TEACHERS, LEARNERS AND TEACHING IN ESL CLASSROOMS

Characteristics of a Good Teacher:

make their lesson interesting so that students do not fall asleep love their jobs, thus making the lesson interesting show their true personalities knowledgeable not only in subject-matter but also share his/her interests with the students can amuse their students beside being serious abunt teaching/learning approachable, able to identify with students aspirations and difficulties able to correct students without being offensive make attempts to know their students

Interacting with students:

Brown (2001) has underlined 7 interactive principles:
Automaticity focus on meanings and messages Intrinsic motivation create a relax atmosphere
for students to interact

Strategic investments using strategies that help

them to negotiate meaning

Risk-taking Language-culture connection Interlanguage Communicative competence

Characteristics of a Good Language Learner:

learners find their own way and take charge of their learning. They determine the methods that are best for them as individual learners. They learn form others and experiment with different methods. organize their study of the language, and they organize information about the language they study.

 are creative. They understand that language is creative. They experiment with the language and play with grammar, words, and sounds. make their own opportunities for practicing the language inside and outside of the classroom. learn to live with uncertainty by focusing on the meaning of what they can understand, by not getting flustered, and by continuing to talk or listen without necessarily understanding every word.

 use mnemonics and other memory strategies to recall what they are learning. make errors work for them and not against them. use linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first language, in learning a second language. use contextual clues to aid their comprehension of the language. They maximize use of all potential contexts around the language attended to for enhancing comprehension.

 learn to make intelligent guesses. learn chunks of language as wholes and formalized routines to help them perform beyond their competence. For example, they may learn idioms, proverbs, or other phrases knowing what the whole phrase means without necessarily understanding each individual part. learn certain tricks that keep conversations going.

 learn certain production techniques that also fill in the gaps in their own competence. learn different styles of speech or writing to learn to vary their language according to the formality of the situation.