NOTTING HILL COLLEGE

Basma Mohamed Mohamed Okasha

TESOL course Module 3, assignment 1,

The classroom is like a black and white picture while the teacher is the artist who adds different colors on
this picture to make it wonderful and inspiring, these colors are the different roles that the teacher plays in
the classroom and in the community too, which have a great impact on the teaching and learning
process. Playing some roles facilitates learning, helps in applying good classroom management and
keeps our teaching effective and exciting such as controller, organizer, prompter, and assessor. Whereas
the other roles like participant, resource, tutor, and investigator maximize student's practice, create a
cooperated atmosphere and enhance the teacher and the student knowledge. Also, there are some other
roles that teachers play in the community such as role model, confidant, and mentor.

To have a good classroom management and create a successful education environment, teachers need
to play roles like controller: where teachers control the whole activity in the class and the student’s
behavior too. Teachers assume this role when introducing a new topic. Thus, they need to be well
organized, knowledgeable, and to use different and exciting teaching aids, in addition to attention
grabbers because all the attention will be focused on the front of the class. They also can motivate and
inspire the students without relaxing their control and that can happen when mixing the controlling role
with a good performance to give the students the chance to enjoy the lesson. That also helps teachers to
avoid the disadvantage of this role which increases the teacher’s talking time and reduces the student’s
taking time. And to ensure this success of the activity the teachers need to act as an organizer, which is
the most important and difficult role as the success of many activities depends on the organization and
clear instructions. teachers here have to make sure that the students are ready to do the activity, give
them clear instructions before the task, get their attention by making eye contact and develop some
gestures and facial expressions to save repeating the instructions, check their understanding, then start
the activity, finally organize and discuss feedback after the activity. It means that teachers have to
organize all the things and activities from the beginning until the end of the class. Furthermore, teachers
should take into account certain things to do when organizing an activity: plan the exact information that
the student will need. for example, if they are doing a gap-filling activity, the students have to be told not
to look at each other's paper. teachers must give clear instruction beforehand out the material for the
activity, to make sure that the students are focused on the instructions instead of looking at the material.
Lastly, if the students are reading for specific information, they must be told not to understand every
single word meaning. From all data above, this is the sequence teachers can always follow when
preparing an activity: the lead in instruct initiate organize feedback .in addition, the
students need to be encouraged to participate in the activity, and here comes the role of a prompter:
where teachers encourage and motivate the students during teaching and learning process to attract their
attention and rise up their passion to learn. they can motivate them by giving rewards, telling stories or
some jokes, watching movies or giving a motivated statement. Harmer (2007, p.109) said when
prompting the students "we need to do it sensitively and encouragingly but, above all, with discretion"
(Harmer, 2007, p.109). Then there is an important role to move on successfully in the learning process
which is the assessor: where teachers assess the student’s assignments and activities, correct their
mistakes, and then discuss that with them to see how well they perform. There are two different types of
assessment: correction and organizing feedback. Teachers can use correction during the reproduction
stage where they correct the students’ errors and mistakes almost instantly. Furthermore, there is another
style of correction that is called “gentle correction” that can be used when the aim of correction is fluency
.and that can happen when students are involved. for example, in doing a drill activity or in immediate
creativity, where the teacher gently mention the mistake without asking the students to repeat it correctly.
” A good teacher should be able to correct people without offending them” (Harmer, 1998).In particular,
gentle correction is used in order not to damage the flow of the activity or the confidence of the learner.
On the other hand, there are two different types of feedback: content feedback and form feedback.
Content feedback tells how well the students performed the activity as an activity. Whereas, form
feedback tells when well they performed linguistically and how accurate they were. Meanwhile, there are
many ways to record errors and organize feedback such as pen and paper, where teachers can write
down the errors and ask the students to identify and correct them in pairs. A tape recorder, where
teachers can recorder their performance on tape then ask them to listen to it and discuss the errors, and
video where the students watch their video for content feedback, then watch it again to concentrate on
the language.

Another point is, teachers can create a cooperated atmosphere and enhance the students’ knowledge by
playing other roles such as a participant: where teachers participate in some activities as student’s
partners during the learning and teaching process, which improves the atmosphere in the class, and
gives the students the chance to answer the questions, express their ideas, and practice English with
someone who speaks it better than they do. It also gives teachers the chance to listen and get involved
with the students as partners and helps them to become more tolerant and sympathetic towards them
which enables them to anticipate the student's learning difficulties. On the other hand, sometimes the
students need help from teachers and here teachers act as a resource: where they are the source of
knowledge so they should answer the student’s questions, prepare extra information from other
resources, and always be ready to offer help when it is needed. This role can be used when the students
work independently but still need help from the teacher. For example, when preparing for a class
presentation the student may need help for how to organize his ideas inside the presentation.
Furthermore, teachers can act as a tutor: where they act as a resource and a coach, it can be used when
the students are involved in their own work, so they can advise or guide them .for example, in self-study
or project work. Where they can help them pointing out errors drafts, offer them advice about what to do if
they want to get the most out of their learning. This role is appropriate at the advanced level and
intermediate level .from the information above, this role includes some of the other roles such as
organizer, prompter, and resource. Also, teachers can be investigators: where they can investigate what’s
going on, implement different techniques and activities, then observe what works well in class and what
does not in order to evaluate their appropriacy. Moreover, teachers need to develop their own skills by
teacher training courses and workshops which help them to come across new ideas and to keep up to
date on the latest development in the teaching and learning process.

Meanwhile, teachers play vital and important roles in the community, as they play lead roles in
determining the students’ future and they are the builders of the educational system. One of the important
roles is a role model, where teachers help the students to see the best of themselves, reflect a positive
image, develop the abilities related to optimal social skills and emotional intelligence, and teach students
morals. Also, teachers can be a confidant, where they are trusted by their students and the students open
up to them in various aspects, as teachers help them to make wise choices and maintain a supportive
environment. Finally, teachers can be a mentor, where they offer advice not only to students but also to
parents and other teachers as well. they also develop life skills which will be useful in the students' future.
“As mentor, teacher typically passes on knowledge of subjects to improve educational achievement”
(Heller and Sindelar, 1991, p.7).

In brief, teachers have a key role to determine the output of education and they are so much needed to
improve the education's quality, also teachers need to reflect on the above-mentioned roles and adopt the
appropriate one according to many factors such as the age of learners, their level of proficiency and the
nature of the activity. Moreover, teachers are the most influential people in the students’ life and they are
responsible for grooming good citizens.
References:

Heller, M. P., and Sindelar, N. W. Developing an Effective Teacher Mentor

“7 Roles of a Teacher in the 21st Century.” Eton Institute, 5 Apr. 2018,

Renanadya, Willy. (2012). Teacher Roles in EIL. The European Journal of Applied
Linguistic and TEFL. 1 .65-80.

Rindu, Ignatius & Ariyanti, Ariyanti. (2017). Teacher's Role in Managing the Class
during Teaching and Learning Process. Script Journal: Journal of Linguistic and
English Teaching. 2. 83-100. 10.24903/sj.v2i1.77.

Zachary, Lois J. “The Role of Teacher as Mentor.” New Direction for Adults and
Continuing Education, John Wiley & sons, Ltd, 20 Mar. 2002,
online [Link]/doi/10.1002/ace.47.