Teach english new edition r

Art or science?
Is teaching language an art, then, or is it a science? As this chapter has shown, there are good 
grounds for focusing 
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its almost-scientific attributes. Understanding the language system 
and finding the best ways to explain it is some kind of a scientific endeavour, especially 
when we continue to research its changes and evolution. In the same way, some of the 
technical skills that are required of teachers (procedures for how to do things, a constant 
attention to innovation in educational technology and materials design) need to be almost 
scientific in their rigour.
Yet teaching is an art, too. It works when the relationship that is created between teacher 
and students, and between the students in a group, is at its best. If we have managed to 
establish a good rapport with a group, almost anything is possible. We have discussed some 
of the key requirements in creating such a rapport, yet behind everything we have said lurks 
the possibility of magic - or a lack of it. Because the way some teachers are able to establish 
fantastic rapport, or get students really interested in a new activity may be observable, but 
trying to work out exactly how it was done or why it happened may be more difficult. In the 
same way, the instant decision-making we have been discussing can happen on supposedly
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Teachers
scientific grounds, but its success, and the creativity that can be unleashed, is often the 
result of the teacher’s feelings or judgm ent at that very m om ent. For as we have said, good 
teachers listen and watch, and use both professional and personal skills to respond to what 
they see and hear. Good teachers have a knack of responding by doing things ‘right’, and 
that is most definitely an art.
Conclusions 
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In this chapter we have: