L 215 F

Both teacher and student can achieve real success, if they are able to fulfill their appropriate parts in the class. Since the teacher and the students are participants, the interaction should be formed in two directions. First, between the teacher and his students, and second, between the students. The teacher obviously has the role of the leader in the class. In this role his first duty is to be prepared for the lesson. For example a plan is very important. At least the teacher should know what will take place on the lesson, what is the end of it. In the class this plan becomes actions of the teacher, which should be followed by the reactions of the students.

But: Interaction is more than this, more than action followed by reaction .Interaction means acting reciprocally, acting upon each other. The teacher acts upon the class, but the class reaction subsequently modifies his next action, and so on. The class reaction becomes in itself an action, evoking a reaction in the teacher, which influences his subsequent action. There is a constant pattern of mutual influence and adjustment.[1] For instance: if the teacher only follows his plan without responding to the students' reactions, the teacher would fail to achieve any success during the lesson. Probably, this kind of teacher is even not interested in a successful lesson; but what about the students? They will not be satisfied with it, and a conflict would develop. One would neither teach, nor learn in an atmosphere like this. So the plan, though it is still important, can and must change when it comes to reality.

The teacher has other roles as well. For example, he can be a live dictionary for the students. He can simply give the meaning of a word that is unknown for them, or try to interpret it in the language they study. The second one is more useful, because the students first gave a picture about it, and then the actual word. It needs more thinking, and makes easier for the students to remember that word later. Another role for him is the correction. It has many ways. Oral mistakes are less corrected than written ones. Perhaps because during the class more talking took place than writing, and also because talking is more quickly, and there would be no time to correct everything. Written mistakes can be corrected , for instance, by giving simply the right answers. A better way is to mark the words, or phrases that are wrong with different kinds of signs, and ask the students to find out the right answers. Even students can correct each other. The students should participate in as active as they can. They should feel free to ask questions any time they do not understand anything, or they do not agree with that has been said. For example, they can give advices about the plan for the next time, and it can be a cooperative work. This is very important to have this active cooperation between teacher and students, to be together instead of in complete isolation within the class. Successful work is only possible, if both parts can give and receive.

Another important task is about communication. People can communicate most easily with those who have most in common. So the teacher should make an effort to know about his students as much as possible, and also vica versa. Otherwise, the interaction will not work. This is best shown by the following: a new teacher arrives to a school perhaps from abroad, from a different culture, but we do not need to go so far, and he starts teaching, but after a while he would be a bit confused, because the students cannot understand his way of teaching language. It is similar to that, if they spoke different languages. From the point of view of the teacher, the class should not be seen as a mass of students, as something homogeneous, which reacts always the same way. Rather he should take into consideration that the class is consisted of individuals. Each of them have different attitudes towards him. There are students who like speaking and who do not; or it can happen that half of the class is interested in the game that the teacher offered, but still there are students who would like to do something else. This is very difficult to do everything right, to make everybody satisfied.

The interaction between students needs also a kind of giving and receiving, as well as a cooperative work. If the students really want to achieve success in the class, it is easy to do, but if they are uninterested in what their classmates have said, or they do not bear a part in the work, it is very hard. Students should be active, but they should notice the right moment for speaking, and for being in silence, and perhaps for giving the opportunity of speaking to somebody else. The teacher has a serious role here. He is the one who can always pass the ball to those who wait for being asked. Students should know each other also, because if one is alone, and knows nobody in the class, he can have the feeling of expulsion; and it would hold him up to say anything in class. Furthermore, listening to each other is very useful from the point of view of learning. Students can learn much from each other. They can improve their pronounciation, extend their vocabulary, and so on. Nevertheless, when "...teaching is undertaken...learning can occur. Hence the success of any lesson can best be judged in terms of the learning, that results from it, in terms of the learners' reactions to the teacher's action."[2]