Thurman, New York TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

This unit introduced the roles of teachers and learners, as well as introducing the learning levels for students learning English. Teachers have an important role in the classroom as organizers and facilitators. In addition, teachers sometimes take on various roles of monitoring, assessing, tutoring, managing/talking, and even participating in the lesson or activity. This unit also covered the major differences in the motivation, experiences, and behavior of the different age groups of learners. For example, younger learners really want to please their teachers, while teenagers are more likely to care about peer pressure. The last topic was a comparison of the characteristics of the different levels of learners. This chart really helped me better understand how students progress through the stages as they learn a second language. As a native speaker of English, this unit was a reminder of the struggles I experienced when learning Spanish. As an elementary teacher myself, I feel a teacher's main job is to motivate students by establishing a learning community which respects class cultural norms and also encourages risk taking by the students through participation, asking questions, and being open to positive feedback from the teacher. For four years I taught at an elementary school where 29 different languages were spoken. I only spoke two so I really had to understand my learners and what stage of development they were at in a wide variety of subjects.