Teacher's profession

Тема 5.1.

Read and retell the text.

TEACHER'S PROFESSION

When we first come to school a teacher meets us. She says: "Good morning, children. I am your teacher. I am going to teach you how to write, to read and to count".

No matter how many teachers we have after that, we remember our first teacher's name for the rest of our life.

During our school-years the number of teachers change, we really have a lot of them. When we leave school and go to a professional or technical school, an institute or university there are other teachers. Even when we are mature adults with our diplomas, if we want to learn something new we go to a teacher. Teachers are with us all our life. We always remember what they say and how they act. They often help us out. What should a teacher be like so that his very existence isn't a complete disappointment for his pupils?

Teaching is a very difficult, responsible and specific job. There is a wide variety of work in teaching. A good teacher is not only a communicator of knowledge but a model of competence. He forms attitudes to his subject and attitudes to learning, becoming himself a symbol of education process, a person who is learning as well as teaching. He should study all the time. A teacher dies when he himself stops learning.

While communicating with children a teacher studies them closely to discover their interests, their strengths and weaknesses, their needs and abilities. Thus a good teacher always regards capacities his pupils have, trying to temper his teaching methods to children's abilities and aptitudes. He builds his work upon what he learns about his children.

A teacher should be tactful. He should never mock the pupils if they say or do something wrong. It's the easiest way to discourage them. Teaching them something new is like teaching a baby to walk. It requires infinite patience. If you are impatient, you break the baby's leg and this baby will never walk. An environment should be created to stimulate children to develop their abilities and satisfy their interests. "Climate" of a classroom depends on the nature of personal relationships between a teacher and his pupils. These relationships should be founded on respect for a person. Thus a primary condition of creating a good atmosphere in class is that everybody in it respects everybody in it. Teacher's authority will be ensured by respect of his pupils, because his knowledge and skill no greater and better coordinated and his thinking is at a higher level than that of his pupils.

To liquidate ignorance is a purpose of education. But it is also the function of education to help children to live in the community, to prepare them for real life filiations. Social development is paid as much attention to as intellectual development.

School becomes a place of work and play, of living and learning. A teacher likes an active part in shaping child's character, fostering honesty, kindness, loyalty, cooperation, and respect for ideals.

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 does not sit motionless before his class; he stands most of the 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. I listen to him and you will hear the loudness, the quality and the musical tone of his voice always changing according to what he is talking about.

Qualities of heart and head go together in the making of a good teacher. His whole attitude is optimistic and cheerful. He is always lively, keen and receptive. He enjoys his work and shares with his pupils their zest for new discoveries. He is improving the content and methods of his teaching all the time. A good teacher must always keep abreast of new developments and ideas.

Quintilian, the prominent Roman school master, wrote in his "Institutes Oratory" published about 95 A.D. the following about a teacher and his work, "Let him adopt a parental attitude to his pupils. Let him be free from vice himself. Let him be strict but not austere, kind but not too familiar: for austerity will make him unpopular, while familiarity breeds contempt. He must control his temper without shutting his eyes to faults requiring correction. His instruction must be free from affection, his industry great, his demands on class continuous, but not extravagant. He must be ready to answer questions and to put them unasked to those who sit silent. In praising the answers of his pupils he must be neither grudging nor over-generous. In correcting faults he must avoid sarcasm and above all abuse to discourage industry."

The fact that a good teacher has some of the qualities of a good actor does not mean that he will indeed be able to act well on the stage; for there are important differences between the teacher's work and the actor's one. The actor has to speak words which he has learned 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, but must invent it in every concrete situation. There are many teachers who are fine actors in class, but are unable to take part in a stage-play.

It is also important how the teacher looks. It is desirable that all the teachers do their exercises every day before they go to work. When a clumsy, untidy and gloomy creature enters the classroom and teaches you what is the best way of living and what you should do in life, would you believe him?

Of course, a teacher shouldn't smoke or overindulge in drinking. When a teacher feels that his pupils irritate him and he snaps at them; when he notices that he cannot answer their questions on the subject; when the expression of his face is always angry and unfriendly - he should change his job immediately and keep away from school.

Do teachers always do what they should?

Note:

"Institutes Oratory" - "Про виховання оратора" - відомий твір Квінтіліана в 12 книгах.

Active Vocabulary

to help out - виручати;

responsible - відповідальний;

communicator of knowledge - носій знань;

model of competence - взірець обізнаності;

to communicate - спілкуватися;

ability - здібність, здатність;

to temper smth. - регулювати чимось;

aptitude - схильність;

to mock - насміхатися;

to discourage - відбивати охоту, розхолоджувати:

to require - вимагати;

authority - авторитет;

respect - повага;

community - суспільство;

to pay attention to - приділяти увагу;

to foster - виховувати;

gift - талант, хист;

to keep abreast of- йти в ногу з;

vice - зло. порок;

austere - суворий;

affection - показність, манірність;

abuse - образа;

clumsy - незграбний;

untidy - неохайний;

to overindulge - надмірно захоплюватись; to irritate - дратувати.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31