A Facilitator. A language teacher should be able to find a balance between providing the right challenge and making sure that learners can handle it. A detailed analysis of learners' current proficiency levels is a must-do preparation before teaching. Too easy sometimes is much better than too difficult.
A Motivator. Give learners as much encouragement as you can, and never hesitate to highlight their achievement. However, being positive does not mean the teacher is uncritical. Negative evidence is also unavoidable when consistent mistakes occur.
A Language Knower and Adviser. A language teacher should always remember to engage learners to use the target language to communicate, focusing on meaning. A teacher should join in the discourse as an equal participant, but one who has greater language knowledge and experience. Timing for error correction is significant for the teacher to consider that it is not wise to sacrifice meaning transfer for the perfect accuracy, but should be ready to offer help anytime when the learners are struggling using the language.
A Parent. Be the one that inspires the learners for both intellectual and all-around development. A language teacher should be with enough patience to the learners, be able to teach everything from the very beginning, and allow large amount of repetition. Usually, the teaching process is step by step, from the simplest knowledge to the more complex one, like parents never teach their children to run before they can walk. As an old saying goes, “the child is the mirror of the parents.” Parents are constantly giving presentations to their children, so is a language teacher.
A Friend. As friends, the teacher and learners have the equal status during the teaching and learning process. The teacher is by no means a controller; instead the students decide most of the teaching activities. The teacher and the learners learn from each other, and the teaching process, by nature, is a two-way study process. Caring about the learners’ needs, listening to them, and communicating with them are what a language teacher should always do.