Profile of an effective ESL teacher

This article investigates the profile of an effective teacher of English as second language (ESL). An effective teacher is one who can teach a course successfully. Successful teaching begins with designing a suitable syllabus for a course. Sometimes the syllabus for a course is already available. In that case, a teacher must plan lessons in a manner to complete the designed course work within the prescribed time. In case the syllabus is not available, it becomes a challenge for a teacher to decide what to teach in the course. Under these circumstances, a teacher must consider the students’ academic background, level of knowledge in the subject, scope of the course and then design it accordingly. Sometimes government sponsored language benchmarks are available as a guide that define the syllabus and lesson plans for different levels of teaching, for example, Holmes et al. (2001) and Pawlikowska-Smith (2002). This essay examines the characteristics of an effective language teacher including how he/she develops a syllabus, uses various teaching methods, plans lessons, manages the classroom, uses various technologies, evaluates learners, and finally uses his/her personality for effective teaching.

Designing and implementing classroom lessons requires a lot of thought in terms of teaching techniques, textbooks, technology, and lesson plans (Brown, 2001). Once a decision has been made about the scope of the syllabus and the required time to complete it, a teacher is then faced with the challenge of choosing effective teaching techniques. Although there are several teaching techniques available in literature (Brown, 2001), none can be termed the best. Teaching techniques used in class mostly depend on a teacher’s preference, the level of class being taught as well as learners’ needs. As a matter of fact, a combination of several techniques is essential to teaching various aspects of a given course. The choice of textbooks for the course is another important decision to be made by a teacher. Suitability of textbooks depends on various factors such as content, coverage of the syllabus, quality of writing, illustrations, and affordability. Various technologies are now available as teaching tools, for example, overhead projectors, videos and movies, computers, and several teaching software, and the Internet. Thus, a teacher must also decide on what type of technological tools can be effectively used in his/her classroom setting.

Ms. Elizabeth Cross teaches Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) level 2 class at a college in Ottawa. Most learners in her class are new immigrants, mostly young and middle-aged women from the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. Her class is not a multi-level class, and it consists of 21 learners. She is greatly admired by her learners because of her affectionate behavior and great sense of humor. She shows a very high level of sensitivity and understanding towards personal problems and academic shortcomings of all her learners. She is a native of Ottawa where she earned a M.A. degree in English from Carleton University and a B. Ed. degree from the University of Ottawa. She also did a post diploma certificate in Teaching English as a Second and Foreign Language (TES/FL) at Algonquin College.

The syllabus of the LINC 2 course covers twelve thematic topics. They are: Canadian law, commercial services, employment, health and safety, housing, media, Canadian society and the environment, education, family life and cross-cultural issues, government and community services, leisure, as well as transportation and communication. This course is designed with the purpose of integrating new immigrants into Canadian society. The language aspect of this course primarily covers verb tenses, imperatives, irregular verbs, modals, comparatives, questions, prepositions and prepositional phrases, pronouns, articles, adverbs, adjectives, adjective order, word order, simple conjunctions, gerunds and infinitives, and count and non-count. Ms. Cross emphasizes vocabulary acquisition in her class and teaches learners to learn new words related to the themes and topics in the curriculum from discussions and readings. Her classes also emphasize the development of reading and writing skills. She uses several textbooks for reading and writing exercises (Berish and Thibaudeau, 1997; Gaetz, 1999; Mikulecky and Jefferies, 2000; Molinsky, and Bliss, 2000). She teaches pronunciation of words through drill exercises in which she clearly pronounces the word out loud, and the learners repeat the same word several times. Pronunciation exercises include voiced and voiceless endings of plurals, rising and falling intonation in questions, stressed and unstressed patterns in two syllable words, recognition and pronunciation of vowels, and consonant contrasts with the learners’ first language. Writing exercises include lessons on punctuation (capitals, periods, question marks, and apostrophes), numbers one to one hundred in written form, word order of simple sentences and short paragraphs.

Ms. Cross begins each class with a warmup talk related to the day’s events to attract learners’ attention. She plans her lessons in a very organized way following modern teaching methods (Cross, 2003). She tries to clearly print on the blackboard to help the learners read and understand her writing. She is also a good artist. Whenever she needs to explain an idea or word that the learners have difficulty understanding, she draws illustrations to explain the concept. She also regularly distributes handouts prepared using other resources to enhance her learners’ education. Her primary teaching method can be illustrated by the following examples.

Ms. Cross emphasizes new concepts in grammar, sentence structure, and pronunciation through repetitious examples and drill exercises. Her lessons on the simple future tense, affirmative and negative sentences, and contractions provide several examples in different contexts and detail the appropriate places to use them. She also ensures that her learners get enough practice by handing out several exercises from different books. She encourages her learners to use a dictionary by frequently asking them to write a few new words in each of the following categories: verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, words with single and double vowels, adverbs, and long words. This useful exercise not only teaches them to use a dictionary but also strengthens their grammar and vocabulary.

Ms. Cross uses several audio-visual techniques to effectively teach her classes. While preparing her lessons she takes different learning styles into consideration. For learners who prefer visual methods of learning, she includes video clips and slide shows on transparencies to explain the day’s lesson. For example, she displays various objects on transparencies and asks her learners to describe each one in as many words as possible. These simple exercises enable her learners to learn new words and their pronunciation. Ms. Cross firmly believes that the more interesting her lessons are, the more effective they will be in getting her message across to her learners. With these intentions, she prepared an interesting exercise in which she asked her learners to carefully listen to the famous Beatles’ song -When I’m sixty-four. Following several repetitions of the song, she asked her learners to fill in the blank spaces on a handout with the lyrics of the song. This was a very effective and fun way to teach aural skills, pronunciation, and accents. The learners enjoyed this exercise immensely.

Ms. Cross encourages her students to participate in class group activities. Mostly she interacts with her class by asking questions one by one from all the learners to ensure that everyone participates in class. She also stresses participation in-group activities to improve the learners’ conversational abilities. For example, in one of the exercises, she divides the class into groups of three. Each group is given a picture and asked to write a description of the picture. Although learners were allowed to discuss the picture together, they were asked to write the description independently. They were marked on sentence structure, verbs, and spelling. This exercise taught learners how to write sentences using vocabulary previously learnt. She encourages learners to use their creative imagination in describing objects or a scene. Ms. Cross randomly assigns learners to different groups to avoid learners pairing with their friends. In the process she increases learners’ comfort level in conversing with everyone in the class, understanding different accents, and expanding their vocabulary.

In addition, Ms. Cross tries to incorporate a wide rage of subjects like weather, sports, festivals, cooking, environment, and education etc. in her daily lessons to keep learners interested. As an example, she gave a lesson on the environment and asked learners to name different types of pollution and their possible causes. The class also discussed various ways of minimizing the impact of pollution. Later every learner was asked to explain different types of pollution in their native countries. Learners enthusiastically participated in this exercise describing the pollution problems in their native countries. This was a very effective and useful exercise as it taught learners several terms used in Environmental Sciences, pollution studies, and Geography. In addition to these exercises, Ms. Cross also uses crossword puzzles, spelling contests, and Bingo games to enhance learners’ vocabulary. Once, she took the whole class on a field trip to the Parliament Hill and Currency Museum in Ottawa. Everyone enjoyed and learnt many new words associated with the history and culture of Canada. It also gave learners the opportunity to practice their conversational skills outside the classroom setting.

Ms. Cross is certainly a good example of an effective English language teacher. Her teaching methods are very effective. She uses a wide range of techniques and interesting subjects to capture the learner’s interest and to motivate them. She designs her lesson plans carefully and completes them within the prescribed time. She is also very innovative and uses a variety of new as well as traditional teaching methods to teach different things. She works hard to create a very inviting and comfortable learning atmosphere in her class where people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds learn at ease. She even tries her best to entertain her learners by using learning techniques involving music, videos, and games. All this effort gives her a considerable amount of respect and admiration from her learners.

References

Berish, L. & Thibaudeau, S. (1997). Canadian Concepts. Book 3. Prentice Hall Allyn and Bacon.

Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles; An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Longman, 2nd Ed.

Cross, D. (2003). A Practical Handbook of Language Teaching. Longman. 5th Ed.

Gaetz, L. (1999). Before Brass Tracks; Basic Skills in English. Prentice Hall Allyn and Bacon Canada.

Holmes, T., Kingwell, G., Pettis, J., & Pidlaski, M. (2001). Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000. A Guide to Implementation. Alberta Learning and Center for Canadian Language Benchmarks, Ministry of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2001.

Mikulecky, B. S. & Jeffries, L. (2001). Basic Reading Power; Book on Fables and Stories. Longman.

Molinsky, S. J. & Bliss, B. (2000). Book Side by Side: English through Guided Conversations. Prentice Hall.

Pawlikowska-Smith, G. (2002). Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000. English as a second language – for adults. Center for Canadian Language Benchmarks, Ministry of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2002.