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Let's say you are a teacher who is a family member at the same to one of your students (such as uncle-niece) Your opinion is that sometimes, it's a bit awkward. You say:

Being a family-relative teacher can cause uneasiness, because your approach becomes different from what you normally would as a non-family relative teacher.

I'm not only describing the bold letters using the adjective-noun combination to avoid verbosity, but also in an advanced way to express it. However I'm not sure if those (bold letters) are grammatical/correct description, cause I've just combined them, which I've never heard of in my entire life.

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  • The expressions "family-relative teacher" and "non-family relative teacher" are not common in English. Please do some simple Googling and check whether you are correct or not.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 2 '19 at 15:00
  • I had already done that before this posted question, nothing came closer to what I'm asking here.
    – John Arvin
    Jan 2 '19 at 17:35
  • Then you know it's not idiomatic. Just keep to "…a teacher who happens to be a relative ..... to a teacher who is unconnected to your family" It may not be succinct but it's clear.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 2 '19 at 17:46
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family-relative teacher

That phase simply does not work to express the idea of a person being a teacher who is related to one of her/his students.

Being a teacher with a family member in one's class is [etc.]

As a teacher, being related to one of one's students is [etc.]

Being related to a student one teaches is [etc.]

Generally, one cannot use a hyphen between two nouns and expect to come out with the complicated relationship being described.

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  • I am looking for a phrase, if there's any, to say what I actually is trying to say, not describing it. Still, the options here are a good way to say it correctly.
    – John Arvin
    Dec 31 '18 at 19:47
  • There is no phrase per se.
    – Lambie
    Jan 1 '19 at 16:18
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Your proposed sentence is not idiomatic.

"Teaching a relative can cause uneasiness because normal techniques may not be appropriate or effective" is what I think you are trying to say.

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  • No, that's not what I'm trying to say here, but the "family relation to a student when one is a teacher"...
    – John Arvin
    Dec 31 '18 at 19:43
  • I may indeed have failed to understand the full complexity of what you want to convey. A "relative" and a "member of the family" mean the same thing. The concise and idiomatic word to use here is "relative," not "family-relative." Because what you say in your comment that you want to say has no verb, it has no meaning. Where do you think my answer needs clarification or amendment?
    – Jeff Morrow
    Dec 31 '18 at 19:58
  • First off, thx for the correction on family=relative thing hehe. Whereas, my answer to your question is the "approach"... I'm not asking that, sry man.
    – John Arvin
    Dec 31 '18 at 20:28
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You could go with it, but you'd have to also use non-family-relative teacher. It's starting to get a bit convoluted though. I'd tear it down and make it a lot simpler.

Being a family relation of a student can cause uneasiness and your approach to become different than it would otherwise be.

You don't need to add the ..if you weren't related. It's already clear.

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