THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Karin Alt. Jiménez Villar

The role of the foreign language teacher is central to the learning process. While teachers of other disciplines inculcate habits, attitudes, knowledge or skills in a medium familiar with their students, the foreign language teacher have to do the same but in an unfamiliar medium requiring additional physiological activity. The organs of speech must be taught to move unprecedented ways: the sounds striking the listener´s ears must be perceived without distortion or confusion with the known sounds of the native language.

Our mayor challenge is getting students to overcome the habits of their native language, that´s why we should make every effort to help students achieve their aspirations, keeping the motivation, giving a sense of security and success, and we, as teachers, have to emphasize that the culture of the “new language” and the “native language” must be respected by the students, when they realize that “different from” does not mean “better than” or “worse than”.

It is important that the teacher provide for individual differences. Students do not have the same learning capacities, individuals learn in diverse ways and rates. Sometimes they learn by intensive repetition and overlearning, some by trial and error and others by applying generalizations to new situations. There are several principles to the good teaching, some of them are:

Organize the learning experiences carefully. For example, in vocabulary lesson, language items for emphasis should be selected, graded, presented and practiced in a manner which will facilitate the students´ acquisition of them.

Learn how to engage the students in full class, group, and individual recitation procedures as appropriate.

Make sure that students retain their sense of individual dignity and national pride while learning to appreciate aspects of the culture of the country whose language is being learned.

Select and use only the audio – visual aids which will help the students acquire a particular language item.

Make and give tests which will help gauge the achievement of students, diagnose individual learning problems and judge the effectiveness of his teaching.

In fact, it is the teacher who eventually shape the future of the nations. It is in the classroom that the majority of us acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will shape the kind of individual we will become, that´s why the role of the teacher has a crucial connotation in the study of a foreign language.

La autora es Lic. Educación Mención Lenguas Modernas (inglés y francés).  Maestría en Docencia Universitaria. Docente en la UCNE.
E-Mail: Karin_jimenezv@yahoo.es