Conceptualizing teacher immediacy through the 'companion' metaphor

Situated within the critical pedagogic scholarship that deals with the issue of 'teacher immediacy', this study proposes an understanding of the practice of pedagogy through the metaphor of 'companionship'. A friendly individual but not a friend, the instructor is seen here as someone who can connect to college-age students without any visible effort and someone who makes explicit use of the power dynamics in a classroom to foster academic excellence. The companion model is first compared to other pedagogical models that are conceptualized through metaphors (e.g. in loco parentis, 'teacher-as-entertainer') and is then evaluated in terms of its potential weaknesses.