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Phrase: All ears
An English language teacher’s most important character trait is to be a good listener.
Language teachers need to be all ears all the time.
I mean that they have to listen attentively and be eager to hear what their students have to say.
To be all ears means to listen attentively and be eager to hear what whoever you are listening to has to say.
That doesn’t mean simply listening for errors and correcting them.
It means being actively involved and interested in the conversation as it is occurring.
You may think it is only natural, but believe me, it isn’t.
Genuinely being all ears means overcoming many of our natural tendencies for bias.
Language teaching means the teacher may encounter various people of numerous backgrounds, education levels and walks of life daily.
You may think that after discussing the economy with an upper-level manager from a large corporation, a conversation about how we enjoy spending our weekends with a homemaker may be boring, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
We are all individuals.
You’d be surprised how boring upper-level managers are and how intellectually challenging a career homemaker can be.
The best way to perfect your skills in a second language is to use them in authentic and genuine conversation.
During my twenty-four-year career as an English language teacher, I’ve come to realize that my students teach me as much as I teach them.
Please don’t tell them that because they’d want a discount and I can’t afford that.
It is true, however.
I always try to be all ears during conversations because if they see that I want to listen, they will try harder to communicate.
The conversation lesson turns into a win-win situation.
They improve their skills, and I expand my knowledge of whatever topic we are discussing by benefitting from their experience, expertise and opinions.
So, go ahead.
What do you have to say?
I’m all ears.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 61.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.