ALT-1 The Characteristics of a Good Teacher
Simplicity flexibility and pragmatism are the hallmarks of a good teacher. Each time ruminate on the subject of teaching one personality always come to mind, Mr Brown my drama lecturer at the university. Each time he comes to the class he would mount the stage and started to talk about the fundamentals of drama and acting."In acting", said, "you have to put yourself in the same mind frame as the character you are depicting, your foot walk, body movements and facial expressions must be accurate.You should be able to pronounce words exactly as the character you are portraying". Then Mr Brown began to demonstrate on the mini stage to really show the class how to comport oneself on stage. His class was always interesting, there was never a dull moment. It was a class always filled with jokes and laughter. It was a class we the students could not afford to miss.
Whenever a question was asked about stage movement facial expression or any of the issues in the basics of drama and acting; Mr Brown answered it with ease. He always choose the appropriate words. He always demonstrated or refer us to a book or books to buttress his points. Sometimes he will through the questions open making the class participatory so that all of us will join in the discussion, the class was always lively.
Also at times he will divide us into groups for discussion an to practicalised what he taught,all of us were carried along in his drama and theatre class such that there was no failure in the class at the end of the course.
Mr Brown as far as we the students were concerned was the quintessential teacher with good knowledge of the subject matter, charisma, simple, flexible and pragmatic.
A good teacher in addition to good knowledge of what he or she is teaching must have the charisma to carry his or her students along. He or she must be simple and flexible. If the teacher uses a particular method to impart knowledge to the students and fail to achieve the desired goals, he or she should be flexible enough to change to the one the students understand or are comfortable with.
A good teacher should be pragmatic so that the students can understand him or her easily; after all the idea behind teaching is to impart knowledge in the easiest way possible.
