ABSTRACT
The expectations of ILT membership are clear: lecturers have to demonstrate competence in teaching and learning in a variety of contexts, thus gaining membership. This is the baseline from which many courses that aim at developing teaching and learning skills start; however, there is more to effective teaching and learning than simply gaining membership to the ILT. What does it mean to develop teaching and learning skills? Addressing this fundamental question requires an understanding of the teaching role as well as of student learning and the contexts in which these occur. The lecturer’s responsibility is to ensure that students learn. Teaching is a very personal activity and while certain teaching styles and strategies may suit one teacher they might be totally inappropriate for another. There is no one way to teach, provided students learn a variety of approaches and strategies that may be used. Teaching styles will vary from group to group and from individual to individual. Teaching is a continuous activity that requires creative thinking and problem solving. Effective teaching requires:
• the lecturer to transform his or her knowledge of the subject into suitable tasks, which lead to learning;
• the learning experience structured by the lecturer to match the needs of the learner;
• a balancing of the students’ chances of success against the difficulty required to challenge them;
• an understanding of the complex interrelationships of a whole range of factors, the most important of which is the way students learn.
