Teaching as an Experience
On Monday, December 19, 2016, Professor Abdullah Hadi Al Qahtani had a presentation titled Teaching as an Experience in a seminar organized by the Language Research Center of the Faculty of Languages and Translation. It was more an interactive session than merely a talk which covered some fascinating stories related to his and some others’ teaching and learning experience.
Prof. Al Qahtani began his discussion by raising a question about teachers who influenced the participants most. Some of the participants shared their experience on how their teachers had changed them. Prof. Al Qahtani emphasized that a teacher can influence and change the students by his or her behavior. He gave more importance to influencing than controlling the learners as a teacher. He also shared some interesting stories about some teachers and students that exemplified how knowledge, skills, values and love could be combined to play the role of a teacher in the real sense.
Apart from explaining the essence of true teaching, Dr. Al Qahtani talked about how he incorporated new technology into his teaching. He, while teaching how to give speeches in a course called Speech Workshop, successfully engaged his students in doing assignments through the Facebook.
He concluded that the idea a teacher only has to teach is now obsolete. The teacher has no longer a dominating role in class. It is not just the teacher who is supposed to transfer knowledge into learner’s brain. On the contrary, students can play a significant role in contributing substantially to the learning environment in class.
It is worth mentioning that Al Samer campus also participated in the seminar through video conferencing.
The session was very engaging and entertaining and overall a success.
Date: 12/19/2016
Source: MD Adil
