Teachers’ Roles In The Daily Communicative Class

世界外国语小学 徐薇

As it is known to all that it is very important for the teachers, especially English teachers to play an effective role during the class. We should try our best to be a qualified teacher first. In doing so, we can be confident to enter the classroom and play the role in daily communicative class.

What is “role” for? “Role” refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and interpersonal relationships between the participants. In their comprehensive analysis of approaches and methods in language teaching, we should devote our considerable attention to learner and teacher roles. I think that a method will reflect assumptions about the contributions that learners can make to the learning process.

What kinds of roles should we play during the communicative class? As far as I am concerned, I think that a teacher can play three kinds of roles in his or her daily class.

Firstly we are required to play the role as “an actress/actor” in our daily communicative class.

As an English teacher, especially a primary school English teacher, we should pay more attention to the characteristics of our kids. They are about 7 or 8 years old. They are active and talkative. They are easy to be absent-minded. They can’t concentrate on the whole procedures of the English class, because they can only draw their attention to the teacher for a short period of time. After that, most of them will look out of the window or just look in their own desks to do other things that they are interested. So as a teacher of lower grade, we should look on the classroom as a big stage and regard the kids as the audiences. When I am in the classroom, I am confident about myself. I believe that I am the best one. In my daily class, I usually do the followings:

1.     Use body language to express myself.

Sometimes when I am trying to explain a new word, I do need body language to help express myself. For example, when teaching the Oxford 3A Unit 3 Feelings, I input a new word “scary” during the class. I used body language to explain the meaning of the word. It is very efficient and direct. The kids could understand me completely.

2.    Use different tones to pronounce the new words

I provide a lot of reading materials to my students. They are required to recite the stories fluently and exactly. During the class, we should follow the tape sentences by sentence and again and again. Some students will be a little bit bored after several times. They lose the interests about the story. Some will even do other things instead of imitation the new words. In that case, I always ask the kids to follow me by using different tones, such as the old one’s voice, the baby’s voice, the animals’ voice and so on. The purpose is to arouse the students’ interest. I feel that I just look like an actress to some extent. It is beneficial for me to control the whole class and draw the students’ attention on me and let them put eyes on me all the time.

Secondly we’d better play the role as a guide in our daily class.

We all know that it’s our aim to teach the students how to learn the knowledge in a proper way. In my opinion, give the kids a fish, they can eat for a day. Teach the kids to fish, they can eat for a life time. So we should be a suitable guide during the class. We should give the students more time to think in English and use the words and patterns they have already learned to express them or explain the new words. For example, Oxford 3B Module 3 Unit 3 Season, when teaching about the rainbow, I designed several questions during the class.

T: Do you know “rainbow”?

Ss: Yes.

T: Can you use English to explain the meaning of the “rainbow”?

The whole class is silent. Some students are trying to think about it, but no one raised his or her hands. Even the top students dared not have a try. So I tried to guide the students to use the old patterns and words to express the meaning.

T: The rainbow looks like a….

S1: The rainbow looks like a bridge in the sky.

T: When can you see it? Before it rains or after it rains?

S2: After it rains.

T: How is it?

S3: It is beautiful.

T: What color is it? How many colors does the rainbow have?

S4: It is colorful. It has seven colors.

T: What are they?

S5: They are red, blue, yellow, orange…..

I think it is really necessary to design some suitable questions during the class to guide the students to the point.

Thirdly we’d better play the role as a helper during the daily communicative class.

We should not only pay more attention to the correct pronunciation of the new words but also correct their improper usages of English in time. For example, as a Chinese, we are easy to use some Chingish to express our meaning.

S1: I very like it.

T: You’d better say “I like it very much.”

As a teacher, we should be sensitive during the class to correct any mistakes the kids may make. On the other hand, we also should encourage the kids to say more English. Don’t be afraid to make any mistakes. When I am teaching, I also make some oral mistakes. To me, I think it is very important for a teacher to admit the mistake first. As a good helper for the students, we should pay more attention to the classroom English during the class. I think it is a good way to talk with the kids in English after class or in the spare time. In doing so, the kids can improve their oral English rapidly and make great progresses in the campus.

In conclusion, we should play the suitable role during the communicative class. Maybe you can be an attractive actress/actor, a thoughtful guide or a nice helper. Teaching is learning. We’d better enjoy everyday with our kids to learn real English. Though there is still a long way to go, I believe that practice makes perfect. The more practice, the better we will be in the future. What we need to realize is 3”p”s—that is “Participate”, “Practice” and “Persist”.