Teachers and Actors

Education and Bringing Up Children

Priorities

1. Why do you go to school / university? Number these reasons in their order of importance from 1 (most important) to 12 (least important):

Ø __to acquire general knowledge

Ø __to prepare for a job

Ø __to meet other young people

Ø __to train one's memory

Ø __to learn something about subjects one will not deal with again later

Ø __to find out what one is really interested in

Ø __to give one's parents some peace and quiet

Ø __to test one's intelligence

Ø __to learn how to study and work with books

Ø __to have a good time

Ø __to be kept dependent

Ø __to learn discipline and order

2. What kinds of pupils / students do you find it difficult to teach? Why?

3. Look at the list of factors contributing to a teacher's job satisfaction. Number

Them in order of their importance to you. How satisfying do you find a teaching

job? Why?

security of tenure long holidays

a good salary well - motivated students

a good pension a pleasant school building

a sense of achievement a supportive head teacher

good school equipment

4. Read the text:

Teachers and Actors

To be a good teacher, you need some of the gifts of the good actor; you must be able to hold the attention and interest of your audience; you must be a clear speaker, with a good, strong, pleasing voice which is fully under your control; and you must be able to act what you are teaching, in order to make its meaning clear.

Watch a good teacher, and you will see that he doesn't sit motionless before his class: he stands the whole time he is teaching; he walks about, using his arms, hands and fingers to help him in his explanations, and his face to express feelings.

Listen to him, and you will hear the loudness, the quality and the musical note of his voice always changing according to what he is talking about.

The fact that a good teacher has some of the qualities of a good actor doesn't mean that he will indeed be able to act well on the stage; for there are very important differences between the teacher's work and that of the actor’s. The actor has to speak words which he has learnt by heart; he has to repeat exactly the same words each time he plays a certain part; even his movements and the ways in which he uses his voice are usually fixed before. What he has to do is to make all these carefully learnt words and actions seem natural on the stage.

A good teacher works in quite a different way. His audience takes an active part in his play: they ask and answer questions. The teacher, therefore, has to understand the needs of his audience which is his class. He cannot learn his part by heart, he must invent it as he goes along. I have known many teachers who were fine actors in class but were unable to take part in a stage-play.....

Answer the questions:

1. What makes teachers and actors akin?

2. What qualities are necessary to become a good teacher?

3. What can a good teacher do that an actor can't?

4. Give a character sketch of a good teacher.

5. Translate the following phrases into Kazakh:

Ø to give background knowledge –

Ø to possess an adequate level of personal education -

Ø to have a sufficient command of the subject he teaches-

Ø to give information about teaching means and methodology -

Ø to give extensive liberal education -

Ø (not) to admit a person who marks himself out as unsuitable to teaching -

Ø to display a keen interest in teaching -

Ø inadequately low level of professional orientation -

Ø poor grounding in the essentials of a child's psychology and development -

Ø a gap between school and college -

Ø no strict criteria for admission to colleges of education -

Ø inability to anticipate the occupational hazards of teaching -

Ø unawareness of the emotional impact children make on teachers -

Ø to display emotional maturity -

Ø to have a wide experience of life -

Ø to move with the times -

Ø ability to control the teaching process -

Ø to possess an individual approach to pupils -

Ø ability to manage the classroom activities properly -

Ø to stimulate smb to creative, productive work -

Ø to have the capacity to arouse smb's interest -

Ø to involve and excite -

Ø to exhibit unusual intellectual curiosity -

Ø tend to be critical -

Ø to have a way with children -

Ø to have insight into one's psychology -

Ø to hold the attention of the students -

6. Are Teachers Born or Made?

A. Read the text:

As all of us look back over own experiences with teachers, we recall that some teachers were much more effective than others. Some were stimulating - they made us think; they motivated us to productive work. Others were dull - in their classes we achieved only enough to get by and forgot most of that before the next school year began. It seems obvious that a trait, essential to teaching is the capacity to arouse students - to involve and excite them, to get thinking going and keep it going. Is this particular trait one which some people are born with, or can it be acquired? There is no easy answer to this question. Some persons while still children begin showing traits that suggest they can become exciting teachers. Their thinking shows an unorthodox, creative streak, and they exhibit unusual intellectual curiosity; they want to learn about all kinds of things and are probing and trying constantly. Such children also tend to be critical in the sense that they take nothing for granted; they always have to know why. How do we explain such persons? In one view heredity is the explanation; in another, early environment. There is no way of settling this controversy since everyone's personality is a product of his interacting with an environment, and no one can say trait A is inherited and trait B is learned. Heredity may contribute importantly to qualities of personality but, if so, this has not so far been conclusively demonstrated by scientific means.

Our answer to the questions of whether good teachers are born or made is that we have little evidence that they are born; therefore, they must be made. There are still some significant issues related to this question. To what extent does teaching hinge on general personality factors? To what extent does it hinge on the background of knowledge a teacher possesses? To what extent does it hinge on an understanding of technique or method, such as might be learned in professional education courses?

To the extent that good teaching depends on personality, it is somewhat doubtful that a college education can be of much help. The fundamental characteristics of a personality in most cases seem to be fairly well established before college age is reached. There are occasional conspicuous exceptions: some college students literally achieve a transformation of personality. In the course of time, as college professors themselves learn to become better teachers, we may expect more of these transformations.

So far as background knowledge is necessary to good teaching, certainly colleges can play an important role in the making of teachers. It is by no means settled, however, just what kind of background knowledge a teacher most needs.

The college work of prospective teacher is split between (1) general education in the arts and sciences, (2) specialized education in those subjects which the student expects to teach, and (3) professional education i.e., those courses which treat problems of pedagogy - child psychology and development, social foundations of education, learning theory, curriculum, and methods. Although each of the above subject areas can provide useful insights, there is a group of the arts and sciences that feel that professional education, at least as now conceived, is of little value and should be sharply reduced in quantity. They argue in favour of extensive liberal arts education for teachers, coupled with heavy concentration in the fields of specialization. However, there are telling arguments in favour of professional courses, which we shall explore in the section to follow.

B. Translate into Kazakh:

ü to look back over one’s own experience

ü to motivate to productive work an essential trait

ü to exhibit unusual intellectual curiosity

ü to take (nothing) for granted

ü to settle controversy

ü to interact with the environment

ü to contribute to one’s qualities

ü significant issues related to smth / smb

ü to be fairly well established

ü occasional conspicuous exceptions

ü extensive liberal arts education

C. Answer the questions:

1. What subjects should colleges of education include in

their curricula?

2. Who should be admitted to colleges of education?

3. What in your opinion are the drawbacks of today's

college education?

4. What is your image of "an ideal teacher"?

5. What qualities are indispensable for a teacher?

D. Write a composition on one of the topics:

1. Are teachers born or made?

2. Teaching is an art.

3. Experience is the best teacher.

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