Topic:
Language
teacher competencies and roles and responsibilities of English teacher.
o
Mentor
o
Facilitator
o
Scaffold
o
Reflective- Practitioner
COMPETENCIES
OF A TEACHER
Personal and
Professional Values-Professional Development
The Teacher perceives the students as individual
and values them. The teacher makes efforts to attain the high level of student
learning and development by taking into account social and cultural differences
of students, their background and interests. The teacher works for continuous
charge and development by making self- assessment.
Knowing the student
The
teacher knows all the characteristics, interest and needs of the student,
understands the socio-cultural and economic background of the student and his/her
parents.
Teaching and learning
process
The
teacher plans, implements, and manage the teaching and learning process. The
teacher ensures active involvement of students in the learning process.
Monitoring and
evaluation of Learning and Development
The
teacher evaluates development and achievement of students with regard to
learning. The teacher ensures self-evaluation and peer to peer evaluation of
students. The teacher uses evaluation results to improve the teaching process
and shares the results with students, parents, administrators and other
teachers.
School family and
Society relationships
The
teacher knows the natural and socio-cultural and economic characteristics of
the school environment. The teacher encourages families and the society to participate
in the training process and school development activities.
Knowledge of
curriculum and content
The
teacher knows and implements fundamental values and principles that is based on
education system and approaches, targets, principles and techniques of the
subject specific curriculum.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF ENGLISH TEACHER
Good
teacher are born, not made. However, the competencies a teacher requires to be
successful in the field can be attained to a very great extent through
intensive practice. The qualities of a good English teacher are enumerated
below.
Qualities of
a good English teacher
Ø Good knowledge of English.
Ø Knowledge of the scientific methods of teaching.
Ø Knowledge of the psychological principles of learning.
Ø Knowledge of pupil’s mother tongue.
Ø Efficient planning and organizing the curricular material.
Ø Good use of audio visual aids.
Ø Accurate evaluation.
Ø Time bound remediation.
Ø Tolerate learner errors.
Ø Facilitate effective learning
Ø Good diagnosis
Ø Systematic rectification of pupil’s errors
Ø Clarifying pupils doubts
Ø Effective Presentation
Ø Activity orientedness
Ø Consideration for pupil’s responses
Ø Good interaction
Ø Punctuality
Ø Sense of humour
Ø Love of English
TEACHER ROLES
Teacher role refers to various functions a teacher
can have in the class. The role usually implies the relationship between the
teacher and the learner. The different roles to be played by the teacher are
described below.
Mentor
Mentoring is an act of helping and advising
someone who has less experience in the field. It is a process of teaching,
guiding, influencing, and supporting a person junior to him. Mentoring includes
modeling. Modeling is an act of serving as a model. The person who performs
mentoring is called mentor.
A
mentor teacher guides another teacher junior in experience with mutual trust
and consideration in a work situation. Mentoring facilitates quality teaching
practices and related activities. It helps the novice teachers improve through
reflection, collaboration and shared enquiry. An important function of the
mentor is to be a role model.
A list of some strategies is included below
Ø Introduce and orient the new teacher to the school.
Ø Use a research based frame work to guide the new teacher in
reflecting on practice for the purpose of growth and development.
Ø View new teacher’s classroom to provide objective non-judgmental
data.
Ø Model and conduct demonstration lessons.
Ø Co-teach with new teacher.
Ø Help the new teacher.
Ø Develop classroom rules and routines
Ø Look at students work.
Ø Use formal and informal assessment strategies.
Ø Analyze student work to differentiate instruction.
Ø Prepare for supervisor’s observation.
Ø Communicate effectively with parents.
Ø Prepare for parent teacher conferences.
Facilitator
Facilitation
means providing the necessary resources, informal and support in proper order
for learners to complete a task. The role of teacher as a facilitator is
critical in developing learner centered works and communicative activities.
Learning
is a lifelong process. The students have to continue their studies even in the
absence of the teacher. They have to be independent learners. Teacher’s
facilitation is apt for this. Direct transmission of knowledge by the teacher
makes the students dependent in learning. It hampers their capacity for
learning. The roles to be played by the teacher as a facilitator are specified
below.
Ø To help the students learn the new material.
Ø To help the learners overcome difficulties they face.
Ø To clarify pupil’s doubt.
Ø To inspire the pupil’s to proceed in learning.
Ø To help pupils identify their strong and weak points.
Ø To develop confidence in pupil’s to carry out tasks.
Ø To frame suitable remedial measures.
Ø To help learners become independent learners.
Scaffold
In the field of education, the term
scaffolding refers to a procession which teacher’s model or demonstrates how to
solve a problem and then step back, offering support as needed. Psychologist
and instructional designer Jerome Bruner first used the term “Scaffolding” in
this context back in the 1960’s. The theory is that when students are given the
support they need while learning something new, they stand a better chance of
using that knowledge independently. Bruner recommends positive interaction and
three modes of representation during teaching actions, images and language.
Reflective
Practitioner
Reflection means
looking back to one’s own performance with the intention of improving it.
Reflective teaching includes evaluating one’s own teaching on the basis of
worthwhile standards and improving it further. It improves the Quality of
teaching. Reflective practice can help the teacher grow professionally. A good
teacher is a reflective teacher. He should be a reflective practitioner. The
prominent roles of a teacher as a reflective practitioner are the following.
Ø Know about the merits, limitations and demerits with regard to one’s
own teaching performance.
Ø Introspect about one’s performance in teaching.
Ø Collect information about one’s performance from students, peers
etc.
Ø Evaluate one’s own performance.
Ø Become flexible to receive feedback and criticism.
Ø Take a firm decision to make continuous improvement.
Ø Think about ways of improvement.
Ø Discuss with experts to know effective ways of improvement.
Ø Establish trust worthy rapport with the students.
Ø Analyze results of formative and summative evaluation of students
learning.
Ø Avoid excessive pride in one’s performance.
Ø Realize that there scope for improvement for anyone, anytime.
Ø Read ELT journals to update one’s knowledge of techniques for
self-improvement.
Ø Continue reflective process.
