What makes a good teacher, at LingQ or anywhere?

Hello there,

This is Steve Kaufmann again. The Linguist on language. I haven't done this for a while. I sort of, I guess I should be more regular. Sometimes I will do a webcast, sometimes I just post a comment, but I think there are people who appreciate getting them, these messages in the podcast format. I'm gonna read my most recent posting for those of you who are working on your English, so that you can import these into LingQ, and save any words and phrases that you think are worthwhile or phrases that you would like to be able to use or better understand. * Above transcript are not 100% accurate. I transcribed it as a practice. Hope you don't mind. What makes a good teacher? If I think of the teachers that I liked, and that inspired me, it was not necessarily their profound grasp of their subject that made them successful. In fact, it is almost irrelevant, within limits of course.

For many students, especially at university, the best teacher is one who does not get too deep into his subject. If he can keep it simple, clearly explain what will be on the final exam, and then make sure that most students are capable of getting good marks, that is a good teacher, and his courses will be popular. It really helps if the exam is all multiple choice, or true or false, so that the student does not have to bother expressing him or herself in writing. If the goal is to get a degree, this kind of teacher is good.

Universities like professors who do a lot of research on subjects that only interest a small group of their peers. They want their professors to publish papers and attend conferences. So there could be a division of labour, between the researchers who publish papers on subjects of very narrow interest on the one hand, and teachers who ensure that students pass on the other hand.

To me, a good teacher is something else. The best teachers I had were the ones who inspired me and challenged me. They need not have had all the answers. They need not have published learned papers. They just had to be enthusiastic, ask interesting questions, act as if they cared about their subject and their students. They needed to be able to put themselves in the position of their students and not talk down to them. They needed to speak clearly and not mumble.

At LingQ we are looking for tutors in all languages. We want people who are also interested in language learning, or think that they might become interested. We want people who are prepared to learn our system, a new approach to language learning. We want people who like talking to people from different language and cultural backgrounds. We want people who speak their own language clearly and are enthusiastic.

I think that kind of person makes an excellent teacher. They do not need to be experts on the grammar of their language. They mostly need to encourage, inspire, and provide feedback. If anyone out there is interested, please send me an email. It is very easy to do. Why not just host one discussion a week and see how you like it?

* Steve continued speaking freely in the podcast. ( http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2008/10/what-makes-a-go.html )

About this transcript: http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/forum/2/1693/