TeachingEnglish
English teachers are character educators
Submitted by António Figueiredo on 9 September, 2009 - 14:34
I am very interested in character formation through Teaching English. It is obvious to me that all teachers of English can play an important role in students' character formation even though many may not be aware of that fact. Art can be a very useful/powerful tool in the English classroom. I like to work with movies, paintings and music.
Good ideas are welcome!
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
Log in or register
Follow TeachingEnglish
 |
 |
 |
 |
Hello, Antonio, and every teacher,
Definitely.
Teaching English make the students learn strategies of learning a language. It's just one precise example.
Bravo for choosing music and art for the class-period. Our youngsters need today to be educated in sensitivity, in apprehending beauty. Beauty makes the person a better one. And if better, this entails for example treating other more respectfully. Definitely.
All of us can remember one or whatever number of teachers that influenced in our way of working.
There is a very important point to spread and hammer today, and make our students pursue it: effort.
To get good grades in the subject of English in their schools: effort.
More important: To learn and acquire a language you definitely need to invest effort, if you want to reach fluency.
Also, besides effort, let's make our students get interested in achieving small goals. Small goals at each class-period. Otherwise they will not see any practical reason why to invest that effort.
I hope this thought plus experience of mine can help you.
Best starting the new academic year! We are going to make for it!
Fernando Diez Gallego
Granada (Spain)
You have bought out a fantastic aspect of teaching by way of your question. I have seen most teachers neglecting this critical aspect of a person's personality which ultimately plays the most decisive factor in determining the entire course of an individuals life including his personal and professional standing.
Here we need to understand the difference between reputation and character. Character is what a person is from the inside, his true self, while reputation is what people think about you. It is ultimately your character which will stand out every time whereas reputation is purely an illusion.
Character is a combination of various qualities like, Integrity, discipline, innovativeness, being fair and impartial, being assertive without being arrogant, firm self belief, trusting people wholly, calmness and composure under pressure, having the courage to dream and do things differently, excellent mannerisms and humility.
There is no better person than a teacher, who should be a role model for his students, to look up to him and emulate him.
hello,
i think that you touched upon an extremely important function of being the teacher; a lot of people seem to forget about it, despite the fact that even subconsciously every teacher shapes his or her students' character or an attitude towards the surrounding world to some extent; being conscious of the fact helps us to control particular aspects of teaching and adjust our own way in order to provide our students with some relevant and worthful values;
while working with my students i always try to remember that my own way of bahaviour is in some way reflected in their attitudes towards me, the lesson and towards English as such;
Ewelina
At the end of a lesson, the teacher asks the child to reflect on the character in the lesson. They inturn make opinions on the character and even make a brief sketch of the character. This helps them to know the strength and the weakness of the character they learn in the lesson, and also make their own judgements. It also helps them to draw comparisons with characters of other lessons. I think a good teacher can inculcate certain good values in students, while teaching lessons in the classroom
Literature is a reflection of life in the written word. The major forms are poetry,drama, novel, essay and short story. Teaching about reality from a book is rewarding and didactic.
Life is human nature in all its aspects amalgamated with society with the maximum revelations found in all kinds of poetic expressions. When I studied English literature it was a different view but when I started teaching it I realised that my lesson always ended on a religious note.
I wonder if others teaching Literature would agree?
Prince Hamlet spent days and nights procrastinating about what the spirit told him and eventually the incident became a moral issue. Contemplating suicide and then revenge became a difficult life decision.
Discussing the Uncles role and the hasty marriage of the queen I found that it happens in our society too. The brothers wife and a couple of children coming together is common in villages and so are murders, leave alone the honour killing. The fact is that the study of Literature leads us to the awareness of how to be a good human being and how to recognize a bad one.
I feel every one should study literature in its various forms, perhaps the society may take better shape and the world may become a better place.
We seem to have forgotten the aesthetic realism subjects that teach us to Be Good'