The Shape of the Language Teacher.

There are two broad views about what determines language teacher effectiveness. One focuses on teachers' language and methodological knowledge/skills. The other concentrates on personality (intelligence, self-awareness, and rapport). This paper presents a framework that reconciles the two views, proposes a way to visualize their interrelations, and takes into account research findings that indicate that teachers' practices are mostly influenced by their interpretation of methodological frameworks. The framework includes three elements: personality, methodology, and language. Teacher effectiveness is depicted as the area of a triangle, with each side representing the extent to which each element is developed. The larger the area, the higher the effectiveness. Three categories include the following: all elements are equally developed, one element is far less developed than the others, and one element is far more developed than the others. Given the perimeter of a triangle, an equilateral triangle will have the largest area from any other triangle with the same perimeter. This points to the benefits of a balanced development of all three areas. (Contains 14 references.) (SM)