A teacher is a model learner, a leader, a trainer, a coach, a sponsor, a mentor, a tutor, a guide, an informer; and more importantly, is an instructor.
Teacher in Chinese meaning is shīfu. (师傅/师父)The character 師 means "teacher", while the meaning of 傅 is "tutor" and the meaning of 父 is “father". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifu) Then the teacher is not only to instruct someone, but to be like a “father” to his/her students. Therefore a teacher has to have a “solid” knowledge and experiences to be an instructor to teach and to nurture the students, like any fathers do to their children. The “traditional” scholar had to have four skills. The skills are Chinese music (qín), Chinese chess (qí), Chinese calligraphy (shū), Chinese painting (huà) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arts)
An instructor has a duty to teach correctly and to provide timely and correct information during the course of learning and teaching.
I have observed how students learn a language in my class in my short teaching career; and I noticed that every student can learn and can achieve their learning goals at the end of the semester. After I have made these observations I believe that every student can learn but learn differently. Some might need more visual help, some need hands-on activity to learn, some need a quiet place or space to learn on their own and some need technology to help them learn better. For this reason, a teacher has to use student-center pedagogy to instruct students in a classroom.
Student-center instruction focuses on students' needs and students' interests in order to “maximize” their learning potential and ability. Often times students can graduate from their high school depending on whether they have enough support from their family and/or their living environment is suitable to help them through the high school year. Connecting with family members and working together with them are to ensure that their children are learning well at school and continue their learning after graduating.
Guiding students through the course, coaching them to develop characters, training them to be global citizens and informing them of the opportunities lying ahead of them are just like the responsibilities of the “father” at home. The "shīfu's" role is to hope and expect students to be successful in their academic pursuit.
A teacher is accountable to his/her local education agency and school district to implement the national and state standard to assess the student learning progress and to meet the graduation standards. The American Council on the Teaching Foreign Language standard (ACTFL) sets the world language proficiency assessment standards which focus on listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Preparing students to be the productive members of the 21st century, tools to use in the classroom to teach students should match the requirements from the National and/or district language standards. Technology has been in every direction in our daily lives. Using technology to learn the language has an important place in my classroom. The Chinese language has been classified one of the most difficult language to learn, yet it is the most interesting language to learn and to be proficient of listening and speaking. In addition to creating career opportunities, it helps develop students’ character to handle difficulties and “tackle” and find the “possible” methods to learn well and to excel in the subject.
In my classroom, not only do I teach a language, I also teach how to be a life long learner in all subjects, especially language. Language, not only trains a student’s communicative skill, it also helps students better understand and value diversity and difference.