Teaching > Grammar Questions and Teaching Suggestions
Your their teacher not their friend?
steven1080:
I have read the statement "You are their teacher not their friend" many times on here and I disagree with it.
As Native teachers in Korea, we are here to expose the students to natural English setting and communication.
Being a friend is a good way of doing that.
It's pathetic to need or want student friends but its incredibly valueable to have the respect of your students.
Friendship or respect of your students are both of little importance.
What are your thoughs on "your thier teacher not their friend"
P.S. This is not a uni. writting exam, academic journal or something that matters, so save time in writing about the spelling
or grammar being wrong.
flasyb:
--- Quote from: steven1080 on May 25, 2012, 12:30:59 PM ---I have read the statement "You are their teacher not their friend" many times on here and I disagree with it.
As Native teachers in Korea, we are here to expose the students to natural English setting and communication.
Being a friend is a good way of doing that.
It's pathetic to need or want student friends but its incredibly valueable to have the respect of your students.
Friendship or respect of your students are both of little importance.
What are your thoughs on "your thier teacher not their friend"
P.S. This is not a uni. writting exam, academic journal or something that matters, so save time in writing about the spelling
or grammar being wrong.
--- End quote ---
Since you asked so nicely, the correct contraction of "you are" is not "your", which is a possessive adjective, but "you're". :P
You can befriend your students but if you get too friendly then it can mess up the teacher/student relationship. You can't really order your friend about but you'd expect students to do what you say because you're trying to teach them, you're in a position of authority over them and it could boil down to a matter of safety. If they see you more as a friend then this could be a problem.
I'd say that it's could to be friendly with your students - play sports with them, chat to them casually at times etc - but it's not good for them to consider you to be their friend, as that implies equality. Far better to go the Korean route and declare yourself to be their older brother.
glb0b:
--- Quote from: steven1080 on May 25, 2012, 12:30:59 PM ---
P.S. This is not a uni. writting exam, academic journal or something that matters, so save time in writing about the spelling
or grammar being wrong.
--- End quote ---
I find it strange that you had the time to write this but not the time to check what you had written.
However, I agree with flasyb. It is possible to be friendly with your students (I certainly am), but it is important to remind them sometimes that they are not your friends if you want to be teach them too.
I have seen some good Korean teachers do the same thing. They are friendly with students outside class but draw a boundary so that within class they are teachers.
I think we should do the same and it works well. I occasionally have to remind my students that I am their teacher and they shouldn't speak to me in the same way that they speak to their friends. One way I remind them of this is they call me glb0b teacher and not just glb0b. My co-teacher is also very good at reminding them if they speak to me inappropriately.
deanitsin:
I thought this was going to be about the irony of all the people who made this same grammatical error in the other Facebook thread.
Clearly my mind is going in a different direction on this one.
But yes, you are their teacher and not their friend. And they should know that, and respond appropriately to you, whether you are being friendly with them or not. It's very simple -- with child/adult relationships, there's a line. My parents let me know that when I was growing up by literally saying there was a line. They would say, "The line is here. You're here. Don't cross it." My students, for the most part, likewise know that there is a line, and everything can be loads of fun until they start inching closer to that line. Then the situation changes, and we are not in "friendly" territory anymore.
millionsknives:
This is purely anecdotal and I don't want to have to try too vigorously to back up the position but I don't see any problem with befriending your students. The trick as an educator is you have to be a manipulative friend most of the time.
Long ago I gave up on the idea that educators "teach" people. People will walk away from any situation with the information that they want to take away from it. Education is really more about creating incentives for behaviors that you think are important. These behaviors could be studying certain material or performing certain other tasks. Many of us rely on formalized interactions. The idea that we can't be friends with our students seems to come from this. The attitude seems to be this, "You're the student I'm the teacher. I need absolute control otherwise my effectiveness will be limited."
The problem I tend to find with this attitude is that regardless of how formal students are always going to try to game the systems that you have established for classroom control.
Students will try to game you also if you just try to come across as a friend with things to "teach" them but I tend to think that working from the position of a "friend" allows you some flexibility in creating incentives for learning that are much more difficult when dealing with the formalized teacher student relationship.
Educating through being a friend on facebook is one example of discarding the formal teacher student relationship and creating a learning incentive that might not otherwise exist.
Now granted my school is pretty open and lets me do what I want, and I will readily admit that maybe your situation doesn't allow for much experimenting but as far as giving real world experience with using a foreign language I would rather students come to me with friend language and concerns as opposed to just strictly book driven concerns.
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