"What makes a good teacher" by Hermanísima

Hermanísima es una persona extraordinaria en todas sus facetas, no sólo como hermana sino también como profesora. Adora su trabajo, cosa que a mí me resulta totalmente inexplicable. La idea de pasarme un día encerrada en un aula con más de 20 chiquillos no es que me atraiga, sino que me eriza literalmente el vello. Tan  sólo el hecho de imaginarme el encontrarme en su pellejo me produce hasta fiebre de pura aprensión. Sin embargo, a ella le llena y le hace feliz. 

Está sobradamente demostrado que mi paciencia en general es prácticamente nula, y en el caso de la docencia se encuentra en un extremo de la escala de los valores negativos. Enfrentarme a alguien que no capta los conceptos y no ve la solución, ¡tan evidente!, a la primera me enciende los nervios. Sólo he sufrido la breve experiencia de ejercer de profesora particular durante un verano y comprobé, demasiado claramente, que no estaba en absoluto dotada para la enseñanza. Al igual que los genes de mi instinto maternal le correspondieron en su totalidad a hermanísima, los de la vocación docente debían de ir ligados a los anteriores y también los heredó todos ella. Esta es su experta opinión de las cualidades que debe tener un buen profesor de enseñanza bilingüe, además de vocación y un poco más que infinita paciencia. Con toda mi admiración, transcribo a continuación sus sabias palabras. 

"After reading the article "What makes a good teacher" I thought I might be able to confirm it and to share some more with you. My experience has been my best trainer and after spending 16 years teaching children from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds the qualities for being a good teacher are not the same for all of them: some need more love ad less contents, some need more repetition, others more time and each of them something different, special, personal.

Nevertheless, there are three elements which I think are indispensable ingredients for becoming a good teacher:
The first one is having a good voice. I'm not talking about a beautiful voice, I'm talking about a voice that could cope with 25 classes a week without stop. We are the main resource we have in our classes and for teaching a foreign language, our voice is going to be a great help. Use it, modulate it when you tell a story, raise it, lower it and let your pupils use theirs as well.

A good teacher should be able to teach without anything except him or herself. You never know the resources you might have but if you think that you can use your own body, your brain, your imagination and your own personal qualities to engage the students, the other resources you might get will be "used but not abused".

I also think that a good teacher should be able to feel like a student. Our pupils teach us many many things every day. They might not say them with words but we should see them in their eyes, in the things they don't say, in the comments they make, in the games they play in their smiles...Try to remember the things you liked at their age, the types of teachers nobody liked, the ones all your friends loved. The resources you liked best when you were little, the things you rejected...try to be a child in the body of a responsible grown up. I know it is not easy but we can do it.

There are some other thoughts that help me every day. Never take love for granted, children need to feel that you love them and that way you will feel that they love you too. Don't worry about making mistakes, There is a famous quote I love: "Only those who do nothing make no mistakes", we always tell our students that mistakes are part of the learning process, for them and for us as well. And the last advice that I could give you is that you should enjoy what you do, have fun while you teach, look forward to going to school, enjoy when preparing your classes. If you do, your students will as well.

The more I teach, the more I like it and the more confident I feel. I wish you all the best in your teaching career."