Roles reflecting a teaching approach or method

The approach or methodology the teacher is following may also influence the role of a teacher in the context of classroom teaching and learning. While not all teachers see themselves as trying to implement a particular approach or methodology (e.g., Communicative Language Teaching, a Process Writing Approach, a Whole Language Approach), many teachers do describe their teaching in these terms and may have been trained to work within a specific methodology. Implicit in every methodology are particular assumptions about the role of the teacher and about how students should learn. Some teaching methods define very specific roles for teachers and prescribe the kinds of behaviours which teachers should or should not allow in the classroom. For example, the Direct Method, which was one of the first oral-based methods to be used in foreign language teaching, described the teacher’s role in very specific terms and proposed the following guidelines for teachers to follow:

Never translate: demonstrate

Never explain: act

Never make a speech: ask questions

Never imitate mistakes: correct

Never speak with single words: use sentences

Never speak too much: make students speak much

Never use the book: use the lesson plan

Never jump around: follow your lesson plan

Never go too fast: keep the pace of the students

Never speak too slowly: speak normally

Never speak too quickly: speak normally

Never speak too loudly: speak normally

Never be impatient: take it easy (Titone, 1968)

In Communicative Language Teaching, the teacher has two main roles: the first is to facilitate the communication process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and various activities and texts. The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group. The latter role is closely related to the objectives of the first role and arises from it. These roles imply a set of secondary roles for the teacher: first, as an organiser of resources and a resource himself; second, as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities. A third role for the teacher is that of a researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organisational capacities (Breenand Candlin, 1980).

Within both general education and second language teaching since the 1960s, there has been a movement away from teacher-dominated modes of learning to more learner-centred approaches, which has led to a re-examination of traditional teacher roles. However, even so-called innovative methods still require teachers to carry out particular roles in the classroom in order to facilitate the language acquisition processes the method is designed to activate.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-13