Observer: Observing students´ performances is essential to measure the extent to which they have understood the activity and the level of development of the objectives involved, particularly in communicative activities. This also includes deciding on our own role and degree of participation within each activity and creating the optimal condition for learning, providing a free-anxious atmosphere. Besides, the teacher is responsible for grouping activities into coherent lessons. This involves grouping students according to levels (homogeneous or heterogeneous groups) and participating actively in the activity as a co-communicator, so that we can stimulate learners, present new language and give clarifying examples without taking the initiative. The importance of group dynamics in plurilingual and communicative experiences is obvious therefore, the FL teacher has to motivate them to use the language with their peers. Group process manager and classroom manager: If we understand the FL class as experiential learning and communication process, we have to assume less teacher-centred management and foster students´ interaction. Similarly, we can take advantage of the different linguistic resources available to students, so that they develop their plurilingual competence. Prompter: When our students are immersed in a communicative activity and they need help to avoid a breakdown in communication, we may suggest and exemplify instead of giving them the answer and taking the initiative. In this sense, it is also important that our students know what we are going to assess and how we intend to do it in other words, they should have a clear idea on the criteria for success in each stage of the task. As we know, students expect from teachers clear indications of their degree of success and whether they are doing things right or not.

In this sense, the FL teacher should also assume the role of needs analyst, determining and responding to learner language needs and preferences.Īssessor: Performing as an assessor implies offering feedback and correction and grading the level of difficulty within a task. Thus, providing them with the adequate instructions through demonstrations and explanations and fixing the linguistic demands to their linguistic competence is vital to define adequacy of activities. Before getting students to face an activity, we must ensure that they understand what they are asked to do, and also that they are motivated and engaged. Organiser: This is one of the most important roles performed by teachers, and consists on organising students to carry out various activities, giving them the necessary information to succeed and grouping them according to the needs of the task. However, the role of facilitator is a broad term that can be specified into more precise terms or secondary roles: Therefore, the teacher is not seen as the controller and transmitter of knowledge but rather, the role of facilitator of learning is essential to promote communication amongst learners and autonomous learning. In this context, the students´ experiences and not the performance of the teacher are at the heart of the FL classroom. This means that the learners´ needs and experiences become central to the educational process.

Facilitator of the communicative process ĭue to the relevance of humanistic theories, “learner-centred” approaches have gained momentum to a great extent.Obviously, these roles are complementary and may change from one activity to another or within the different stages of an activity.īreen and Candlin (1980) suggest that the teacher has three principal roles in the context of a communicative classroom:

In recent years and under the influence of the communicative approach, the roles of both teachers and learners have changed considerably. The degree to which the teacher is responsible for content.The degree of control the teacher has over how learning takes place.The type of functions teachers are expected to fulfil.Richard and Rodgers (1986) note that the teacher´s roles are related to some issues: According to Nunan (1989), “role” refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and interpersonal relationships between the participants.

Teacher as a prompter