Classroom Interactions (02/05/14)

The interactive teacher, one who is fully aware of the group dynamics of his/her classroom, can take on several roles. Although they can play many roles in the course of teaching, Brown listed some metaphors to describe a spectrum of possibilities for those roles.  Based on chapter 13 of his text, Teaching by Principles, An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, teachers can serve as any or a combination of the following:

Controller -
This educator can often predict student responses and is always in charge of every moment in the
classroom.

Director -
This teacher is like the  conductor of an orchestra or director of a drama. The ultimate motive must
always be to enable students to engage in the real life drama of improvisation.

Manager -
This instructor is one who plans lessons, modules, and courses.  The ultimate goal is to retain control of certain large objectives.

Facilitator -
The teacher helps students clear away roadblocks, find shortcuts, and negotiate rough terrain by capitalizing on the principle of intrinsic motivation.  S/he allows students to discover language through using it pragmatically, rather than telling them about language.

Resource -
This type of instructor has the least directive role.  S/he is available for advice and counsel when the students seek it.

Considering these different approaches to teaching in the language classroom, the question would then be: What type of teacher am I?  As educators, we often reflect on the success of our lesson plans in relation to the success of our students.  After you have taken a moment to ponder on what type of teacher you are, please feel free to share it here. Are there any activities that you may swear by that you could share with us? Thank you in advance for your contribution(s).


Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language 
            pedagogy (3^rd edition). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Image - A Tale of Two Classrooms, retrieved from http://venspired.com/?p=2762