What's an ESL Teacher Good For?

Abstract

While ESL teachers often must play many roles, their fundamental task is to help learners progress in their ability to use English. In this paper, the ESL teacher's role as a language teacher is explored and five specific areas of responsibility are elaborated: (I) Providing comprehensible input; (2) Preparing learners to cope with non-classroom language; (3) Providing references and resource materials and guidance as to their use; (4) Providing focused instruction in particular areas of language or language use; (5) Providing corrective feedback under certain conditions.