is it?

so one of my lecturers said if one wishes to be a good language instructor, one must immerse himself in the (target) language. meaning to say, you have to think, speak, read in that language. you basically live and breathe the language. you don't just use the language in the classroom. otherwise, you are NOT a good language teacher.

sometimes i think these kinds of lecturers are great demoralising factor for foreign language/linguistics students (like me). hmm. so what if one doesn't wish to live and breathe in English, but at the same time a language teacher? her words somehow angered me (to no end) but hey, she's the expert. i believe she knows what she talks about and of course, the impact of her words to her students. most of my classmates are language teachers too and i believe some of them can relate to what i am talking about.

so if i don't speak english 24/7 does that make me a bad or a so-so teacher? ok, let's assume that she said so because she comes from a family that uses english as the first language. and most of us (i believe) don't come from the same background. how are you to create the 100% target language environment? but really, is that all it takes to be a good language teacher?sorry, i don't think so.

i noticed that 'so what?' is her favourite question when it comes to evaluating students' research framework and whatever not. i am, most of the times, tempted to say 'so what?' soon as she starts yapping about how good certain research areas (other than her interest areas are usually labelled BORING) she conducted. but so far i don't have the guts to do so. maybe partly because i don't want to fail the course. so whenever i am tempted, i usually look at her smug face and pretend that i don't hear a thing. hahaha.

ok, back to the first thing that i wanted to talk about. so what makes a good language teacher? of course, you have to be a good user of the language. next thing is you have to know how to relate to your students. a teacher should understand that different learners have different proficiency level and language learning abilities. therefore you can't just rate them as good or weak students. maybe, a student who is perceived as weak in speaking is good in writing. so is he a weak or a good student?

hmmph. i know this could be looked at from different perspectives but the bottomline is, there are lots of criterias to be considered if we are to be good teachers. i am not saying that i am the best teacher. i am actually far from that. the thing is we need to learn the strategies to be good language teachers. it is not a sin to speak in your mother tongue and so what if an english teacher chooses to do so? suke hati die laa :)

ok lah, i've talked too much. need to get back to work.