A teacher is an empowerer!
As I've realized more an more in my career, one of my main missions is to empower the students. I do so with an array of activities, teaching habits, and simply with the way my classroom is organized: everything is done for students to feel that it's their space, for them to learn and take responsibility of their own growth. In my classrooms, we are all teachers and all learners.
At the beginning of the year, each class discusses to define their class goals.
Weekly, I assigns jobs to students: teacher assistant, plant delegate (because even the material and natural environment of the classroom is also the students' responsibility), wordsmith (see below), work-check delegate, and pacer (in charge of telling me if we're going too fast).
Vocabulary is an affair of all. Students are assigned "wordsmiths" weekly, which means they have to look up the vocabulary of the week, teach their classmates about it, and write the words on the word board.
Asking the students to teach is an excellent way to empower them, make them responsible for their own learning, as well as help them learn presenting skills, organizational skills, stress management, and much more. And of course, from a foreign language standpoint, it is an excellent way to become fluent!
For this reason, each student has to teach at least one 10-minute lesson on any topic of his/her interest to the class. At least once a year, small groups of students are also assigned to teach a whole period (40 minutes to an hour).
If students have suggestions or comments, they are always free to write me a note (anonymous or not) or to come talk with me.
And since middle schoolers still need constant reminders, a quick look at the window of my classrooms helps them remember what's coming up. But to make keep them in charge, the teacher assistant is responsible for updating the reminder window.
Besides empowering students...
...Regardless of the course I teach, and regardless of the audience, I always define for myself and for my students clear goals that must be worked towards and attained. I cannot pinpoint these goals on this page because they are in parts dependent on the school philosophy and mission, on the skills and knowledge students already have, and on the stated purpose of the course.
That being said, the academic goal of the French or ESOL courses I have taught has always been to become as fluent as possible in French, i.e. effective communicators in one more language. This is a long-term goal that is communicated to students and constantly worked towards. In Social Studies, some of the overarching goals are to connect the past to the present to make sense of it, to become knowledgeable with balanced versions of history, geography and other social sciences, and to acquire critical thinking skills.
A constant in my teaching and academic expectations is excellence. Since it is a relative concept that is defined only in comparisons, this means that I push students to also establish individual, personal goals and to give their very best to reach and surpass their goals. I believe that all students can succeed and it is my expectations that they all succeed in my class. It is my role as a teacher to persist in helping each individual student and to find ways that will appeal to their learning styles and personalities.
For all the reasons above, and in a prospect of constant improvement, I push students to abide by the concepts of "precision", "perseverance", and "responsibility".