What Makes a Good Teacher: Carmen Marcos Salazar

 December 1, 2012 

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In response to our post “What Makes a Good Teacher” we received this lovely article by Carmen Marcos Salazar.

Carmen was born in Madrid in 1971. She started learning English when she was three and that is the main reason why she believes in early language acquisition and the advantages of CLIL methodology. She has been teaching English in public schools for eighteen years to children from three to fourteen. She works in Tres Cantos and has been coordinating the CAM Bilingual Program in CEIP Ciudad de Columbia for eight years participating with her students in the last two CAM English Theatre Competitions and winning a prize in 2012.

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After reading the article “What makes a good teacher” I thought I might be able to confirm what I read and to share some more ideas with you.

Experience has always been my best teacher 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 pupils need more love and less content, some pupils need more repetition, others more time and each of them offers something different, special and 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 can cope with 25 classes a week non-stop. We are the main resource in our classes and when 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 encourage your pupils use their voices in different ways 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 have access to 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 express this in words but can see it 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. Think back to 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 in response 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 making mistakes is part of the learning process. This is true for them and for us as well.

Finally, the last advice that I would give you is that you should enjoy what you do, have fun while you teach, look forward to going to school, enjoy  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.

Carmen Marcos Salazar

Coordinadora – tutora
CPB Ciudad de Columbia