THE GOOD LANGUAGE TEACHER

by Luke Prodromou

More work has been done on the good language learner recently than on the good language teacher. This reflects the current learner-centred orthodoxy many teachers subscribe to: autonomy of the learner, self-access work, guessing strategies, a more systematic approach to grammar, and the importance of using the language for communication, attitudes to the target culture, and so on. The profile of the good learner is beginning to emerge.

This is all well and good, but the demands on the teacher in a learner-centred methodology are greater, paradoxically, not less, than in conventional "teacher-centred" approaches. We need to know more about what skills are required of a teacher who wishes to encourage good language learning.

This article reports the results of a survey designed to discover students' views of good and bad language teaching. Although students' opinions and expectations are not sacred, they are a good starting point for beginning to understand and meet students' needs. On the basis of what the students said in the survey, I define some of the roles required of the teacher and look more closely at one particularly important role, that of manager.

There were over 40 students involved in the survey, of intermediate to advanced level. The context in which the survey was conducted was the large mixed-ability class, where there is little access to expensive equipment and examination fever is predominant, and consequently testing, overt and covert, takes over from teaching.

The survey took the form of (1) interviews and (2) written assignments in which the students were asked to recall their favourite and least favourite teachers and to say why they thought some teachers were more successful than others. Below is a summary of what they said about the good — and bad — language teacher. I have copied exactly what the students said, correcting only those language errors that obscured the intended meaning.

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