Teachers’ Qualities Involve Much in Making a Lively Classroom
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teacher must have a good
quality in managing his class to get students’ enthusiasm in learning. This
enthusiasm could make a classroom lively. You can imagine about the class with
a good-quality teacher and his enthusiastic students are very inquisitive in answering questions so that they would probably raise
their hands and wanted to be chosen to write their answers on the blackboard.
That is just an example of a lively classroom. Obviously, teacher’s quality plays many roles in any dimension and
principles of study in the classroom: the subjects they engage, the methods they use, and the pupils
they teach. If teachers have mastered these principles, there is no difficulty
in making their own lively classroom. Then what they have to do in each
principle? Before continue to the core, this essay is not aimed to “teach” the
teachers, but it is more for guiding and helping them to be better. And here
are the assisted points for teachers as teaching references.
In
teaching the subjects, teachers should engage in it. This engagement means that
teachers have to try so hard in making they get involved and master their
subjects, giving a rational and uncomplicated explanation in teaching, and
giving an interesting conclusion. It is also important when teachers give
materials to students, they have to be rational. Unless their students cannot
catch their explanation easily or they will probably ask for thousand times
about the accuracy of the fact, but in a condition that teachers cannot tell
them the reason. The rational itself can be defined also as objectivity.
Teachers may not give an explanation which is true in their own perspective,
but it is proved as unreal thing. Therefore, supporting their own arguments in
explaining the materials is not wrong, but it will be better if teachers double
check the source and the facts before issuing an argument. There is also an
important point that teachers must remember in achieving a lively classroom:
making an openness/transparency of learning-teaching activity in a classroom,
for example is in a question-answer activity. When doing this activity, teachers
must let their students to ask questions and participate in it. Tell them about
the answers openly, even though we may not know about the answer. But teachers
can try to utter an apology for not giving them a
satisfying answers, and promise them to search for the answers. Some teachers
often try to ignore their students’ questions which they cannot answer. Then,
they pretend to skip the case by issuing an intermezzo, make it hung on as
students’ homework, or give them a grin, and then get out from the class to
think about the answers all alone. But if this problem happened, distribute these
unanswered questions to the whole class in order to get an explanation from a
student who probably knows about the answer. Another thing which the teacher
can do is asking other teachers for better understanding. Those can be very
helpful in solving such problems.
Teaching
method is teacher’s way to teach his students, so that teachers are demanded to
try to make a creative and fun teaching method. It can be started with managing
the classroom. It is a very tough job for teachers. They have to adapt in a
difficult situation of a classroom. They have to strive how to figure out all
the needs from their students. But on the other hand, they also have to swallow
up their emotions, mood and external problems, so that teachers will restrain
their temper for the sake of making a climate conducive for learning. In
addition, the dynamics and diversity in a classroom must be dealt with and to
be understood. The challenge is how teacher mix up all these things into
positive combination to support the learning-teaching activity, and
consequently, students will not easily to get bored.
Teachers
are indeed expected to be creative and work harder in creating a lively
classroom. Undoubtedly, making fun classroom activities is a part of their’
efforts. Creative classroom activities can be an outdoor activity, sharing
moments or make educational games. That would not be that difficult to make an
outdoor activity. As we know, learning in a classroom all the time will be very
uninteresting, common and boring. Sometimes we need to get out from the usual
rules. Making an outdoor classroom will impact the different atmosphere.
Indeed, the noise and visual disturbance will destruct students’ concentration,
but we have to soon manage it. Perhaps, by sitting in a circle and give
students an intermezzo, share experiences or play an educational game will dump
the disturbance, because students will focus on their activity. These
activities are the additional ones; teachers do not always hold them all
along. But in a consequent, our
classroom will not always be a very rigid place but lively and fun one to get
knowledge.
As a
teacher, we have to take a look at and pay attention to the students’ diversity
in the classroom. As written above, we certainly know that students are various
and different to one another in terms of mother tongues, races, clans,
religions, etc. so that their needs are also different. We cannot fulfill all
of their needs, but try to take a look at and pay attention to them. What we
have to do as teachers is respect them and deal with the diversity. Some of our
students may be Muslims, but some others are Christians or Buddhists. For
example is when Muslims are doing fasting, teachers’ role is to give an
explanation to other students that we must be tolerant, respect to their
belief, and so on. Students also have different intelligence; teachers cannot
judge or choose the most appropriate way of learning for them. They have to be
respected and to be helped in improving their skill even though it is
impossible to divide them in a group of the same way of learning, so try to
analyze their difficulty in learning the materials given. We are also
prohibited to favor on one student. In some cases, there is such a bias and
over-generalization happened in the classroom made by teachers, which is known
as “teacher’s pet.” This term is actually offensive and is used to refer a
student in a class who is liked best by the teacher and therefore treated
better than the other students (Cambridge
Dictionary: Third Edition). This “teacher’s pet” phenomenon should be
stopped, because as written above, teachers have to deal and respect the
diversity of the students. All students are the same; there is no brightest and
dullest student. They all need teachers’ help to improve their skill. Then, what we have to do is make a good relationship to
every student, so that they are willing to share their feeling and difficulty.
After knowing their needs, reform the students’ behavior. Students always mimic
their surroundings. As a teacher, we have to make good behavior. Make sure that
we throw the waste in a dustbin, erase our writings on the blackboard before
leaving the classroom, turn off the light when it is not used, etc. Even the
smallest things will indirectly give them a sample of good behavior. Give them
a reward when they do the assignments well or get an A, but punish them
positively when they do wrong or get an E by giving them a sad emoticon or call
them to make a sharing moment personally for the sake of their improvement.
Finally, making a lively classroom is not as
easy as being a good-quality teacher; it indeed is begun with a teacher’s skill
improvement. We sometimes hear people say that it is easy to be a teacher.
Their opinion is not that totally wrong. Being a teacher is very easy, though.
But being a good one is very difficult. Teacher needs to improve their skill
along with time which is passing by. They have to experience many classroom
situations, handle them and be creative with the class. That makes teacher become
a good one.
xoxo
by: Anitableau, March 2013
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