# être bon pédagogue



## tiouda

Bonjour, est-ce qu'il est correct de traduire l'expression "C'est un bon pédagogue" par "He's a good educationalist"?
Merci!


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## seadew

'Teacher' would probably be better.
Cheers


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## tiouda

Oui mais en l'occurence  je veux dire que "les professeurs de ma fac sont de bons pédadogues" donc j'ai déjà 'teacher' dans ma phrase. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dire qu'ils communiquent un savoir ce que 'teacher' rend bien effectivement mais qu'ils le font bien.


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## polaire

tiouda said:


> Bonjour, est-ce qu'il est correct de traduire l'expression "C'est un bon pédagogue" par "He's a good educationalist"?
> Merci!



I would say "educator."  We have the world "pedagogue," but I think it would sound pretentious or precious here.


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## johndot

Je crois que ta propre suggestion “He’s a good educationalist” est tout à fait bien, tiouda.
 
However, bear in mind that an ‘educationalist’ (_or_ ‘educationist’) is very often not a teacher but someone experienced in the theory or administration of teaching.


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## sanne78

Je pense qu'il faut traduire 'un pédagogue' par "*a teacher*".

"les professeurs de ma fac sont de bons pédadogues" sera traduit par:
"*My university teachers are very good*.".

Ce qui est plus difficile à traduire (à mon avis) est l'expression:

"_Il est très pédagogue_", où "pédagogue" devient un adjectif.
Cela veut dire que c'est quelqu'un qui sait bien enseigner, bien expliquer sans s'énerver, etc. Mais je n'ai aucune idée comment de le dire en anglais.
Pour moi c'est un concept/mot typiquement français...


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## polaire

johndot said:


> Je crois que ta propre suggestion “He’s a good educationalist” est tout à fait bien, tiouda.
> 
> However, bear in mind that an ‘educationalist’ (_or_ ‘educationist’) is very often not a teacher but someone experienced in the theory or administration of teaching.



"Educationalist" does exist, but it's not used outside of the field.  It sounds very odd.



tiouda said:


> Oui mais en l'occurence  je veux dire que "les professeurs de ma fac sont de bons pédadogues" donc j'ai déjà 'teacher' dans ma phrase. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dire qu'ils communiquent un savoir ce que 'teacher' rend bien effectivement mais qu'ils le font bien.



All [of] my professors are good teachers.

All my professors teach well.

All my professors are gifted teachers.

All my professors are gifted lecturers.

All professors are respected scholars as well as teachers. [I'm guessing at the meaning you're trying to convey.]


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## johndot

I think it’s clear from tiouda’s post #3 that he/she is trying to make the distinction between someone who is a good teacher, and someone who teaches well. The two are not necessarily one and the same.


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## polaire

johndot said:


> I think it’s clear from tiouda’s post #3 that he/she is trying to make the distinction between someone who is a good teacher, and someone who teaches well. The two are not necessarily one and the same.



Actually, I don't think it's clear.


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## sanne78

polaire said:


> Actually, I don't think it's clear.


 
Like I said (in French) above; in Franch they make a distinction between "to be a good teacher" (un bon prof/pedagogue) et "être pedagogue".
Whereas the first 'expression' is easy to understand, the second is a rather complex notion.
If someone is "pedadogue" it means (as far as I understand it) that someone can explain well (and has a friendly/positive attitude towards its students).
To be "pedagogue" is one the characteristics of a good teacher.


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## seadew

For the sense described in post 6, English has the word 'didactic' but it is an adjectival form and we often use it beyond the educational context. cheers


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## shaloo

sanne78 said:


> Like I said (in French) above; in Franch they make a distinction between "to be a good teacher" (un bon prof/pedagogue) et "être pedagogue".
> Whereas the first 'expression' is easy to understand, the second is a rather complex notion.
> If someone is "pedadogue" it means (as far as I understand it) that someone can explain well (and has a friendly/positive attitude towards its students).
> To be "pedagogue" is one the characteristics of a good teacher.


As sanne78 has rightly pointed out, being a pedagogue is more like a quality of a teacher. Well, its like this: 

To teach is the job of a teacher; who might have to do it because its his/her profession.

But to be a pedagogue requires one to be interested in teaching, learning furthur and imparting that knowledge to students, in short, investing his/her time in consciously working for the cause of "education"...


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## seadew

So why don't we just add some adjectives to teacher: My professors are fine teachers, extraordinary teachers, outstanding teachers, are exceptionally good at teaching, have a real knack for the art of teaching. Most of the higher register words in English suggest the theoretical rather than practical side of teaching.


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## nhat

what about :
The teachers at my university have good pedagogic\pedagogical methods ?

Sinon on peut s'en sortir avec une petite pirouette en evitant de dire deux fois "teachers"
My dons are very good at teaching
My dons teach very well
My dons have good teaching methods


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## tiouda

Merci à tous! Je crois que j'ai de quoi faire maintenant;-)


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## splash mamba

Pédagogue is both an adjective and a noun. Il est pédagogue (adj) means he is good at transmitting a knowledge, and you' re not necesseraly a teacher, it can be: être un bon pédagogue (noun) in everydays tasks. 
But, if you talk about teachers, you'd rather deal with a bon pédagogue (noun), than a lousy teacher. It's necessary to be pédagogue (adj) to be a good teacher, but not enough: a good pédagogue (noun) can be ignorant and then be a lousy teacher. Like Shaloo said: To be "pedagogue" is one the characteristics of a good teacher.

I have no idea of an appropriate translation in English. Seadow seems right to use other expressions. But it's not only a typical french concept: It goes back to the greek philosophers and their theories about teaching, and the word's origin is greek.


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## Wodwo

This is a strange thread. I don't see what a 'good teacher' is if not also a 'bon pédagogue'. A person can be knowledgable, a nice person, an entertaining speaker etc., but if they are neither interested in nor skilled at helping others to learn they are unlikely to be a good teacher. If they are at least interested they may be able to teach well without much training or theory to back them up (though in my experience a bit of training doesn't go amiss).

So I find the initial distinction between 'bon prof' and 'bon pédagogue' rather strange. Perhaps this is a French distinction? I know this thread is cold now, but I'd be interested to know what 'bon prof' means to people as opposed to 'bon pédagogue'.

Anyway I agree with the translations of pédagogue as teacher. In UK English we could translate the initial sentence as,

'My (university) lecturers are all good teachers', which makes the distinction between profession and skill.


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## sanne78

As I said before I don't think there's a difference between "un bon prof" and "un bon pédagogue"; apart from the fact that the latter is hardly (never?) used.

There's just the expression "être pédagogue" (Il est très pédagogue), which means that someone has a good contact with his students/pupils, is very tactful, etc.

It's clear that any good teacher must be "pédagoque".


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## Wodwo

No, you don't see a difference, and nor do I, but I'm curious about the people who do. It's useful to know what people mean when they say 'un bon prof' if they don't think that automatically means the person is a 'bon pédagogue.' It makes me rethink the meaning of something I'd always thought I understood.


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## sanne78

I think that you can call someone a good teacher if he/she can explain things well, is very organized, etc. 
For instance a university lecturer can be a good teacher without being "pédagogue", because he/she doesn't have a lot of personal contact with his students...

(I'm just trying, as you are, to get the "concept" clear in my head.)


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## Wodwo

But surely organization and clear explanation are part (not all -  but no one employs every teaching method to the full) of being a good pedagogue. If you only see your students once every two months, but are effective in helping them learn when you do, then you're almost certainly a 'bon pédagogue' and a 'bon prof'.

I think we need to hear from someone who understands the two things differently...


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## johndot

I think that many people (particularly those who are outside the field) mistakenly believe that someone with high qualifications who happens to work at the local school must be a ‘good teacher’—because of the qualifications. But to be a ‘good teacher’ of course requires a very special and distinct social as well as academic ability.


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## Keith Bradford

As an ex-teacher (but not a good one), I would put in my two-penn'orth.

Setting aside any moral considerations of the word "good", it seems to me that a good teacher is by definition one who teaches well.  How else can you define one?

_Good teacher_ is the term required here.  Pedagogue is quite out of place in modern practical English and educationalist means something different.


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## normanok

En ce qui me concerne, un "bon prof" est (théoriquement) un bon pédagogue, mais en général montre d'autres qualités.
Un "bon pédagogue" est n'importe qui (pas nécessairement un prof) sachant rendre clair ce qu'il expose à un auditoire.
En tout cas il y a, dans mon esprit, une différence notable.


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## Wodwo

D'accord mais, selon vous, peut-on être bon prof sans être bon pédagogue?

Faut-il que la pédagogie soit consciente pour vous, c-à-dire qu'un bon prof peut être un prof qui enseigne par instinct, sans trop réfléchir à ce qu'il fait, tandis qu'un pédagogue est qqn qui suit une théorie, qui a reçu et met en oeuvre une formation?


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## johndot

May I share this example with you?
 
I know someone well who is a whizz-kid (actually not so much a kid—she’s in her late forties) in her field of teaching elementary maths (actually she has a degree in applied maths). She has enormous patience, of course, but on top of that she has a magical way of making the dark corners of mathematical processes simply disappear—and the children she teaches are visibly in awe of this enlightenment.
 
By contrast, her command of English is poor. She cannot herself grasp, in particular, declensions, and often the things she says are at variance with what her pupils learn in the English class; she is oblivious to this ‘misdemeanour’, and cannot comprehend that she is doing something wrong.
 
It’s a dilemma.
 
Good teacher or not?


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## Wodwo

Sounds like a good maths teacher to me, though she probably shouldn't be asked to teach English...

But good maths teachers are like gold and should be nurtured in every conceivable way.

By the way, is it OK to just riff on like this on this forum - I keep expecting a moderator to tell us all we're off topic...


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## johndot

No, surely not? We’re still discussing *être bon pédagogue* after all.


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## Lilipomee

The point is, you don't have to be a teacher at the University to be "un bon pédagogue": if your grandmother teaches you well to cook, you can say she's pédagogue if she explains well, doesn't get angry when you're mistaking... It is really in the way of conveing the knowledge to the students, and specially kids: sometimes being pédagogue is to be very explicative, sometimes you have to let them discover by themselves... Some people have it in them and some just don't. You can learn (!) to be a good teacher, knowing a lot of things, being respected and talking well, but you can still be not pédagogue... Hope my examples can help you "feel the difference"...


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## Wodwo

Lilipomee said:


> The point is, you don't have to be a teacher at the University to be "un bon pédagogue": if your grandmother teaches you well to cook, you can say she's pédagogue if she explains well, doesn't get angry when you're mistaking... It is really in the way of conveing the knowledge to the students, and specially kids: sometimes being pédagogue is to be very explicative, sometimes you have to let them discover by themselves... Some people have it in them and some just don't. You can learn (!) to be a good teacher, knowing a lot of things, being respected and talking well, but you can still be not pédagogue... Hope my examples can help you "feel the difference"...



Actually now I'm slightly confused, but perhaps that's because you and I might have different assumptions of the possible meanings of a 'good teacher' in English.

To me, someone who knows a lot of things, can talk on and on and is well respected, but doesn't help their students to learn, cannot be described as a good teacher. They may have learned about their subject, but not how to teach.

As you suggest, a 'good teacher' is someone from whom others find it comparatively easy to learn, or who facilitates their learning for themselves. 

But I think this maybe a cultural difference. In the English-speaking world standing in front of a class and talking is generally frowned on as a teaching method in education world, including, these days, at university (though I'm sure there are many who still do it). It sounds like in France you can do this magesterial kind of teaching and still be regarded as a 'bon prof'. 

But maybe 'bon prof' means that you're the kind of teacher students like, even if they find them hard to learn from? - I had many of those at school and university. We would have said they were 'nice teachers', but probably not 'good teachers'. We also had 'good teachers' that we didn't like much, or at all, but who made things very clear.

So it seems to me from what you say that 'bon pédagogue' and 'good teacher' do coincide pretty closely, given the English understanding of 'good teacher'. Someone who is not a professional teacher can be described as a 'good teacher' in English.


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## wistou

Just an idea, does it help if you try to translate

 "être (bon) pédagogue"  into 
 "to have (good) teaching skills" 

.. which does not require you to be a teacher


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## Arrius

*All [of] my professors are good teachers etc. polaire
*
A* professeur* has higher qualifications than an *instituteur*, but it is the usual word in French for teacher and only translatable as *professor* in the minority of cases and then usually in the context of a university. It is a common mistake for Frenchmen speaking English to refer to an ordinary teacher as _my professor_, but I think this is not normal usage whether in UK or US English.


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## franc 91

someone who has excellent teaching skills and knows how to engage with his or her students - there is also - an inspirational teacher


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## tiouda

Wodwo said:


> No, you don't see a difference, and nor do I, but I'm curious about the people who do. It's useful to know what people mean when they say 'un bon prof' if they don't think that automatically means the person is a 'bon pédagogue.' It makes me rethink the meaning of something I'd always thought I understood.



Sorry this thread is very very cold now but if I may try an answer to Wodwo's questions, to me, to say that someone is a "bon pédagogue" is a means to insist on his communication skills, to say that he explains things in a clear and efficient way. Being a good teacher requires lots of skills (knowledge, communication, organisation), "pédagogie" is only one of them!

Note that you can very well be a "bon pédagogue" without being a teacher. 

Hope this makes things a bit clearer. Thanks again everyone for this impassioned debate (which I have no souvenir why I brought up!


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## Wodwo

Thanks tiouda, it does make things clearer. I think that the English 'teacher' corresponds more closely to 'pédagogue'. A 'teacher' can be anyone who teaches - Buddha, someone's grandmother - but is also used of professionals in schools. Whereas, from this thread I understand that a 'prof' is a professional doing their job, of which pedagogy is only a part.

In English a 'good teacher' has to be 'bon pédagogue'. 

You could say, 'Mr Jones was a very professional teacher, but he wasn't very good'. In this case, Mr Jones might be knowledgeable, organized, keep discipline, follow the syllabus, but be boring or unclear or otherwise fail to get his pupils to learn.

Or 'Ms Smith was a good teacher and her pupils did better than expected, but her slapdash attitude to the necessary paperwork cost the maths department its top grade in the inspection'.

Could Ms Smith be described as a 'bonne prof'? Perhaps not, or perhaps it would depend who was doing the describing. From this discussion it sounds like English might be more willing to accept her as a 'good teacher' despite a somewhat unprofessional attitude.


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## tiouda

Yes personnally, I could describe Ms Smith as a "bonne prof" but I may add something like that "En revanche, elle n'est pas douée pour les tâches administratives". This suggests that to me (but other French may have a different take on this) being a "bon prof" is more a matter of having knowledge and of knowing how to communicate it  than of being professional in every aspect of a teacher's activity (doing good paperwork etc). 



 Your last post makes things clearer for me as well Wodwo, thank you!



 If I may sum up what I've understood of all of this (in French, it makes more sense):



 Tout comme en anglais, quand on dit que quelqu'un est  « bon professeur », cela implique, entre autres choses, qu'il est bon pédagogue (sauf s'il l'on précise qu'il en est autrement et encore ça ferait bizarre. Je ne me vois pas dire « Machin est bon professeur mais mauvais pédagogue. Je dirais plutôt quelquechose comme: « Machin a beaucoup de connaissances mais il est mauvais pédagogue (sous-entendu donc il ne communique pas bien son savoir)». Mais encore une fois, ça se discute)



 La différence est qu'en anglais, un « teacher » n'est pas forcément  un professionnel de l'éducation alors qu'un « professeur » l'est.  D'où la nécessité du mot "pédagogue" en français: on en a besoin pour 2 choses:
-pour insister sur cette compétence particulière d'un professeur
-pour pouvoir dire que quelqu'un qui n'est pas professeur/professionnel de l'éducation communique/explique bien.

J'espère que c'est clair (même si ouvert à débat évidemment), j'ai fait un gros effort de pédagogie ici!


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## WME

Very interesting discussion.
Could it be, because after all, it sometimes happens, that we are dealing with a concept that simply does not exist in English ?

Le me stress these few things :

- pédagogue is both a noun and an adjective, as a noun, it refers to someone who teaches (not necessarily well) something, not necessarily at school as a proper teacher; as an adjective it is used to describe somebody who can teach well (let's not get into details here) : is there a noun and an adjective for this in English ?
You have teacher and educator who may or may not be employed by a school, we have professeur which must be hired by schools, pedagogues which need not be, and educateurs who teach something specific not taught at general schools (more like instructor in English).

- a teacher's job is not only to pass knowledge to his students - in France, I would say it's cultural, and indeed is a problem in today's society, a teacher is evaluated on so many other skills and goals : help the kids learn discipline, social life, republican values and ideals, good manners, and so on. They may be good at all this, but not good at passing knowledge. 
At university or in high schools, teachers are also researchers and sitting in front a class and they sometimes take it as the minor part of their duties (yet another problem we're having today) : they do research, represent their school, publish papers. Take a university lecturer : he's both a researcher and a teacher. I think you can easily conceive that a good lecturer is not necessarily a good teacher.

- I find it strange that the adjective didactic has not been more discussed here. It seems really relevant to me.
Can a good teacher not be didactic ?
Based on all the above, I think so.


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## Wodwo

WME said:


> Take a university lecturer : he's both a researcher and a teacher. I think you can easily conceive that a good lecturer is not necessarily a good teacher.
> 
> - I find it strange that the adjective didactic has not been more discussed here. It seems really relevant to me.
> Can a good teacher not be didactic ?
> Based on all the above, I think so.



These two comments do indeed highlight a difference between English and French.

To my mind 'a good lecturer' means 'a good teacher' - or at least someone worth listening to. 'Lecturer' in English is about a relationship to students, who don't care all that much about the person's research record but judge them on their teaching and interpersonal skills. Lecturing is after all delivering educational talks. So I would disagree with the first statement above.

Secondly, the word 'didactic' is pejorative in English. It means someone who tells others what to think. This is culturally frowned upon. A good teacher can't therefore be didactic. They listen and work with what their pupils/students/learners bring to the class. In principle anyway.


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## WME

Wodwo said:


> These two comments do indeed highlight a difference between English and French.
> 
> To my mind 'a good lecturer' means 'a good teacher' - or at least someone worth listening to. 'Lecturer' in English is about a relationship to students, who don't care all that much about the person's research record but judge them on their teaching and interpersonal skills. Lecturing is after all delivering educational talks. So I would disagree with the first statement above.
> 
> Secondly, the word 'didactic' is pejorative in English. It means someone who tells others what to think. This is culturally frowned upon. A good teacher can't therefore be didactic. They listen and work with what their pupils/students/learners bring to the class. In principle anyway.



Thanks for this point.
What adjective do you suggest then ?


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## Wodwo

WME said:


> Thanks for this point.
> What adjective do you suggest then ?



There won't be a corresponding adjective, but the thought will be conveyable. Give us a sentence using the adjective and we'll see.


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## WME

Just need to say that some guy has 
des "talents de pédagogue", inasmuch as he can talk and write about his craft and skills in a way that is easily understandable by the layman, not necessarily as a "teacher"


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## WME

What do you think about "a talented educator" ?


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