What makes a great teacher?

These days in class we have been talking about different aspects and qualities teachers need to consider if they want to achieve a good working environment. I will explain some of them in this post because from my point of view I think they are essential for the proper learning of children.

What makes a great teacher?

• They are innovative. They engage students and get them to learn through different ways and activities. This type of teachers are not always using textbooks and they organize classes depending on the group of children they will teach. In my opinion, this point is one of the most important because every class can learn in a different way.
• They achieve a good atmosphere in the class. They want to have a peaceful environment in the classroom where all pupils can learn and where they help each other. In addition, they are enthusiastic and concerned about their students.
• They are motivating. They work hard so that all pupils can achieve their goals and  nobody is left behind.
• Creative. They allow kids to paint, create, build, design, imagine and play because there are many ways and possibilities of learning.
• They communicate with parents. They kept a lot of communication with parents, they organize meetings or invite them to come into the classroom to help.
• They are aware of diversity. They are aware that each child learns in a different way and in the class there are students with different levels. For this reason, they want to adapt content and make it accessible to all pupils.
• They know how to get somebody’s attention. Through songs, phrases, magic words or with gestures, but they get grab attention.
• They are persevering and organized. Because it is very important to plan what we are going to teach in each lesson and follow three steps: 1- Where are we now? 2- Where are we going (outcomes)? and 3- How can we close the gap ?
• They ask about feelings. They are interested in how students feel because self-esteem is related to learning and if students do not feel well or they have concerns about anything, therefore, they can not learn properly.
• They show values. They not only teach content, they also show how to be respectful, to be good partners, to share or to take care for the environment.
• They are models. Teachers are aware of it because kids tend to imitate what they have seen so it is very important to act correctly. For instance, if when we ask for something, we always say please and thank you, it is probably that students do too.
• They follow some routines. It is easier for pupils if the teacher follows a routine because they get used to it and they know there is plenty of time for each activity or game during the class.

And how about you? Do you think you are or you’ll be a good teacher?

Related to the topic: how we can be good teachers? I would like to share three creative applications we can use in the classroom to teach English  in a dynamic way. I have learned them in class thanks to a talk given by Ricard Garcia, a professor at the University of Barcelona.

1- Thinglink: We can use it if we are teaching children through CLIL, or if we are doing projects in class. This web page is really useful if we want to enrich images, because we can project the pictures on the digital board. And we can add text, links or even videos from YouTube in them. As far as I’m concerned, I would like to use it with my future class as we can consult different resources while we are explaining and students can relate concepts easily.

 2- Zaption: it is quite similar to the previous page. We can use it to enrich videos. Teachers just need to choose a video from YouTube or other web page and write some questions related to it. When we start playing the video, questions will be appearing and pupils will have to guess the answers. It will be a challenge for them and they will be focused on getting the questions right.

3- Bombay Tv: Although it appears in third place it is actually one of my favourites. On this website, we can find many short videos from Indian series. What students can do with them is to create the dialogues of the characters by writing or recording their voices. I’m sure pupils will love it because they will have the opportunity of become scriptwriters for a day! And who would not like that?

Finally, I would like to say that although there are many points to consider, we must not be afraid because when teachers aim for children to learn in the best way possible, they do many of these actions without realizing. But, in fact,  they are doing a wonderful job.