How to Be a Successful Teacher

How to Be a Successful Language Teacher?

I. Introduction

Teacher is defined differently from one person to another. It has been said that teachers are those who act as the actors, conductors, or gardeners. That’s why, being a successful language teacher is quite hard, and it requires those teachers to understand both good and bad characteristics of language teacher – they can develop themselves to even more successful in the good points, and also they can learn and do the correction of the bad points to improve their capacity. In this essay, we are going to bring some points relevant to both good and bad language teacher, and then we’ll be able to sum up what’s the keys lead to be a successful language teacher.

II. Good points of language teacher:

1) Love what they do:

There is no question that awesome teachers love to teach. Not doing it for money, prestige, or glory, they teach because it brings them an incredible feeling of satisfaction knowing they are contributing positively to the future of others. If a teacher doesn’t have this inner satisfaction, and does not enjoy what they do, they will never be able to make lasting impressions in their students’ minds. Passion has great impact, and this is something that all great teachers have.

2) Good Communication:

Language teachers had the responsibility of bridging the gap between themselves and their students, so good communication skills are needed. It is sometimes difficult to communicate to people especially the children so that learning can happen in their minds. Yet, excellent teachers are master in this. Relating to the students on the students’ level, these teachers have developed many ways to reach their students, communicate using terrific speaking skills, visual aids, and even in their body language.

3) Admirable:

In order for a language teacher to be great, they must be admirable. These teachers lead lives of high moral ground, and they set an example to their students because of it. Really though, admirable teachers are more credible than others. We as people are much more likely to listen to those we admire since we wish to be like them. Models of whom we would like to be someday, great language teacher will show us the way.

4) Positive Reinforcement:

Instead of using strict punishment to discipline students, successful teachers know how to use positive reinforcement to discipline instead. These teachers understand that negatively hinders how their students learn, creates resentment in the students’ minds, and end up breaking the ties of the student-teacher relationship. Often, these teachers reward their students for doing the good jobs, so they are apt of doing it in the future.

5) Fair and Justice:

Equality is an ideal that great teachers hold dear to themselves. They treat their students equally, yet giving them the individual attention they need. No child is left out in the mind of a wonderful teacher, and they make it a mission to teach them all the same. In doing so, they end up teaching their students the importance of equality and fair treatment even if the teacher hadn’t intended to do so.

6) Leadership:

Great language teachers are leaders. In the classroom, they own the spotlight, and have the responsibility of being strong instructors so that students listen to them with determination. They have to lead their students on the right path through the learning experience, and help by revealing the obstacles that may stand in the students’ ways.

7) Comprehension in what they are teaching and Understanding:

As the matter of fact, language teacher need to have broad understanding of the topic he or she is teaching. Intelligent and flexibility is also required for them. As they are teaching the language in the class, they have to be well understanding about the subject that they are talking about, and this is pretty important to them in being aware of answering the students’ questions. What’s more, in answering the students’ questions, teacher needs to be loyalty, and undergo with all the questions. If the teacher really could not answer the questions properly or accurately, they are required to tell the students exactly that they could not answer this question now, but the answer will be given tomorrow. Doing this could demonstrate the responsibility, and they will never ever provide the students the wrong or inadequate information at all. Additionally, teacher also required to know when and where the students come from and who they are so that teacher will be able to apply the right methods to teach all types to the students even though they are in the different age and level.

8) Committed:

There is no doubt that a successful teacher is committed. They go above and beyond the time requirements of the typical teacher, and are willing to help the students whenever they need it. Great teachers are very committed to the curriculum they teach, and like their students, are always continuing to learn in the hopes of becoming even better teacher.

9) Compassion and Caring:

There is suffering in the world, and the great teacher recognizes this and has the inner desire to help. Great teaching help by teaching since they know that by giving knowledge to the next generation, they are creating individual who has the skills, compassion, and dedication to ending suffering. Great teachers care about the world and what they do and wouldn’t things any other way.

10) Confidence:

A teacher cannot teach without confidence. Students won’t believe in the teacher who first doesn’t believe in themselves. Great teachers are confident that they know how to teach, and in what they are teaching. Nothing stands in the way of this confidence, and the teacher does their best not to become arrogant about the job they do.

11) Well-prepared:

Excellence and successful teacher always have the plan and be well prepared. They know the necessary steps in the curriculum to teach students, and follow them well. These teachers are always ready to go when the time calls for it, and they never leave their students lots of and not knowing the direction they are headed. Successful teacher sticks to the plans that have prepared in order to teach the beat way possible.

12) Professionalism:

It’s the sign of the successful language teacher as well. They know that as someone is responsible for helping people learn, they must take their works seriously. Terrific teachers dress well, have good hygiene, and treat their students with respect. They believe in timeliness, and are never late and rarely miss days they are assigned to work. By doing so, the students respect them and are more willing to learn more from them.

III. Bad points of language teacher

As the matter of fact, being the successful language teacher required to aware of the bad points as well in order to be reach the real successful teacher. Here are some bad points we could find from language teacher such as:

1) Low discipline:

Discipline is the significant thing that it has to apply to all sorts of teacher. Successful language teacher need to adapt himself effectively with the rules that he set. For example, he should not be the one that come late since he was the one that told the students that all must be attend the class on time. In addition, teacher acts as the controller in the class, so if he breaks the rules by himself, he then will become the bad model for the follower.

2) Less Smile:

The smile is not hurt. Being the successful language teacher, smiling could help in varies ways – it not only help in order to attract the students attentions in class, but it also the way to encourage students to engage in learning effectively. For instance, when the students get the pressure from the language leaning, they encountered, and they feel that they encounter the problem of producing the new language; they might get the low self-esteem motivation. In this situation, teacher should not give the loudly shouting to the students since it might cause the circumstance to be even worse. Instead of doing this, teacher should encourage students by his smile – it shows his understanding toward the students’ mistakes, and the students would not be upset by these such the mistakes.

3) Lack of knowledge and experience:

In fact, when teacher comes up with lack of knowledge and experience, he may produce the low productive result to the students, so he could not flexible in answer the students’ question effectively. Moreover, if the teachers do not have varies experience of teaching, they may face with the number of problem. When he enter the class, he may not know how to bring the students’ interest to the topic he is teaching also he could not apply the sense of humor, and provide the right teaching methods to the students as well.

4) Lack of communicative skill:

As the language teacher, it’s vital to have the good communication with all types of students. We need to understand the age and the needs of the students so that we can adapt ourselves to the teaching properly. In addition, to succeed in this field, we also need to be maintaining the patient and be undergo all times since the students come from different background, which have different knowledge, capacity and needs. If the teacher lack of the communication skill, he could not engage the students to participate in learning language smoothly at all – leaning language required the cooperation between students and teacher.

5) Strict and force students to do things:

Some language teachers tend to be strict with the discipline in the class so that it is not comfortable for the students – he need to be more understanding. In addition, some teachers tend to provide the very difficult tests for students which is the big pressure for those who have the low capacity to study. He’d better give the test which suit to the students’ ability in all levels. What’s more, for those who are busy with other activities, they don’t have enough time to do the mountain of homework he gave, so the problems might be occurred.

IV. Conclusion

In all, In order to become a successful language teacher is not easy. It requires them to understand both good and bad characteristics of language teacher. With the good characteristics, they are able to make their students good in knowledge and conduct. Also they can develop themselves to be more successful in this career. I myself also depend on those factors to choose for the ideal teacher.

V. Recommendation:

Due to what we have discussed above, the successful language teacher need to know the keys lead to be successful and failure, and he should be able to analyze his strength and weakness so that he could develop himself to be the successful language teacher. He should be the good learner of unsuccessful tasks, and try to improve the weakness. Also, he should maintain his good points.

References: www.teachingprofessor.com/articles

www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic15

www.helium.com/knowledge134714

References: www.teachingprofessor.com/articles www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic15 www.helium.com/knowledge134714