Here’s an idea. What do you, as students think are the important attributes of a successful English teacher?
Certainly you’ve had both good and bad teachers while learning English. What are characteristics you feel are needed in a teacher?
In my opinion :-
A teacher should have the ability to emphasise with the pupils. To both recognise and
appreciate the difficulties that they will no doubt encounter during the learning process.
He should have the patience of Job, and the ability to hide his aggravation toward the slower members of the class.
He should foster a friendly and close relationship with each student, whilst maintaining
his position of authority over the group as a whole.
There are many other virtues that a teacher should possess, but the rest of the Forum members may wish to add their comments to this thread.
Kitos. (I am still only a student.)
Hi,
I agree with Kitos. All the qualities he mentioned, depicts the personality of a new friend and a good teacher of mine, in these days. Could you guess who is he Bill?
Mixmixi
Hello OxfordBlues,
to me, the most important virtue of a teacher is patience. He/she should be able to explain his point even in a debate. Too many teachers have this kind of attitude: It is like that because I say so, and don’t you dare argue about it. A teacher can do a lot of damage in a student by doing this. It is true that teachers have deadlines and that they have to convey their syllabus efficiently. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I think it is wrong to simply think of a student as just being difficult when he or she just wants to dig a little deeper than normal, to get to the root of the matter in order to better understand.
I also think that humor is important. By that I don’t mean to make fun of others, but to lighten up the overall mood in the classroom. It is also good if a teacher can laugh about himself and admit when he was in the wrong.
Claudia
I think a good teacher should be able to speak clearly and concisely avoiding unnecessary words or “sentence padding” They should smile often, appear interested and use lots of eye contact with all pupils and have an open relaxed stance.
They should preferably speak with a middle England accent.If very Northern, Southern , Australian or American etc they should try to neutralize their accent if possible.
I think the most important virtue is to help pupils overcome their fears in speaking and being too shy.I would know by far more if I tried more persistently to speak.Of course I don’t blame my teacher he isn’t a magician at all.He taught me many things and I appreciate it…But I wll have studied them by several months again.
My advice is to look out for teacher who is friendly,understands what lacks in the knowledges,pushes you to study very hard regardless you can talk to him/her like friend.
HI,
I don’t think accent is really relevant as long as the speech is clear and intelligible. On the matter of attributes I always think back to my teacher of German when I was at school. Now as we all know, learning German isn’t by any means a walk in the park but this guy managed to make it seem so. His secret was to take his students through the language so that you absorbed the grammar as if it was the most natural thing in the world without alerting you to the hazards ahead. When you encountered these hazards, you’d been so well prepared that you didn’t even realise they were hazards at all. One other point - always be prepared to admit you’ve made a mistake. The clever clogs in the class who pointed it out feels good, the class feels good and you feel good and once your fallibility has been recognised, you can proceed in total relaxation.
Alan
I think, to be a successful teacher is the teacher, who is able to wake up the “inclination to know” inside every student.
I only meant extreme cases.
The Belfast accent being a perfect example… I mean who wants to talk like that? 
I had seen one guy some years ago who insisted on listening to Oxford/BBC English all the time but come to think of it - he could already speak English Fluently but was training to be a teacher.