One of the main functions of a teacher is providing balanced literacy. Ideally, this a comprehensive program offered in schools that help in the acquisition of language arts. This is done by guiding the students in mattering written an oral communication. Teachers have the role of providing balanced literacy by incorporating reading approaches in realizing students need, using multiple strategies and nurturing them to become proficient readers (Uygun, 2013). Among the strategies used include authentic reading, writing, and exposing them to various experiences so that they can learn a wide range of skills. Some of the approaches that teachers utilize for these purposes include reading, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, oral language, and literature.
The main purpose of balanced literacy is cultivating skills of reading, writing thinking, spacing and listening for all students regardless of their language capabilities. A teacher, therefore have to identify how fast each student is in grasping ideas and thing and strategies of how they can help such students. In a program, the teacher might consider utilizing models reading and modeled writing to help students acquire what is being taught. Additional approaches include shared reading and shared writing, guided reading, and writing, independent reading and writing (Kern, & Warschauer, 2014).
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The teacher has the role of leading aloud to help guide the children in pronunciation. Additionally, this also helps the students to internalize sentence structure as they read along. It will also motivate them in learning how to read, get a sense of story structure and learn new vocabulary and build the prediction skills. A teacher has the duty and responsibility to write for the children. This is useful for the children as they will have a chance to learn through the writing on how phonics works, they will also learn of the models of conventional peelings and who to use writing aids. Moreover, the teacher has a role to help in hearing and sequencing sounds in words. The teacher is also required to develop print concepts in order for the children to grasp learning concepts and related ideas (Pressley, 2013).
Furthermore, teachers have a role to assess the children using various tools as allowed by the educational authorities. Assist might be offered through oral questions, tests, exams or another means that the teacher may find most applicable in the learning environment. Additional roles for the teacher include making observations about the learning progress. Parents and school administrators might need this observation in making reports or determining the progress that the children are making in language learning and literacy (Kern, & Warschauer, 2014).
The teachers are also required to provide an oral reading sample in class. This is useful for the learners in altering the language. Writing and spelling samples in class is an effort that would make language learning to me more efficient and effective. It is necessary for teachers to know children personally. This will be useful in helping those learning aspects and components as it will help to identify their weak areas. The teacher will have an opportunity t devise support material and means. This will help the students in rising to higher levels of language learning and literacy development.
A teacher can serve a facilitator in the learning environment. A facilitator is simply the person who assists a group of people in grasping at their common targets and achieving them without any intervention on his or her behalf. in this regard a teacher would be the person who controls the activities for the learners, and this has to help them perform better academically. As a facilitator, the teacher should foster an aspect of creativity and innovation. He should also plan of discussions, teamwork activities to make the learning process to be more comprehensible.
As a facilitator, the teacher needs to take time to prepare his or her students for the learning, and this would make it possible to increase learner’s participation. This would also psyche up the inactive learners to participate in learning activities. Assigning discussion questions or topic and letting the students handle them with minimal intervention from the teacher would help them utilize the skills and information they learned in class. By correcting the malformation and giving helpful tips, the facilitator would clarify matters, information and learning concepts.
A teacher should offer online and off-site references when teaching about new vocabularies. This would be useful in helping them understand the new and difficult words (Beeman-Cadwallader, Buck, & Trauth-Nare, 2014). For a grammar class, it is good to issue the class with a text of the elements that will be learned during the lesson. This will point out the grammatical point that will be explained later. It is as useful for the teacher to collect feedback and the learner’s observation. If the observation is wrong, they will know where to improve.
There are some qualities and attitudes that teachers must possess to provide effective language learning and literacy. Firstly a teacher should have the capability to listen effectively. Students often ask many questions. A good teacher should be able to listen and respond to these questions. The other qualities include being genuine, understanding, respectful, and intelligent (Soine, & Lumpe, 2014). The teacher should also be in possession to grow and nurture human relations. When students have hardships in personal life, he or she should be able to support them. He should also be able to detect when children are suffering anger, sadness, frustration, weariness, or solitude. Knowing how to deal with a student in such a situation demands a teacher to be intelligent.
References
Beeman-Cadwallader, N., Buck, G., & Trauth-Nare, A. (2014). Tipping the Balance from Expert to Facilitator: Examining Myths about Being a Teacher Educator. Studying Teacher Education , 10 (1), 70-85. doi:10.1080/17425964.2013.864967
Kern, R., & Warschauer, M. (2014). Introduction: Theory and practice of network-based language teaching. Network-based Language Teaching , 1-19. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139524735.003
Pressley, M. (2013). Balanced Elementary Literacy Instruction in the United States: A Personal Perspective. International Handbook of Educational Policy , 645-660. doi:10.1007/1- 4020-3201-3_33
Soine, K. M., & Lumpe, A. (2014). Measuring characteristics of teacher professional development. Teacher Development , 18 (3), 303-333. doi:10.1080/13664530.2014.911775
Uygun, S. (2013). How to Become an Effective English Language Teacher. Journal of Educational and Social Research . doi:10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n7p306
