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Teaching Tips

Teacher as Friend and Facilitator
by Neerja Sharma

After nursing, teaching is one of the noblest professions. Teachers are those blessed beings who have been deputed the task of helping students walk chin up in life with confidence and élan. Nothing would give a teacher more satisfaction than looking at the smiles on the faces of their students when they do well on exams or participate in the class.

Times have changed. The way of teaching has undergone a major transformation. And the change has been for the better. Fussy teachers who want to continue to hold on to the traditional way of teaching should consider altering their mind-sets and adapting to the changing methodology of teaching. From my experience as a teacher, I have noticed that today many teachers have the "I know everything" attitude. They consider the student as a container, who needs to be fed with more and more knowledge without acknowledging the mental power or ability of the child. The child is taught everything in a very stereotypical manner, wherein the learner receives everything from the teacher.

A teacher can be far more effective provided that he/she acts like a facilitator and a friend in the class, rather than being a hard to please tormentor. In other words, a class can be a very lively and exciting place for both the teacher and students on the condition that the teacher understands the situation students are in, just like a friend does, and helps them overcome their problem or difficulty without remaining stiff and uptight all the time. The students will trust and confide in such a teacher more quickly and without hesitation and will participate in the class more willingly.

Today the role of the teacher in the class has changed from a giver of information to a facilitator of activities and exercises. A friendly approach towards the students helps them to open up and share their doubts and queries with the teacher; it fosters a positive attitude in students. Also, the students may lose the fun and curiosity if the teacher doesn't let them work out the solution of a problem and provides all the information beforehand. As a facilitator, the teacher not only gets to monitor the students' participation in the class activities, but also provides assistance wherever required. As a result, the teacher appears to be as much a participant in the activities as the students and is not a mere spectator of the whole affair.

Nowadays, most of the teacher-trainer programs emphasize the role of the teacher as a facilitator, who acts as an efficient catalyst in the learning situation without interfering or interrupting the flow of learning activities. And this is quite relevant, too. The students' confidence level increases and the attendance ratio improves in classes where teachers act as facilitators. More students attend classes where they get to learn something along with the teacher—not from the teacher's one-sided monologue. The golden rule here is to smooth the process of learning by remaining in the background. Let the students be in the forefront. Like a coach who facilitates the athletes' performance to practice on their own, allow your students to hog the limelight.

The author is an ESL teacher, who has taught English for the last six years in a Canadian college based in India. Neerja is also a freelancer writer. She regularly contributes articles to a locally based current affairs magazine. One of her short stories has been published in a New York based publication's anthology titled Grab Your Tiger.