PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR GENERAL IMPRESSION

The best teachers are those whose classes include a large amount of discussion between teachers and students. Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

The way teachers organize their lectures depends from one to another. Some teachers enhance communication and interaction among students, whereas others do not want to include discussions. Although both of these methods are defendable, I firmly believe that instauring a dialogue is the best way to teach. Indeed, it provides a better understanding of complicated theories, a way to share different points of view and makes the class more interesting.

The chief reason of my belief is that some students might have difficulties to understand some complicated theories or concepts which remain abstract. Enhancing dialogue and interactions give them the opportunity to lighten some misunderstood ideas and unclear facts. The teacher can thus provide concrete examples applied to some points of the lecture which may be relevant and compelling for the rest of the class. Furthermore, most of the teachers work in a company at the same time, or had work experiences in the past. These professors can use their knowledge to explain some concepts that can be applied in the work world. In sum, interactions is a way to put emphazise on ambiguous and abstract notions by providing concrete examples based on real life.

Secondly, participation means sharing different points of view. Learning how to deal with different opinions is useful for students’future professional life. As a matter of fact, these young adults will be confronted in their future position to different ways of thinking and they should be prepared to deal with this kind of situation. Promoting dialogue in class gives them a good preparation to cope with this scenario. In other words, they become more open-minded by conceiving other’s ideas and comparing it with their own ideas on the topic, and in some cases, they can even realising and taking into account some interesting points that they would not have thought on their own. Consequently, this example supports my opinion that we learn through other’s points of view and we build our understanding of a certain theories on it.

Another point which convinces me to agree with the above statement is that classes promoting a large amount of discusssions are generally more intesresting on the student’s point of view. Based on my own experience, having the opportunity to discuss with students and sharing ideas is much more compelling. Indeed, we are stimulated to think about the subject, to develop our own vision and express it clearly. On the contrary, attending classes which does not require any participation and in which we just need to take notes and listen to the teacher without participating could be more monotonous and lead to a decrease of interest and attention, and thus, a less clear understanding of the class.

Some may argue that allowing dialogues among students could rapidly turns the class into an important disorder where everybody tries to speak at the same time, and that classes without participation are more focussed on providing the important ideas of the topic in a more serious way. However, I believe that dialogues and interactions can promote a good support of class if it is well organized, and improve not only professional skills by a better understanding of the subject, but also personal skills by an acknowledgement of how to interact in a group and share points of view.

To conclude, how can students build their personality without experiencing communications among students ? Promoting participation in a class goes beyond providing concrete examples and clear explanations on a certain topic. It is a way of building self confidence by learning how to communicate and deal with situations where students can be confronted to divergent points of view.

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