What does it take to be a great language teacher?

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – (Benjamin Franklin)

The teacher is one of the single most important components of the language leanrning experience and their teaching style can make the difference between a successful learning outcome for the language student and one in which the student loses confidence in their ability to learn a second language.

Not only will the way a language is taught ultimately determine whether the student will indeed learn the language, it will also influence the way their student’s view language learning in the future. A boring, or uninterested teacher can not only compromise their students’ success with their language learning, they can also instil in their students the belief that they are bad language learners.

So, what is the recipe? In no particular order, and by no means comprehensive, the following list are some key ingredients for being an exceptional language teacher: