If we think about the word “teacher”, we usually imagine a classroom an ordinary blackboard and a standing teacher as in the past. However, the world is changing fast and if we now visualize our present-day classrooms, we often acquire different things. For example, various kinds of gadgets, interactive whiteboards, Television sets, touch-pads, notes and other modern technologies. Moreover, we are living in the century of technology and this century changed not only things but also people. Our young generation is becoming more intelligent and more willingly to get knowledge from teachers. That is why teachers should be aware of technology in order not to be in difficult situations on the eyes of the students. Besides that, they should make their lessons more interesting and exiting by using some new methods. They can use unusual games and activities, which are found, interesting by learners. The demands of modern life is making teachers to self-study and work hard for themselves. Therefore, teachers should know how to comport in the classroom. As a future teacher, I am collecting fascinating and useful methods from my teachers even the worst of them. Observing their reactions and performances in the classroom, I got the best of them and I want to share it with you in this article.
- I want ateacher who are acquainted with technology.
Why technology is so necessary in our classroom? The role of technology in the classroom is at a high level nowadays. Thus, it can make our lessons more interesting and produce effective lessons and makes hard themes be easily understood. Moreover, it makes our lessons more colorful. For example, we can show videos according to our themes and it helps students understand quickly. Besides that, students can make their homework in power point presentations and explain it in the class. One of the advantages of technology is visual showing, which is found to be effective in language learning lessons. With the help of technology, students can watch videos and see various pictures according to the theme. If a teacher make a speech like a lecturer, it will be boring and exhausting. Moreover, students cannot remember the information fully, which is given by the teacher.
With the help of mobile phones, students do not need to make notes. They can easily take a photo and read it at home. It takes no time to copy all the pages of the book or the written words on the blackboard. By doing this, students save time and can point out more concentrate on the lesson. There are advantages for teachers too. In the past there were not enough books and teachers had to write all information on the blackboard but we have now e-versions of books and students install it and read it at home in their computers.
In addition to that, in the past people used to carry heavy and big dictionaries with them and it was hard to find one certain word from it. However, nowadays we have e-dictionaries, which can even sound the word by the reader. There is no need to look up the word by alphabet order and try to read misunderstanding transcription.
In our modern lecture rooms, there are projectors (a piece of equipment that makes a film or picture appear on a screen or flat surface) and our professors are using it actively. Besides that, there are microphones, which make teacher’s speech lauder. There are all considered to be technologies which is used in modern classrooms.
- How to gain attention of students easily.
The beginning is the most important part of the lesson. Imagine that you are a new teacher of a school, and it is the first working day of you. Your students walk into the classroom laughing, talking and throwing things at each other. They begin to take their seats and shockingly some even say ‘hi’ to you. The noise keeps on growing and you keep on thinking, “What can I do to grab their attention so they want to listen?”
What some teachers fail to realize is that they begin they lesson telling about the ‘Topic’, which they are going to explain today. Whether it is some themes of Grammar or Reading text, which you are going to read in the class, you should possibly think of when you talk ‘about it’ you lose people’s attention. You should make your students feel the benefit of the content you are teaching. You should motivate them to listen what you are telling. Therefore, you should quickly capture your audience’s attention. The following ways help you to grab your students’ attention.
‒ Tell an interesting story about the topic
‒ Ask a rhetorical thought-provoking question
‒ Use humor in your first sentence
‒ Show a gripping photo
‒ Use poems or songs according to your topic
‒ Use visual aids
‒ State a shocking statistic or headline
Gaining attention is necessary but we should not forget about passive students in the class, because they can easily lose their attention and engage in doing something else. In that situation, teacher should ask a direct question from the student or make him repeat the sentence, which is being told right now.
- Correction of mistakes
Teacher need to be careful while correcting student’s mistakes. That is why the teacher should not laugh at a student or allow other students to do so. Teachers should keep in mind the feeling of the one, who made the mistake, and make the correction as tactfully as possible. A good teacher should always avoid embarrassing the student. If a student is making a speech and he made some mistakes in grammar and word choice, teacher should make a note of them, and after the speech, she can tell the student his mistakes and let him to correct himself. Of course, she should give the time that he needs if it does not work she can ask other students to help him. If he made a mistake in pronouncing a word teacher can use mispronounced words later in her sentences. However, the teacher should not interrupt the train of thought of a student while he is making a speech.
- Teacher should be tolerant
If you have watched the film ‘BLACK’ by Indian film director Sadjay Lila Bhansal you can get an example of a tolerant teacher. In this film, there is a girl, who is deaf-and dumb and blind too. There was no opportunity to teach her because of her inabilities. She was like an animal and everybody lost their hope from her even her parents. However, one teacher named MrDebraySahai returns her to the life. He endures capriciousness of her and tries hard to teach her. He never gave up even when taking no results. After hard explanations,MishelMaknelli understood not only the word water but also the idea water. Helping the student to such an understanding as this takes both time and patience. In our stressful life, we come across problems in every day of our life. So we should not forget to act with people properly. Especially teachers need to be tolerant and patient and respect student’s efforts. If you say your student ‘you can never learn it’ he will be unmotivated and upset. If you work hard with your student and never give up you will achieve good results.
- Make your students be active during the lesson and increase their critical thinking abilities.
In modern teaching teacher is a driver and students are a car. It means that teacher should rule her students. In the past teachers used to explain everything in details and did not receive anything from students. If you explain everything, students’ memory abilities may slow down. If they learn it by themselves, they can easily remember it. Laziness is the first problem in our modern century. Students rely on only technology and some of them even do not read a paper book. In methodology there is a method named ‘Silent Way’. In this method teacher should be as silent as possible in order to encourage students to produce more language and to be active in the class. In this method teacher can make conversational class with students. This class puts students in such order that they unwillingly take part actively and study. You can give your students different activities such: problem-solving exercises, discovering something new, making debates and other extra activities. In order to increase students speaking skills, you can give interesting topics and ask them to make five-minute speech. Thesetopics should be interesting and exciting for students. In the below I give in random order the topics which I found to be interesting for myself as a student.
Leisure timeYour lovely singer
HobbyThe person whom you admire
FamilySports
EducationFriends
Your future lifeLove
MusicFriendship
Famous peopleStudying abroad
Cities I have visitedFood
Even in your reading lesson, you can make your students be active learner. For example, there is a reading passage and you should make your students read it. If you simply give it to your students, during the reading time they may be bored. Moreover, they cannot achieve any results after reading the text. That is why in the beginning you should ask their opinion about the text by telling the title. Therefore, you can ask questions which should be answered after reading the text and let them speak more.
- Cultivate arelaxed English speaking zone.
Speaking is the essential part of learning a language. That is why teachers should more point out it in the class and out of the class. Using the target language can lead to the success which you are going to achieve. Teachers should create relaxed English atmosphere in their lesson. Students should not fear of making mistakes. The more they speak in English the faster they learn it. You should avoid correcting every grammar mistakes, which your students are making in their speech but not flagrant violations. They should be corrected in the moment they are made. Grammar slows down the fluency of speech and can be trouble to speak fast. That is why grammar should be forgotten. You should not let students laugh at each other’s mistakes. By doing this, you can create relaxed atmosphere among the students. Teacher should stimulate the interest of speaking English everywhere. English language should be used not only in the class but also out of the class. If a student wants to ask a question from you and, he is speaking in his native language you may not answer or pretend not to understand his words. Moreover, you can have communication classes with your students. You should not let your students speak in their own language even a word. If they do not know the word, they can give the definition of the word and, others help to guess it. If nobody knows the translation of the word and conversation cannot continue without it, they can look up from the dictionary or you can help. To sum up my article is devoted to produce more successful and skillful teacher for our future generation. As a student, I want to have a teacher who can cope with any difficulties and manage to conduct interesting classes. In the process of learning English as my second language, I came across too many teachers and I tried to learn them new, interesting and useful methods. I want a teacher who will take an interest in me as a person. From my own experience the best teacher is not only who teach something in the class but also being a friend, a mother or any relative to the student. In my opinion, teacher should treat a student as a person on an equal basis with all members of the class, regardless of sex, marital status, or race. Besides that, teacher should put herself in the place of the student. The knowledge should be the watch word, while evaluating a student. In this article, I have drawn up a number of simple but important guidelines some of which I hope may provide helpful suggestions for the teacher of English.
