Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto

Fakultas Sastra

Subject : TEFL
Semester : 7th
Day : Thursday
Time : 09.40-11.30
Type : Online

STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP

Teaching should not be viewed as pouring down information to students and not
getting them emotionally involved in the process. Teachers should not look at
themselves as experts who feel they can come down from the mountain of knowledge
at anytime and anyway they want, and expect students to receive happily whatever
they bring.
Instead, teaching should be seen as an art that needs love and passion to the
profession. Great teachers can make a difference in the students’ life. Powerful
teachers help students empower themselves to their own path to success. They
recognize that it is the students’ journey, and they are there to help guide the way.
Through a love of teaching, and a passion for exploration, they do not impose their
authority, or credentials, or ego. They gently, patiently guide the students’
interactions with a brave new world, whether it is the world of listening, reading,
speaking, or writing of a new language.
The most important thing is that teaching skills can be learned; there is nothing
natural about teaching. A good teacher may look natural, but that's the product of
endless practice. The classroom is a form of theater, and the teachers must play
various roles. The teachers may rehearse themselves before, during and after teaching.
It’s a good practice for teachers to have a reflection of what they have just taught.
This will help them improve their future teaching.
In order to become great, effective teachers, we need to establish a persona in the
classroom, to fostering relationships with students, and to balancing teaching load
with academic writing and research. One way of doing this is by building rapport and
motivating learners.
Building Rapport
Building rapport is very important in teaching-learning processes. Building rapport
is essential to build trust and create secure feeling among students during the lesson.
If the students feel secure, they can concentrate in the learning and not in thinking
about how to get away from it.

Think back when you were a student

What kinds of things made you feel embarrassed, de-motivated or afraid?
Why do teachers sometimes feel the need to behave in this way?
Which teachers gave you confidence in yourself? What did they do that
helped you feel relaxed and interested in what you were learning?
What do you think your learners expect of you as teachers?
What do you think the ideal relationship between teacher and learners
should be like?
What do you do to make your classroom learning environment pleasant?
Adapted from LAPIS-ELTIS (2008a)

You might recall when you were students, your teacher did not care about you and
you were de- motivated. Your teacher did not seem to know your friends’ names,
appeared inflexible and took little interest in what you and your friends said. You
might also remember one of your teachers carried a stick and beat the desk every
time there was an error and asked students who made an error to stand up or stand in
the corner. He/she also made comments to the others about a student.
These kinds of teachers are unlikely to have a good relationship with students. One
possible reason for behaving in a threatening way is that many teachers believe it can
help maintain discipline. To some extent this might be true, but it comes at the cost
of the relationships with the students. Also, most research shows that teachers
maintain discipline through good classroom management skills and selecting
appropriate materials and activities, rather than with threats and put downs.
Therefore, it is important to establish and maintain rapport while applying good
classroom management skills through various methods and techniques.

Techniques for Good Rapport Establishment

LAPIS-ELTIS (2008a) suggests ways to build rapport successfully. Among the ways are as
follows.
 Smile at your students. Greet them when you enter the class to start a
lesson. If you look happy and pleased to be in the classroom, you pass on
this feeling to your students.
 Find out student’s interests. You can do this by chatting to students outside
the classroom, e.g. when you meet a student, greet and engage in quick
conversation about a student’s interests. Do not talk about class, behavior,
schoolwork, etc. Try to get the student when peers do not surround him.
 Learn students’ names. This is very important. It can help you maintain
discipline and make students feel you have made the effort to get to know
them. If you don’t seem to know who they are, this can make them feel you
undervalue them as individuals.
 Use active learning techniques. Use relevant, interesting topics and
assignments that fit the interests of your class learning styles of the
students. These techniques tend to minimize the classroom management
problems that often bother teachers who rely too heavily on lecturing the
learners. If students are interested and feel that you have made the effort to
find topics that interest them-they are less likely to be bored and misbehave.
 Connect on a personal level. Whether the problem of students are
aggressive or introverted, make a point of getting to know them. It’s
unlikely that students will continue to give you a hard time or remain
distant if you’ve taken an interest in them. Personally greet students each
day.
 Use more positives. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
Establish a positive classroom environment by increasing the amount of
positive statements you make in class. Use positive reinforcement through
incentives and rewards appropriate to the developmental level of students
including stickers, tokens, displaying work or publishing work in a school
magazine, noted from the teacher commenting on good work, a message
sent to parents commending the student. Social rewards are often the most
effective-smiles, nods and verbal praise.
 Signal nonverbally. Make eye contact with students or move closer to them
when they hold private conversations, start to fall asleep, or hide from
participation. Regularly scan the class and press your fingers together
(modestly) to signal wordy student to finish what they are saying. Raise
your hand to get students’ attention. Teach students the behavioral
expectations of your signals and practice using them until they become
routine.
 Listen attentively. Give students your full attention when they are talking to
you. Give them eye contact and positive body language. If students talk too
long or argue with you, interrupt with a summary of their views and then
ask others to speak. Or you can acknowledge the value of their viewpoints
or invite them to discuss their views with you at a later time.
 Change the method of participation. Sometimes you can control the
damage done by difficult students by inserting new formats such as using
pairs or small groups rather than full-class activities. Another way of
changing participation is by using craft sticks. Put students’ names on each
stick and draw out names randomly. Give the whole class the questions and
give think time or partner discussion first before drawing a stick to call on a
student. This increases their success rate.
 Use good-natured humor. One way to deflect difficult behavior is to use
humor with students. Be careful, however, not to be sarcastic or insulting.
Gently protest the behavior (e.g. “Enough, enough for one day!”).
Humorously, put yourself down instead of the students (e.g. “ What did I do
to deserve this! ”).
 Visibility radar. Move around the room during group activities, keeping
students on task and providing help as needed. Keep your eyes on
everyone!
 Discuss negative behaviors in private. You must call a stop to behaviors
you find harmful to learning. Firmly request, in private, a change in
behavior of those students who are disruptive. Let the students know you
care about him/her, and to prove it, increase the positive attention you give
the student. If the entire class is involved, stop the lesson and explain
clearly what you need from students to conduct the class effectively.
Increase positive feedback to the class.

Motivating Learners
Motivation is very important for students’ learning. Without motivation, students
hardly enjoy their study. With motivation, students can easily find ways to train
themselves and improve their skills. Showing enthusiasm, taking the students’
learning seriously, creating a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom,
developing a good relationship with your learners, stress the benefits that knowledge
of english can bring, making the curriculum and teaching materials relevant, using
goal- setting methods in your classroom, adapting to diffirent situations, and acting
like a teacher are among the ways suggested by LAPIS-ELTIS (2008e) that teachers
can apply to motivate students.
Showing Enthusiasm
Show your enthusiasm by your actions and manner that you find English is
interesting. You can show it by telling them some success stories about people who
become more successful because of their mastery in English. You can also use your
voice and body language to appear enthusiastic. Your cheerful facial expressions and
energetic movement may make them become more enthusiastic. Besides, you need to
show learners that English continues to enrich your own life. You may want to show
them that you subscribe online English magazines. You can also share them the web
address and let them read the appropriate levels of English there.

Taking the Students’ Learning Seriously

You can expect students to learn seriously if you also take their learning seriously.
On the other way round, if you do not pay attention to their learning, you cannot
expect them to do it seriously. That is why you need to show learners that you care
about their progress. Praise them when they make a progress, “Great. Now you can
make a good sentence.” Even when they make a mistake, you still need to find their
strengths while showing them their error, “I know that you have tried hard. But, you
cannot do it this way. You’d better try this. Do you want to try it now?” You should
also have high expectations of what your learners can achieve. You have to be sure
that they can do certain tasks, don’t undermine them. Show that you monitor their
progress and pay attention to it.
Creating a Pleasant and Supportive Atmosphere in the Classroom
You can create good atmosphere for learning by encouraging risk-taking and lack
of fear situations in the classroom. Encourage your students to ask questions and to be
active in initiating communication. Encourage humor and use it yourself. You can
make fun of yourself, but not your students. You may not say, “Hi Gendut, come
here,” just to make your students laugh at a particular student. Encourage learners to
personalize the classroom with pictures. You may want to assign students to make
collage about his family and tell it to their friends.

Developing a Good Relationship with Your Learners

You can do this by remembering learners’ names, showing learners that you care
about them as people and listening to them. To help you remember their name, you
ask them to bring a name tag big enough for you to see. With this name tag, you can
call them by name and they will feel closer to you.

Stressing the Benefits that Knowledge of English can Bring

Regularly remind learners that English is useful for their future careers. You can
tell them through stories or experience of different people. Show learners the role that
English plays in the world. It is a global and international language. If they master
English, they can go around the world without having trouble communicating with
people. Encourage learners to use English with foreigners if they have the chance. It
is also a good idea if you can invite foreigners to your classroom.

Making the Curriculum and Teaching Materials Relevant

Relate the course materials to everyday experiences of your learners. You need to
personalize your teaching to make it easier for students to understand and to learn.
Encourage learners to choose and help design course materials. In the first meeting,
you can ask your students about their interests and, whenever possible, incorporate
them in the learning process. Using authentic materials from local sources will also be
good. If you cannot get the hard paper, you can also browse the online authentic
materials.
Making Lessons Memorable, Stimulating and Enjoyable
First of all, make tasks challenging enough for your students. Present a lesson
which is one level above the students’ level. Do not engage them in a lesson with 2
levels above the students ability because it will make them frustrated. You also need
to make your materials attractive by adapting them to the learners interests. Finally,
you also need to select tasks that have clear, visible and memorable finished products.
Using Goal-Setting Methods in Your Classroom
Encourage learners to set their own short-term and long-term goals. This will help
them focus on their learning. You also need to emphasize goal completion deadlines.
Remind them when they appear to lag behind. Monitoring and rewarding the
achievement of goals will also increase their motivation. The reward is not always in
the form of presents; it can be in the form of praise, “I like that. You finish it on
time.”
Being Adaptable
Be prepared to change your lesson plan to respond to learners’ needs. Some times,
your students can proceed to the next chapter very quickly. But, when your students
seem to find difficulties on a particular topic and you need to extend the time, feel
free to do that. You can use the extra time when lesson goes quickly. You also need to
be prepared to change your lesson plan to respond to events. When there is a big sport
event in your town and most students are interested in talking about it, you might
need to use the topic to discuss. You should also be prepared to change your plan to
respond to other interesting things.

Acting Like a Teacher

Dress professionally. When teaching, you need to pay attention to the manner of
dress. You also need to be punctual because you are the role model for your students.
If you are late, you cannot expect your students to come on time. You should also be
fair at all times, and don’t favor particular learners. Keep a suitable ‘distance’ from
learners. Don’t be too far that makes your students afraid of you and think that you
are ‘unapproachable.’ But, don’t be too close, either, that makes them feel spoiled and
undisciplined.
By building good rapport with your students and maintaining their high
motivation, you have put fundamentals for their fruitful learning. Further learning
might be nurtured more easily if these essentials have been put in place.
UNDERSTANDING TEACHERS’ AND
LEARNERS’ ROLES

Understanding teachers’ and learners’ roles will help teachers create more effective
learning environment. Traditional view of teaching might see teachers mainly as source
of information, so their roles are mostly as informer. In this constantly changing world,
there are different ways of teaching and teachers may play different roles. The
development of technology enables teachers to facilitate learning through internet.
Teacher can also teach without meeting students. They can have conferences through the
internet.

Teachers’ Roles
To promote joyful learning, teachers should play their different roles in the proper
time. The roles that the teachers might perform are as planner, diagnostician, informer,
resource, parent/friend, manager, involver, and also monitor. Watkins (2005) and Spratt,
et.al (2005) mention teachers’ roles as a planner, a manager, an informer, a monitor, a
diagnostician, an assessor, an involver, a parent/friend, a facilitator and a resource
person.

Planner prepares and thinks through the lesson in detail before teaching it so that it has
variety and there are appropriate activities for the different learners in class.
Diagnostician recognizes the cause of learners’ difficulties.
Informer gives the learners detailed information about the language or about an activity.
Resource provides the learners with help and advice.
Parent/Friend comforts learners when they are upset or unhappy.
Manager organizes the learning spaces, makes sure everything in the classroom is running
smoothly and sets up rules and routines for behaviour.
Involver makes sure all the learners are taking part in the activities
Monitor goes around the classroom during individual, pair, and group work activities,
checking learning.

Discuss with your friends.

Which roles do you think are most important in the classroom? Why?
Which role is the most difficult? Why?
Which role do you take on most often? Why?
Which role would do you think you should take on more often? Why?
How does thinking about our various roles in the class help us when teaching?

Now, look at the following situations. Decide what role the teacher is performing in each
situation:

1. Mr. Wahid gives his learners five different sentences using the word suggest and asks his
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Adapted from:
LAPIS-ELTIS (2008b)
Learners’ Roles
In line with the different roles teachers need to perform, students also have different
roles during their learning sessions. The roles of the students are as participants,
discoverers, questioners, and recorders of information (Watkins, 2005:18).

Participant
By participating fully in the lesson, students gain practice. They can ‘test out’ how
they think the language works in a non-threatening environment and may benefit from
feedback from the teacher on their efforts. Practice in using language and exposure to it
seem to be important elements in the learning process. However, teachers should be
aware that some learners may feel uncomfortable about joining in certain situations, and
some people may prefer to remain relatively quiet and observe others. Many people may
learn very effectively in this way, and so learners need the opportunity to participate, but
not necessarily be forced to.

Discoverer
The students can perform this role by taking the opportunities to work out patterns
and rules for themselves, learners can benefit in the way described in that section. The
teacher’s role in this case is mostly as the guide for the students to find the rules from a
set of examples or a context provided by the teacher.

Questioner
By asking questions, learners can take responsibility for their own learning to some
extent. They can set the agenda of what gets taught, rather than simply being the passive
recipient of the teacher presents. They can also tap into and benefit from the teacher’s
expertise.

Recorder of Information
Students also need to write down important information so that they can refer back to
the information when needed. Learners need to record new words and phrases, new bits
of grammar and so on, to help them remember what they learn. They can also make
these records outside the classroom when they study independently. Teachers may
facilitate the students to perform their roles better.
Helping students to be good participants:
 Set up situations where students are encouraged to give opinions/ suggest
answers either to the whole class or in groups.
 Show you value contributions by using praise and commenting positively on the
responses.
 Respect learners who chose to remain quiet and think about how you might
be able to encourage them to participate another time.
Helping students to be good discoverers:
 Allow learner to work out rules for themselves.
 Resist the temptation to just tell them the answers-even though it can seem
that this will save you time.
Helping students to be good questioners:
 Teach questions that encourage learners to ask for help and clarification e.g.
How do you spell, Could you please say that again?
 The teacher can train students to acquire questioning skills by, for example,
showing a picture and let students ask questions from simple ‘what’
questions to complicated ‘how’ questions.
 Create an atmosphere where you promote a spirit of exploration and enquiry.
Helping students to be good recorders of information:
 Teach learners how to keep notes and record information in an organized way.
 Ask learners to refer back to notes during class.
 Encourage learners to read over and/or rewrite notes on what they have learnt in
the lesson.