My Best Teacher

Young Ihl Kim

November 5, 2015

I remember the best teacher I have ever had. He was one of my  English teachers in my high school days and his name is Mr. Hyang

Kyu Lee. He was also my homeroom teacher when I was a senior. In my memory he remains a sincere and dedicated teacher who had a great deal of good influence on me. I admire him very much.

I am going to describe how he taught English in our class and why I like the teacher. First, the teaching style of my teacher was explainer as we can expect it in those old days. He relied usually on explaining or lecturing to convey information to the students. He taught us English mainly focusing on lexis, grammar, discourse and reading. Yet for effective teaching he often used cards or papers with pictures and the corresponding words or sentences. He knew how to utilize pictures for effective English lessons.

In spite of these limitations, my teacher knew the subject matter very well and kept control of it throughout the lesson. He was also well organized and communicated clearly. Furthermore, he was enthusiastic and inspired enthusiasm among the students. An additional quality of my teacher was that he was authentically himself. These characteristics helped to create a positive learning atmosphere.

My second reason why I like my teacher is this. He showed respect for his students and really listened to them. He never ignored any views or questions given by the learners and was always faithful to responding to those views or questions. He also trusted his students and encouraged them to make progress in English no matter at what level they were, and so inspired confidence in learning English. He was kind and made us to approach English in a relaxed and pleasant way. As a result, the atmosphere of his classes was respectful, trustful, friendly and encouraging. Because of such a positive and live learning atmosphere I felt secure and happy and was eagerly expecting to learn new things in every class. So I studied English very hard and English became one of my favorite subject matters.

Considering my teacher’s teaching style and his characteristics as an effective teacher, he seemed to understand some of the Multiple Intelligence Theory. For example, he seemed to understand Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence, Visual/Spatial Intelligence, Interperso- nal Intelligence and Naturalist Intelligence. My teacher also seemed to understand some of the Second Language Acquisition Theory. For instance he seemed to understand the Monitor Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis. In fact, he encouraged us

to correct mistakes by ourselves, to go slightly beyond our ability and to have a high level of self-confidence and self-esteem in a relaxed learning environment.

Now I am going to depict in brief how I will teach English. In the past I was primarily a teacher as the explainer, but in the future I hope to learn how to become a teacher as the involver and the enabler, and my ultimate goal is to teach as the enabler. I will encourage and challenge the students to create their own ideas and conditions that enable the students to learn for themselves and achieve something through activities. I will also make good use of the benefits in the explainer and involver teaching styles. I also hope to make proper use of the various teaching techniques, especially audio-visual, group discussions, and live demonstration. I know it is not going to be easy for me to get acquained with these new teaching styles and techniques, but I will try to do my best to learn and utilize the new areas of teaching for me. But I believe that maintaining good qualities as an effective teacher is more important than using specific teaching styles and techniques for effective teaching.

In conclusion, I recall Mr. Hyang Kyu Lee as my best teacher with most respect and thankfulness. He encouraged me to work hard on English and made me pleasant and confident in learning English. In a sense I owe to him what I am as a good English learner.