Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve Got Google

factors. As you go through this list have a think about great teachers you have either experienced as a student or that you work with now and think about not
what
they said but
how
they said it.
The Journal of Teacher Education
list is as follows (and notice the no cliché rule coming through in yet another guise in point six):
    1 Vocal Delivery – e.g. changes in tone, pitch, speed etc …
    2 Eyes –‘dancing, snapping, shining …’etc
    3 Gestures – to include the ‘body, head, arms, hands and face’
    4 Movements – e.g. ‘large body movements’
    5 Facial Expression – e.g. expressing emotions through changes in facial expressions
    6 Word Selection – e.g. colour and variety of words used
    7 Acceptance of Ideas and Feelings – e.g. praise, non-threatening responses, open to ideas …
    8 Overall Energy –‘explosive, exuberant, high degree of vitality, drive and spirit throughout the lesson’.
    (Collins 1978)
    If we gave each of the eight factors a score of one to ten, where would you score on the scale? What could you do to raise your score or help others raise theirs? Have you heard or watched yourself teach? Daunting though the prospect of having a lesson videotaped can be to many teachers, it can be very useful as a way of highlighting small changes you can implement to increase your ‘enthusiasm’ rating.
    Maybe as a training day exercise you could get yourself a copy of a Lee Evans video and, with the sound down so as not to upset staff sensibilities, deconstruct what ‘dynamic’ looks like by way of delivery. I’m not asking you to be Lee Evans in your lessons, and Lord knows I have seen a few teachers try and fail badly, but there is no harm in picking up a few tips from a masterclass such as his, regardless of whether you find a sweaty man playing an imaginary piano funny or not.
    I observed a history lesson once where the teacher stood at the front of the class and with the most gentle of New Zealand accents and, without variation in tone, pitch or volume whilst rocking gently on his heels, read quietly from the textbook for an extended period in such a way that no-one could help but feel drowsy. No learning disturbed the tranquillity of this lesson. It was a classic exercise in group hypnosis. The only thing that kept me going was waiting for him to suddenly click his fingers and tell us that we were all now ‘back in the room’. In fact the only thing that did unsettle the serenity of this lesson was when a girl sitting near me at the back of the class had obviously and understandably had enough and started to mess around. She was promptly, fiercely and with a good dose of sarcasm, rounded on by the teacher and sat there sullenly for the rest of the lesson. My heart went out to her. Quietly. Remember what I said about watching out for de-motivation as well as motivation?
    Remember too, the research we conducted for the QCA in 2008 and the ‘The B–Word’. Of all the higher-achieving children we either spoke to or who filled in our online survey,
many
of them said that they did not find their lessons interesting and of the ones who saw themselves as performing badly at school,
all
were as unanimous in how ‘boring’ their lessons were. As I wrote in the report:
    There seems to be no excuse for boring the futures out of our children. Lessons do not have to be consistently boring. The subject is notboring. Any subject can be made interesting if ‘to make it interesting’ is on the list of criteria in the lesson plan.
    (Gilbert 2008)
    Yes, I know children are children and can spend hours discussing the merits of groundbait or mascara but express boredom within seconds of being shown the Pyrenees or St Paul’s Cathedral 3 but I also know what I see in classrooms around the country. Enthusiastic, dynamic teachers – and by that I don’t mean those engaged in a song and dance routine for 50 minutes but ones who take the professional time to actually think about engaging their learners in what they need to learn – and, at the other end of the spectrum, teachers who feel that going through the act counts as teaching. Maybe it does. But it doesn’t count as learning in my book. Which, as I have said before, this is.
    To what extent then do you plan for engagement of your learners? Are you an enthusiastic teacher and can you learn to be more so? Are you switched on by a certain topic or your particular subject area? Do you contaminate your learners with your passions, if I can