Evaluation of articles Title of article: Are teachers born or made? Author(s): Penny Ur 1.

The papers message in a (complex) sentence:

Name: Greta Ercsey

To be an exceptionally good teacher is certainly needed a natural intuition or talent, though even born teachers will not be able to exploit their qualities to the full without experience, as it is the most relevant source of overall professional learning and progress. 2. Most important points made by the author(s): Firstly, the author goes through the general opinion on the existence of the phrase born teacher. Then, beyond the folk wisdom, she examines the actual views of teachers themselves on this issue, through which it turns out, that even up to professionals there is such a phenomenon. Secondly, taking into consideration the existing literature to the better understanding of the term, there are reviewed three potentially main factors of good teaching: Methodology which, as the efficiency of methods varies a lot, depending especially on the teacher and where they are used, in this matter of fact, contributes very little; Training is accounted an important factor particularly at the beginning of teachers carrier, but not as relevant as experience is; Experience and the reflection on it occurs as the most decisive aspect from the three, however, there are noticeable differences in the actual level of expertise of teachers with the similar experience. Out of the three factors none of them provide a complete explanation of born-teacherness, thus some other aspects also have to be taken into account and the author comes up with the idea of T-factor. T, as multiple intelligence, includes several distinguishable qualities regarding number of professions. Besides, it is possible to differentiate some teacher-specific competence qualities (e.g. motivation, desire to learn, awareness of learning processes) between these general ones, which lead us again getting closer to the issue of born teacher including certain personality characteristics fitted to its notion. Certainly, as these are multiple, each teacher will vary in how many of these features they have, and in what field they are specialized, but without any of t-qualities, they may hardly ever come to be good pedagogues. Nonetheless, T-factors on their own are not exclusively definite indicators of born-teacherness. Experience and self-reflection from the training period play also important roles. In fact the natural talent could be a really good start, but without the proper empiricism, professional teaching development is hard to be achieved. 3. Did you enjoy reading the paper? Give reasons for your response. (You are not obliged to like it.) Yes, I enjoyed it very much, especially because it has a logical structure, answered and clarified such questions, I used to ask myself several times, e.g. Am I going to be a good teacher? Why do we actually call somebody a good/born teacher? 4. Is there anything you did not understand? Whose fault do you think that is: yours or the writers? No, there was not, it was such an understandable text. 5. What do you think needs further discussion (in another paper / in class)? Further discussion of the T-factors 6. Which aspects of the paper will be of use to you in your teaching?

To be motivated, having ability and willingness to work hard or desire to learn are key phrases always good to follow and keep in mind. 7. Comment on the reader-friendliness of the paper. Was it difficult to read? (Think about technical terminology, structural complexity and unusual words.) Give reasons or examples. (You might also want to extend your vocabulary with these.) No it was not difficult to read at all. I found it rational, and logically structured. There were useful pedagogical terms to learn and revise, e.g. specific teaching abilities, novice/experienced teachers, multiple intelligence, Tfactor, training programmes, teacher-specific etc. 8. Grade (out of 5): 4 interest: 5 reader-friendliness: 4