What ballet student coming out of just viewing a professional ballet performnce is not amazed by the acts of endurnance, grace and fearless symmetry just witnessed? The ballet student may know what those uplifting hours just viewed grew out of weeks of rehearsal and years of preparation. But only the the dancer and the teacher have lived those weeks and years. Only they remember the unsteady steps, the hours at the barre, the awkward leaps and then refining them all to make performance. Inspired dancer requires not only a coaching of the body, but also a coaxing of the heart.
The accomplished teacher has the honor of watching children, some gifted, some nervous, some a bit clumbsy, become great dancers. She has also seen potentionally beautiful dancers ruined by poor technique and training, and tries to correct that when the dancer comes into her classroom. She stresses the importance of proper warm-up in order to avoid excerises that will injure the dancer. She supplies exercise sequenced to teach everything from breathtaking pirouettes to the emotional adagio. The Ballet Classroom should become place for both the disciplined learning and creative spontaneity. The joy of accomplishment and the tears of the endless effort are put forth.
Dancers have inborn impulses to twirl, to jump, to express joy or rage into motion, and it is the teacher’s responsibility, then, to turn those impulses into art.
balletclassroom 
Thank you very much for your pictures and descriptive names. They will greatly help me in my exam! 🙂
You are so very welcome Kelly. I am a “stickler” for good ballet terminology, but beware that I use the Cecchetti method. Some terminology will be slightly different if using other methods such as Vaganova or RAD. Check with your syllabus. The positions of the arms is one one area where there are differences.