethods

gives all the

studentsequal, fairtreatment

is patient and

re-teacheswhere

necessary

is funny

Num

ber o

f stu

dent

s

Num

ber o

f tea

cher

s

Teachers think aspecial teacher ...

treats eachstudent as an

individual

isenthusiastic/

inspiring

has caring

qualities

creates a rich

learningenvironment

is funny isspontaneous/

flexible

pEETT

0

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

5

10

15

20

25

ETp 14 Imposed 1/5/01 2:40 pm Page 44