3 Qualities of Good Language Teachers – EduLearn2Change

1. Patient

It’s true that being patient is a necessary teacher’s trait to help students overcome their learning difficulties that hinder their progress. It’s also essential for us to thrive in teaching against all the frustration and unexpectedness facing us.

So, being patient is one of the qualities of good language teachers. Yet, language teachers need to be more patient than any other subjects’ teachers. Why?

We need to admit that learning a language is not that easy. Indeed, developing the necessary skills to communicate in a language may seem for many students an unreachable goal due to their mistakes and difficulties that lie behind their frustration.

So, no matter what context you’re teaching in (the language you teach is a first, second, or a foreign language) or what objective you’re targeting (language accuracy, fluency or both), the process of language learning takes time and requires both the teacher and students’ efforts.

Since learning any language is a matter of practice, you are expected to nudge all students to speak up and produce in class, including those shy or introvert who never dare to say a word in front of others.

It may seem tough but your patience can help you achieve that. It will support you to stand against their resistance to participation and get more proactive to reach out to all of them.

Besides, to help your students develop ‘the language’, it’s also necessary to listen to everyone. This is to correct his mistakes (when accuracy is the focus) or understand what he wants to say without interrupting the flow of his ideas (when fluency is the focus).

While interacting with your students, it’s your patience that holds you back from saying ‘wrong’ or ‘no’ to students or getting crazy when a student can’t write a correct sentence or say even a word in that language.

Your patience saves you those moments of frustration when you can’t figure out those interference errors common among your students (in case of a second or foreign language). Because when you’re patient you can observe, reflect on what’s going on and find ways to fix issues.

So, your passion is required to create the kind of communicative classroom that is essential for language learning.

2. Inspiring

Effective language learning goes beyond the classroom walls. It’s not just a matter of answering an assignment in class or doing well in exams. But, it’s a process that requires students interaction with the language regularly (in and out of the classroom).

Students now have access to a variety of online language resources. They can listen, practise tasks, take online courses, and communicate with native speakers.

They can even learn about the target culture and develop the necessary intercultural awareness without crossing any borders. So, learning a language is no longer limited by time or space.

Yet, to extend learning beyond school, the classroom remains a critical incentive to fuel students’ passion to get engaged.

To this end, we need to inspire a love of the language we teach, by showing our students that we love using it and enjoy helping others learn it.

Also, because our passion is contagious it’s necessary to make it visible to our students in every word we utter to encourage them to do well and in every attitude we show them we do care about their success.

Yet, inspiring is not just a feeling to induce, but an action you should think about and enhance. When you plan for more learning opportunities for students, cater for their different needs you’re inspiring them to learn.

When you experiment with ‘the new’ to help your students enjoy every moment they learn with you, you’re inspiring them.

You’re also inspiring when you turn students’ learning into an exciting experience whose goal is worthwhile to pursue.

It’s only then that your students can see language learning not just as a subject matter dictated by the school, but as a valuable learning experience upon which their plans are built.

3. Dynamic

Another quality of good language teachers is being dynamic. When teaching a language we’re not just concerned with teaching its grammar, the necessary vocabulary and developing students’ writing and speaking, but our aim also includes helping them use it more effectively and behave more properly in real contexts.

Therefore, we’re supposed to provide a variety of input to create more learning opportunities for our students, using different teaching materials such as videos, songs, plays, games, etc.

The more you help your students interact with authentic learning materials the more they learn. Indeed, your classroom atmosphere has to be lively. You should thus interact with students and call upon their choices, productivity and creative thinking.

To do so, you need to be dynamic. How?

You should never confine yourself to one way of doing things. Because this does not only work with all students, but it can also sap your energy and enthusiasm in teaching. Good language teachers always look for better alternatives to make their classroom more interactive.

So, if you want to be dynamic, think about your lesson’s content and how to make it rich. Decide on the variety of tasks and materials you need to use.

In any lesson, put the’ language focus’ in a context to create a stimulating learning environment. This is by selecting an engaging topic for your students. Don’t forget to include authentic cultural resources which can make your students’ learning more meaningful.

Never focus entirely on one skill or language area. Integrate other skills by selecting different types of tasks. For instance, in a reading lesson, students are not just supposed to read. You can use listening as a pre-reading task to familiarize them with that text’s content (watching a video in relation to the text’s topic). After reading, students work on the text, practising different tasks (grammar, vocabulary, writing, speaking……)

Extend learning beyond the classroom. Provide a variety of learning resources that students can explore outside the classroom (they can work on written texts, videos, projects, etc.)

Also, encourage them to make choices and voice their ideas. They can decide on projects’ ideas, collaborate to write plays or achieve a given work….This will help them overcome their learning difficulties and focus more on their progress. It will also make them feel more committed to learning.

So, regardless of their mistakes, never underestimate your students’ potential. Their contributions may fascinate you.

Our role as language teachers is to support our students to learn how to communicate the language in real situations. So, we need to be more patient, inspiring and dynamic. These are the 3 qualities of good language teachers.