The teacher-student relationship and its influence of the student's academic results in EFL/ESL lessons of I° medio to IV° medio grade in four different schools located in Santiago

Abstract

Teaching is a very complex profession no matter the point of view to be examined. In Chile, teachers are said to be underestimated because of manyreasons, such as the bad salary they earn, the lack of free time they have, plus the fact that they have to spend that time in order to prepare the material for the lessons. Besides, some teachers are criticized because they do not give good quality education and forhow they behave or deal with students inside the classroom. Every human-being would react in a different way depending on the situation. Teachers, in addition to beinghumans, are role models and leaders. To lead the class, they are supposed to manage different strategies in order to oversee approximately 45 teenage students’ different attitude, behaviour, language, and how they communicate with their classmates and teacher. Forty five students is not an easy amount of people to deal with and that is why the relationship developed between teachers and students is a significantissue to discuss. In relation to this, all the different pieces of advice that teachers and practicum students can receive,most of the time instead of being useful,becomeconfusing for teachers when facing students. For that reason, we have decided to investigate about the importance of the relationship established between teachers and students in the classroom, and how it influences the students’ academic performance andresults. All over our professional practicum we have observed the relationship developed between teachers and students within the classroom. This has led usto investigatewhether the relationship betweenstudents and teachers has influenced their academic results. Therefore, during our research we aim at providing future and current teachers with information about a specific area dedicated to the teaching of English as a second language, i.e. the existing relationship between students and their teachers and how it affects their academic performance. Furthermore, we believe that this isrelevant because it is a topic constantly mentioned throughoutuniversity, which may assist recently graduated students of English teaching training programsas well as experienced teachers in the teaching-learning process within the classroom. This will help to provide relevant information, positive feedback and comprehensible input to students, results that we expect to see at the end of this research. According toBrown (2007), the interaction between the teacher and the studentscan help to improvethe language acquisition of the students. The author also gives an example of a substitute teacher, whose arrival produces a change in the students’attitude towards the class, improving and increasing their participation in the classroom This type of interaction, in which personal questions are made to students, fosters better use of language within the classroom(Brown, 2007). Because of the above-mentioned, we canassume that personal questioning activities to students help to create a different atmospherefrom the one thatstudents are used to, thus, intrinsic motivation makes the student feel that they have higher competence and reliability within the language use. Therefore, this example supports our thesis because through the acknowledgement of our students’ needs and interests, among others, we can achieve better academic results in their English teaching class. Furthermore, in the same book, Brown indicates that according to the socio-cultural context of each individual, bothstudents and teachers also exert social accountability to encourage other students to use their knowledge within their social context. With this, we can say that the more the teacher is immersed in the students’ reality,thebetter support can be given to their daily activities and problems, thus justifying the students learning process, making them more active in their learning path.(Brown, 2007).