By Al-Mandouh al-Husseini
The teaching process should primarily aim to develop learners’ personality and behaviour by helping them acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes, and moral values.
For teachers to succeed in achieving this development, they have to adopt appropriate teaching methods, the most important element of school curricula.
These methods determine the roles of the teachers and the learners in the educational process, along with the resources and the educational means to be used and the learning activities to be carried out by learners.
Some teachers have abundant knowledge. However, they cannot communicate this knowledge to the pupils due to poor teaching methods’ implementation.
This means that the quality of teaching provided to pupils depends on the teaching methods. These methods make teaching capable of achieving the desired change.
A teaching method is commonly defined as the easiest path for teachers to achieve the educational and learning goals they seek.
Teaching methods should depend on the latest educational and psychological approaches and theories. They have to provide appropriate opportunities for pupils to participate and exchange opinions and experiences and make them more enthusiastic for learning.
Teachers need to take into account individual differences between them and work to develop themselves through research, thinking and the actual application of experiences gained in practical life.
In the past, teaching methods used to apply traditional curricula concepts. Nowadays, however, the same methods consider the study material to be a pivot of the educational process.
They aim to provide learners with the largest possible amount of knowledge, facts, concepts, laws, and theories.
The same methods also rely on teachers’ communication of knowledge to learners through its only source: textbooks.
Modern teaching methods consider learners an active and a pivotal element of the educational process.
They adopt modern concepts that depend on self-learning and apply the old saying that goes, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Learning is better when there is self-motivation and real participation from learners.
I advise teachers to do the following:
– Focus on research and innovation and always renew your teaching methods to render the educational process enjoyable and interesting.
– Motivate your pupils and kill apathy and boredom by inspiring them with self-motivation for learning.
– Successful teaching depends on the personality and the style of the teacher. The success of a specific teaching method does not mean that this method can be copied by all teachers.
– Traditional teaching methods are not all bad. Some of these methods bear fruit. By the same token, modern teaching methods are not all good. Some of these methods have drawbacks. Teachers need to diversify their methods and benefit from the flexibility of the teaching process to pick the most appropriate method for their learners.
I also suggest the following for teachers:
- The class has to be short to ensure that learners do not get bored. The objectives of the class also have to be clear and well-defined.
- Fire pupils’ attention by asking a question and diversify teaching aids.
- Pupils always enjoy learning from enthusiastic teachers.
- Teachers’ voice has to be clear and their pitch strong. They need to diversify their tones and manage the speed of their talk.
- Use similes; comparisons; anecdotes, and real-life examples.
- Continually evaluate your pupils by asking questions. Do not move from one point to another before making the necessary preparation for this transition.
- Discuss each element with the pupils and write down the main ideas and elements on the class board.
Al-Mandouh al-Husseini is the board chairman of several private schools and the Egyptian Society for Private School Owners and a former member of parliament