Learning From the Student

Rarely do I see authors comment on what they had intended when they summarize their thoughts in a few words or a quote, especially regarding a quote on the practice of teaching. I wanted to be one of the few that can explain why teaching is useless unless you learn from the student.

I always find that ones approach has to be modified according to how the student presents himself what the circumstances are behind the learning need, the learning history of the recipient and other factors. This is especially true in a language school where conversation is a priority and the method is “organic”. I won’t get into the methodology, as the point is to work with the student’s motivation to learning and those other factors I mentioned, in order to better teach them. The object is generally quality over quantity, although that may be questioned at some locations where the employer encourages his employee to learn during a certain length of time, but the student’s time is compromised by other obligations or he is not as motivated as he once was because language learning usually takes some effort.  So the quality may become secondary to the fact that the student feels obliged to learn to remain in his employment. It is as if he would be more motivated had he had a freer choice. Here the teacher has to learn whether the student really wants to learn as opposed to just translating from his own language. The teacher then has to pick up on how he can get the student to think and then talk in another language.

 One isn’t necessarily teaching what the student does not already know. Most often the student is a storehouse of grammatical information and idiomatic expressions waiting to be putting into practice. Often the task is just putting them at ease to be able to verbally express their knowledge in public. They need to communicate orally. The teacher’s task should then be helping them put their thoughts in order so that clearer sentences come out and they follow a particular pattern leading to a conversation. Often enough it is the task of the teacher to learn whether the student is comfortable with newly acquired expressions and if not speaking plainly is quite enough. In other words, the teacher doesn’t have to complicate the life of the student because of the latest book on idiomatic expressions that has come out on the market.

These thoughts and others are my own when thinking “teaching is useless unless you learn from your students.”