@InfraBlue,
But perhaps it would be better to say:
The teacher should act as a prompter if an activity is not going smoothly.
If
the student gets lost or cannot think of what to say next, the teacher should help them by offering some discrete suggestion.
Here I use "the teacher" and "the student" to signal generic reference.
I suppose that both options are correct, but which one seems more logical to you (in terms of using the articles)?