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CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEACHER PERCEIVED BY PRE-SERVICE

TEACHER STUDENTS AT SINTUWU MAROSO UNIVERSITY

Article · July 2015

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Novalita Fransisca Tungka

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 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEACHER
PERCEIVED BY PRE-SERVICE TEACHER STUDENTS
AT SINTUWU MAROSO UNIVERSITY

Novalita Fransisca Tungka

Abstract: As a teacher, we agree that one of the primary goals of our teacher
preparation program is to prepare our students become good teachers. Yet,
characteristics of a good teacher are still open to debate. The purpose of this study
was to explore characteristics of a good teacher from students‟ angle using their
essay. 42 students of English Education Department at Sintuwu Maroso University
were asked to write about characteristics of a good teacher they desire to have and
to become, and they expect their lecturers to possess. Data taken from the essays
showed that there are ten characteristics that should be possessed by a teacher in
order to make a good teacher, namely smart and skilled, discipline, have a sense of
humor, creative, friendly, emotionally controlled, good communicator, fair,
patient, and respectful. These characteristics centre around the assumption that
what teacher has done in the classroom should be able to assist students in learning.
Fair and respectful, among others, are two characteristics that are in line with
literature and related researches as theoretical framework of this article, hence the
discussion is focused on implications of fair and respectful to students as good
teachers‟ characteristics for teaching practice, and for future research.
Keywords: characteristics, fair, respectful, effective teaching

Preparing the pre-service teacher
students to become a good teacher is one of
teacher educators‟ responsibilities. One way to
fulfill this responsibility is to teach the students
how to become a good teacher, thus it is very
significant to first make the students understand
the definition of a good teacher. Once our
students understand what a good teacher is, the
characteristics of a good teacher should be
socialized and hence should be adopted by the
teachers as the characters they need to enter the
world of educator.
Significance of Good Teacher to Effective
Teaching Practice
For Harden and Crosby (2000:4), a
good teacher is a teacher who helps students to
understand and to learn, and hence contributes
in this learning process of the students in many
ways. This definition is extended to the
contribution of a good teacher to effective
teaching process, which creates an effective
teaching process carried out by good teachers
who are caring, supportive, concerned about
students‟ welfare, knowledgeable about subject
matter and content, able to get along with
students, and genuinely excited about their
teaching job (Thompson et.al, 2004).
Stronge, Tucker, and Hindman
(2004:30-31) argue that teachers are both being
born and being developed, and strongly
suggested that without developing some
qualities or characteristics that should be
developed by those who desire to become a
teacher, and people who ignore these
characteristics development should never
choose teacher as their profession. Several
indicators are then introduced for the sake of
characteristics development of a highly
effective teacher, namely caring, fairness and
respect, attitude toward the teaching profession,
social interactions with students, promotion of
enthusiasm and motivation for learning, and
reflective practice (Stronge et al, 2004). A
teacher who cares for students can understand
and value the students as unique individuals,
and hence is able to treat students fairly and in
open-minded manner that is considerate to the
students‟ circumstances. As a teacher, good and
highly effective characteristic is signed by his
or her willingness to develop him or herself as
a professional, and his or her professionalism is
symbolized by his or her positive and
enthusiastic attitudes when teaching. A good
teacher is also willing to socially interact with
students, in both intra-curricular and
extracurricular activities. When building
relationships with students, a good and
effective teacher considers that taking personal
interest in students‟ lives, showing humor, and
Tungka
fairly judging students‟ performance and
learner progress are important elements that
they need. Effective teacher always encourages
and challenges students to work better and
reach their best potential. Conducting reflective
practice is significant indicator of a good
teacher‟ characteristic, which enables teacher to
develop his or her expertise, since teacher can
learn best from reflecting their current teaching
practice, hence is able to move along the
continuum from novice to expert teachers,
ultimately from less effective to highly
effective teaching practice (Stronge et al,
2004:30-31).
Slightly different with Stronge,
Tucker, and Hindman, Brookfield (2006:17) is
more wary in objectifying the notion of good
practice, to avoid being narrowly understood
and standardized as a set of replicable
behaviors. Instead of proposing several
characteristics of a good teacher with each
definition, he focuses more on discussing
skillful teaching as a highly variable process
that changes depending on any number of
contextual factors. Brookfield therefore argues
that what remain constant about skillful
teaching are three core assumptions that serve
as a ground of skillful and effective teaching
practice (Brookfield, 2006).
The first assumption is that skillful
teaching is whatever process helps students
learn (Brookfield, 2006). Teacher who teaches
based on this assumption always tries to find
out whether the classroom choices and
decisions he or she has decided will help the
students learn or not. The second assumption is
that skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective
stance towards their practice. Teacher who
adopts reflective standpoint towards his or her
practice always tries to find information
regarding his or her teaching practice from four
complementary lenses – of students‟ eyes,
colleagues perceptions, literature, and own
notes or autobiography. The third assumption,
Brookfield suggests, is that “the most important
knowledge that all skillful teachers need to do
good work is a constant awareness of how
students are experiencing their learning and
perceiving teachers‟ actions (Brookfield,
2006:27). It is a critically reflective teaching
that keeps all teachers stay awake and alert, that
sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015
Characteristics of a Good Teacher
can differentiate between teachers who merely
mark their time to retirement and teachers who
are really engaged with their teaching practice.
Stronge, Tucker, and Hindman or
Brookfield altogether believe that a good
teacher, or an effective teacher, is who makes
the teaching practice highly effective and
qualified to help students achieve their learning
objectives. If Brookfield provides three core
assumptions that can be used as a ground for
developing characteristics of a good teacher in
a specific context of teaching, then Stronge,
Tucker, and Hindman illustrate the qualities of
characteristics of a good teacher that should be
developed based on their context of teaching.
Related Studies on Good Teacher’s
Characteristics
Several studies were conducted to
contribute to the understanding and definition
of characteristics a good and effective teacher
must possess. Delaney et.al (2010:26-56)
distributed an open-ended online survey to
17,000 students to describe characteristics and
behaviors of their instructors that demonstrate
effectiveness in teaching. This data-rich
research revealed that there are nine behaviors
of teachers that contribute to effective teaching
for both on-campus and distance courses,
namely respectful of students, knowledgeable,
approachable, engaging, communicative,
organized, responsive, professional, and
humorous (Delaney et.al, 2010).
Walker‟s “Twelve Characteristics of a
Good Teacher” in 2008 reported that there are
twelve characteristics of effective teacher
consistently affect students in positive ways. As
a longitudinal, qualitative, and quasi-research
study, the data were taken by asking students
composed an out-of-class essay assignment,
under the framework of 15-year classroom
observation and discussion with college
students. The twelve characteristics, based on
Walker‟s research (2008:64-66), are: prepared,
positive, hold high expectations, creative, fair,
display a personal touch, cultivate a sense of
belonging, compassionate, have a sense of
humor, respect students, forgiving, and admit
mistakes.
Thompson, Greer, and Greer (2004:3-
7) conduct intense discussions between
13
Tungka
students and them to reflect on the
characteristics of their favorite teacher that
make them able to learn. To sum the result of
discussions, their students agree that twelve
characteristics of a highly qualified teachers are
fairness, positive attitude, preparedness,
personal touch, sense of humor, creativity,
willingness to admit mistakes, forgiving,
respect, high expectations, compassion, and
sense of belonging (Thompson et.al; 2004).
Method
This small-scale study is regarded as
one of the reflective standpoints I attempt to do
after my teaching practice. During the last
week of each course taught for even semester at
the English Education Study Program of
Sintuwu Maroso University in the academic
year of 2014, I asked my students one question:
what are the characteristics of a good teacher
you expect every teacher to have? The students
were then asked to compose an essay to be
treated as qualitative data. All students‟ essays
consistently highlighted ten characteristics of a
good teacher.
Findings and Discussion
After analyzing the essays, ten
characteristics emerged as results of students‟
highlight to several characteristics that are
dominant among their lecturers at English
Education Study Program of Sintuwu Maroso
University. The ten characteristics are
displayed in Table 1.
Table 1. Ten Characteristics of a Good
Teacher
Table 1 displays the ten characteristics
of a good teacher as perceived by the students
sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015
Characteristics of a Good Teacher
of English Education Department at Sintuwu
Maroso University, academic year of
2014/2015. As displayed in the table, the
characteristics are smart and skilled, discipline,
have a sense of humor, creative, friendly,
emotionally controlled, good communicator,
fair, patient, and respectful. The findings
related to each characteristic are described
furthermore in the following section.
Smart and Skilled
Almost all of the respondents
(80.95%) preferred smart and skilled as the
most preferred characteristic of a good teacher.
For the respondents, a smart teacher is those
who can make their students understand, by
using various techniques and strategies his or
her has possessed. One respondent, Mia, wrote
in her essay that one of her teachers in her high
school asked the students about previous
week‟s material to check whether the students
were prepared for learning or not. Another
respondent, Memes, wrote that a smart teacher
is a teacher who can answer students‟ question
correctly when being asked during explanation.
The examples given by the respondents show
the characteristics of a well-prepared teacher,
as well as smart in the content area being taught
to the students and skilled in assisting students
to understand the lesson.
Discipline
Discipline is the second characteristic
chosen by almost all of the respondents
(78.57%). Rizky wrote that discipline is a trait
of a teacher who is shown by his or her
punctuality for starting and ending the lesson,
never changing the schedule without making
appointment to the students first, and following
the teaching schedule already arranged by the
faculty or by the teacher himself/herself.
Similar to smart and skilled, discipline is also a
behavior of a well-prepared teacher. A
discipline teacher is a teacher who does not
waste instructional time, has target to achieve,
and hence provides a good role model for the
students to be punctual and consistent with
classroom rules and expectations.
Have a Sense of Humor
Almost all of the respondents
(76.19%) desire a sense of humor as the third
characteristic of a good teacher. For Luna, as
inscribed in her essay, having a sense of humor
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Tungka
can always break the tension in the class,
especially tension that rises during „difficult
hours‟ in challenging courses. Teacher who can
share laughter with the students is believed to
be an effective teacher (Walker, 2008), since
that kind of teacher is a teacher who does not
take everything too seriously, and hence is
believed to be able to create fun and enjoyable
atmosphere of learning for students. Humor in
classroom can be used to break the ice during
difficult hours in challenging courses. For our
students as pre-service teachers, having a sense
of humor signals the strength of a teacher, as
not being threatened by foolish or silly
mistakes possibly happen during teaching
activities. More importantly, a teacher can
teach the students how to use humor and
laughter as effective ways to deal with an
embarrassing situation in the class during
teaching and learning activities. However, it is
important for the teacher to always remember
that laugh with the students is more effective
than laugh at the students.
Creative
Most of the respondents (71.42%)
think that being creative is the fourth preferred
characteristic of a good teacher. Walker (2008)
stated that a creative teacher is a teacher who is
resourceful and inventive in how he or she
teaches his or her classes, for example, he or
she agrees to participate in the school talent
show, or is able to use technology effectively in
the classroom. Through her essay, Esther gave
example of a creative teacher as a teacher who
is resourceful in teaching methods and
techniques to make her understand the lesson
being taught, such as being able to use media
like tape recorder and a song to teach correct
English grammar and pronunciation. In her
essay, Tini also listed her example of a creative
teacher, as a teacher who masters numerous
techniques and strategies and creatively
changes his or her teaching techniques
whenever the students look bored even
exhausted during explanation. For the
respondents, then, a creative teacher is a good
teacher who is able to use various media,
techniques and strategies to make the
classroom activities fun and interesting, and is
technology-literate.
sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015
Characteristics of a Good Teacher
Friendly
The students preferred a friendly
teacher, and a friendly teacher, according to
most of the respondents (66.66%) is a good
teacher. A friendly teacher, as acclaimed by
Krisna and Imma in their essays, is a teacher
who is able to share his or her personal
experiences with them in the class. A friendly
teacher can connect with students personally, is
interested in his or her students, and does not
hesitate to enjoy the students‟ world, such as
sitting with them in the cafeteria, having a
discussion or conversation with the students,
and being involved in students‟ intra-curricular
and extracurricular activities.
Emotionally Controlled
Mostly, the respondents chose
emotionally controlled as the fifth preferred
characteristic of a good teacher (64.28%).
Teachers who can control their emotion are
good teachers. They can leave their personal
problems out of classroom and do not let their
emotion affects their mood for teaching and
evaluating their students. Ain suggested
through his essay that a teacher should be bale
to solve his or her personal problem before
teaching, since it can affect teacher‟s
concentration when he or she is supposedly
teaching the students. Furthermore, Kristho
wrote that to let teachers‟ negative emotion
seen by the students could influence students‟
mood when in classroom. Thus, being
emotionally controlled, as admitted by him, is
very important yet very challenging for a
teacher, since balancing personal and
professional is a capability that can only be
achieved by those who are wise and highly
trained or experienced.
Fair
Other traits desired by most
respondents in their essays (54.76%) have
centered on a teacher as being fair. Fairness and
respect are shown by the ability of a teacher to
handle students and grade them fairly based on
their learning needs and learning pace. Being
fair means that the teacher does not use „one
size fits for all‟ kind of assessment to evaluate
the students, yet understands that not all
students learn in the same way and at the same
pace and hence gives them opportunities to set
and achieve their personal objectives of
15
Tungka
learning, as implied by Kris in his paper. In his
paper, he also wrote that a teacher should never
discriminate students based on their level of
economy or level of intelligence. In addition, a
fair teacher provides equal learning
opportunities and privileges. Additionally, in
one essay written by Acid, a fair teacher always
provides clear requirements and healthy
competition for the class. A fair teacher does
not favorite one certain student, for example,
gives high scores or compliments to those who
are his or her relatives or a teacher‟s pet. One
thing that should be remembered by all teachers
is that the memories of unfair teachers are
always reported by the students in great even
exaggerated details and will not fade easily.
Patient
The ninth characteristic is patient,
preferred by almost half of the respondents
(38.09%). For Nika, a patient teacher is a
teacher who can deal with slow learners,
learners who have slower pace of learning than
other students do, and a teacher who is able to
innovate with his or her teaching methods and
techniques to make the students understand of
his or her explanation. A patient teacher is also
willing to try or to put more effort on assisting
students who fail to achieve the learning
objectives, or can even handle ill-behaved
students, as stated by Nofi in her essay.
Humble
The tenth characteristic of a good
teacher, as being preferred by almost half of the
respondents (26.19%), is respectful. Respectful
is shown by teachers‟ ability to respect students
by the way and tone of speaking, is able to
admit for mistakes being done to the students,
and avoid public rebuke or embarrass the
students (Delaney, 2010). For Fatma, one of the
respondents, a humble teacher is characterized
by the ability of a teacher to be willing to admit
their mistakes, such as mistakenly explain the
lesson, grade the students, or give sanctions to
the students. Furthermore, as experienced by
Selfi, a humble teacher is teacher who does not
use his or her authority in the classroom to
cover mistakes he or she has made in the
classroom or to students, since students are
fully aware of the times when teachers make
mistakes, especially when teachers‟ mistakes
sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015
Characteristics of a Good Teacher
make them suffer somehow during their
learning time.
Implications to Teaching Practice
These ten characteristics, as perceived
by the pre-service teacher students, show that
the characteristics of a good teacher is being
grounded in the first core assumption
(Brookfield, 2006), which is all efforts that help
students to learn. Since the characteristics are
resulted from students‟ perception during their
learning experiences on becoming a teacher,
the characteristics show that the desired
teacher, for the students as respondents, is a
teacher who can assist them in learning.
Teacher who is smart and skilled, discipline,
have a sense of humor, creative, friendly,
emotionally controlled, fair, patient, and
humble, is believed to be able to provide
conducive learning atmosphere and hence an
effective learning experience to the students.
Some of the characteristics are consistent with
qualities of effective teacher reported by
Stronge, Tucker and Hindman (2004:29),
which are fair and respectful. Fair is a teacher‟s
characteristic that also appear in Thompson,
Greer and Greer‟ and Walker‟s researches
(Walker, 2008; Thompson et.al., 2004), while
respectful is a teacher‟s characteristic that is
also admitted by Delaney, Walker, and
Thompson, Greer and Greer (Delaney et.al.,
2010; Walker, 2008; Thompson et.al., 2004).
These similarities can be interpreted that
students feel more impressed with a teacher
who respect his or her students, and can give
fair judgment to students‟ learning progress, no
matter how different the students are in the
class.
As for the implication to teaching
practice, a good teacher should be able to
design fair evaluation rules and guidelines to
assist the students achieve the learning
objective based on their own pace of learning.
In addition, a fair teacher‟s judgment should
never be clouded by subjective perspective
towards the students, such as towards relative
or teacher‟s pet. It is highly therefore suggested
to use contemporary evaluation tool, such as
portfolio, instead of using traditional evaluation
tool (i.e. summative test) to evaluate students‟
learning progress. The use of portfolio as
16
Tungka Characteristics of a Good Teacher

students‟ assignment, in order to observe University, to develop these characteristics in

students‟ learning progress more thoroughly order to provide positive role model for our
and to help teacher designs task or assignment students and to assist them in learning. As a
to help slow learner achieves learning objective pilot study, these findings open possibilities for
already set by teacher. conducting further and deeper research, for
Students are also more impressed with instance, comparing teachers‟, students‟, and
a teacher who respects the students, as shown stakeholders‟ perspectives of effective teachers,
by his or her attitudes for keeping students‟ and exploring the significance of fairness and
grades confidential, for privately speaking to respectful to students‟ learning achievement.
students for their ill-behaved attitudes or when
the teacher needs clarification from the
students, as well as be shown by body gesture
and facial expression when talking to the
students. For the implication to teaching
practice, a teacher should show his or her
respect to the students by treating the students
as human being, not as object of learning.
Teacher should be sensitive to students‟
feelings, and should be able to control the class
to avoid embarrassing situation that can harm
students‟ feelings or the teaching and learning
situation itself.
We can never be certain of what
kind of impression the students feel from our
presence and atmosphere when standing before
and near them, especially when trying to make
them understand our explanation. Nevertheless,
we can control ourselves to serve our best, and
being fair and respect the students are some of
our characteristics that can facilitate our
teaching practice to be effective, as expected by
our students and us as teacher.

Conclusion and Suggestion

Having some insight into what students are
experiencing and feeling in our classroom or
during our teaching practice is one of the
reflective standpoints that should be done by
teacher. Without this insight, we can never be
sure whether our teaching practice has positive
impact as role model to our students or not,
whether our characteristics as teacher assist our
students in learning or not, and whether our
professionalism has developed or not. The ten
characteristics of a good teacher, based on our
pre-service teacher students‟ impressions in this
small-scale study, centre around the theme of
fairness and respectful that can assist them in
learning. Therefore, it is highly suggested to the
teachers, especially teachers in English
Education Study Program of Sintuwu Maroso

sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015 17

Tungka Characteristics of a Good Teacher

References
Brookfield, S. D. (2006). The skillful teacher: On techniques, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom
(2nd Ed). San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.

Delaney, J. (2010). How high school students perceive effective teachers. Unpublished paper). Faculty
of Education: Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Harden, R. M., & Crosby, J. R. (2000). The good teacher is more than a lecturer – the twelve roles of the
teacher. Medical Teacher 22(4): 334-347.

Stronge, J. H., Tucker, P. D., & Hindman, J. L. (2004). Handbook for qualities of effective teachers.
Alexandria: ACSD.

Thompson, S., Greer, J. G., & Greer, B. B. (2004). Highly qualified for successful teaching:
Characteristics every teacher should possess. Essays in Education, 10, 1-9. Retrieved from
http://www.usca.edu/essays/vol10summer2004.html.

Walker, R. J. (2008). Twelve characteristics of an effective teacher: A longitudinal, qualitative, Quasi-

Research Study of in-service and pre-service teachers' opinions. educational HORIZONS, 61-
68.

About the Author

Novalita Fransisca Tungka is a lecturer at English Education Department of Sintuwu Maroso University, Poso. She
is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at State University of Malang. Her research interests are Curriculum and
Instructional Development, Literacy Instruction, and TEFL. She can be contacted at novalitatungka@gmail.com.

sintuwumarosoJET, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2015 18

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