Comparing traditional teaching and 21st century teaching

Top ten traits of the 21st century ELT practitioner

-          Educator as a couch, guide, resource, and lead learner

-          Focus on the student’s point of view

-          Dialogue with his students

-          Let student question

-         Re-think how the students interpret his lesson

-          Let his students contribute with their learning

-          Use technology

-          Ongoing, formative assessments for and by students to increase learning

-          Facilitate learning

-          Failures and mistakes are seen as part of the learning process

As everybody knows, there were different kind of teachers back then. They had different characteristics even they had taught in different ways . Many people say that teachers were so strict  back then ,and now, they are not. That is  something that many people say, but the reality is different. Nowadays, education has changed over the years in different ways. As some characteristics above, teachers are like a father or mother for many children who are in any school; children tend to have a second family in school.

We, as future teachers, need to know that all those teachers who used to be the center of the class are disappearing. Now, everything has different purposes, for example, the learner is the most important in the learning process, and teachers need to be the guide of that learning process. There are so many resources like technology which can be useful when teaching and we have to take into consideration; to guide a class is not easy, but in this 21^st century, not only teachers but also students have changed.

Teachers were considered as expert. They were like the person who knows everything; in fact, they were back then. Students were not so important than nowadays; in our opinion, the learning process, has improved because of people who are in charge of teaching are making different things for improving students’ learning process. We know there are exceptions, and it’s not a guarantee that every single teacher would be as good as we want them to be.

Traditional teaching was a different way to teach; teachers who belonged to that way of teaching used to teach by pushing their students all the time. Probably, students were treating like slaves, or they felt in that way. Therefore, now, almost all teachers try to use new techniques to encourage students to take advantage of their learning process by putting into practice as much abilities as students can. By away, we got a big challenge in this new century; we will treat students of a new generation. We must be careful because technology could be useful, but also it could be a disadvantage. All students are using technology not only for studying but also for wasting time. As a conclusion, we, as future teachers, need to follow and look for the best techniques to teach because the new generations will be in our hands.

Describing the salient traits between NESTs and non-NESTs

NESTs                                                                     Non-NESTs

Focus on:                                                                 Focus on:

-Fluency                                                                    -Accuracy

-Meaning                                                                   -Form

-Language use                                                           -Grammar rules

-Oral skills                                                                 -Printed word   

NESTs and non-NESTs have many differents, but they got just one purpose; that purpose is called “English Teaching Learning.” Both NESTs and non-NESTs are good teachers of English. Some are better at doing an specific thing, for example, NESTs are very good at pronunciation and fluency and, non-NESTs are very good at teaching grammar and finding mistakes. students. For us, both can be excellent teachers; the most important is to give a adecuate model Also, NESTs know a lot of vocabulary, but non-NESTs can provide a better teaching  model. As we know, each type of teacher provides a different model of teaching.

Many people think that NESTs are better teacher because they are native English speakers, but that is not always true. If a person is a native English speaker, it does not mean that person will be a good teacher.

Non-NESTs are focusing on things that NESTs do not pay attention too much. In my opinion, to be a teacher means to be a leader for many students; that is why, different learning models can help students to find their own way to learn a spoken language in this case English. In some countries, schools prefer to have NESTs because schools think that NESTs are better teacher of English. Although we are not teachers yet,  we can say that there are excellent non-NESTs who care about their students learning process. These non-NESTs are excellent at teaching, and their fluency and grammar are excellent. Moreover, every single teacher has to have many ways to teach that give student the opportunity to develop their skills to communicate in an effective way.