IELTS / TOEFL / TEFL instructor

1) Just Go for It

You’ve got nothing to lose by throwing yourself into everything you do and have fun. Your students are probably going to be more nervous than you are, so encourage and motivate them. If your positive and energetic you can create a positive experience and fun lessons.

2) Have An Aim

It’s really important that all of your lessons have an aim. You want your students to come away from the lesson thinking ‘Today I learnt how to do X’. Without an aim, the lesson can seem like a waste of time (remember classes that you went to and thought, ‘What was the point of that?’).

3) Be Organised

Being organised is really important, make sure you know exactly what you need for your lesson and how everything is going to work. Prepare all the materials you’ll need before hand. Take a spare pen for the board. Make a running sheet. If you’ve got new content to teach make sure you’re familiar with it. If you’re prepared you’ll be much more confident, so you can enjoy your time teaching and your students will enjoy your lessons too.

4) Get Students Talking

This isn’t just about making a lesson lively and fun (although that’s a big plus). Learning English is a skill, like learning to swim or cook. Your students need to practice English, not just learn about English. And the best way for students to practice what they have learnt is by talking to each other, in pairs, groups and mingling as a whole class.

5) Start a Lesson With a Warmer

A warmer is a simple activity at the start of the lesson, which is preferably interactive and fun. As you know, it’s easy to feel uncomfortable and shy in a big group of people. A warmer removes that initial anxiety, as it helps students to feel relaxed and confident to speak for the rest of the lesson. In a warmer, it is best that students interact in small groups – not talking one at a time in front of the whole class.

6) Use Variety

Who wants to sit through a boring class?! Making your lessons interesting doesn’t mean you have to play games all the time. It’s good to use a variety of different activities in your class. Vary the skills your students are practicing (writing, speaking, reading, listening) as well as the pace and physical activity (sitting, standing, mingling, running). Keep the expression ‘light and shade’ in mind – follow a quiet and serious activity with something fun and high-energy.

7) Instruct Clearly

We’ve said it’s important to have students practicing a variety of activities. The one risk that creates – as opposed to a traditional class, where students just have to sit and listen – is that they won’t know what to do. This is especially so, since English is not their second language (Yet!). The result would be chaos. So, it’s important to instruct simply and clearly, and back up your instructions by using a demonstration.

8) Elicit

Eliciting means asking the students to tell you, rather than you always telling the students (which is the unfortunate dynamic in many classrooms around the world). Turn everything into a question. Rather than drawing a picture on the board and saying ‘This is a car’, ask, ‘What’s this?’. Give your students a chance to tell you things, rather than been told everything. They’ll feel much more engaged in the lesson.

9) Work on Pronunciation Constantly

Pronunciation seems to be the last thing on many teachers’ minds. But if you can’t understand someone’s pronunciation, it doesn’t matter how good their grammar or vocabulary is. Whenever you teach anything new – grammar or vocabulary or functional language – you should teach students how to pronounce it as well, and give them a chance to practise it orally.

10) Correct Students

Studies have shown that language students like to be corrected and are often not corrected enough. When students are corrected they know that you’re actually listening to them and wanting to help them. It’s just the way you go about it that’s important – when you correct a student it should be in a kind way, not as a criticism or a telling off. There are times, however when you shouldn’t correct your students. For example, when students are speaking in front of the class. Instead wait until they have finished and discuss any errors that you have heard, this way you’re not knocking their confidence.

11) Be the teacher and the friend

Make sure your students leave the class wearing a smile and make sure they can say a little more than when they walked in.

12) You can't know everything

You don’t need to have an answer to everything (e.g. grammar) – if you don’t know the answer tell the students you will find out and get back to them on that.

1. Assume you know the language just because you speak it

Grammar and language structure are complicated topics, and while being a native speaker gives you an automatic advantage in most areas, it doesn’t guarantee you instant expert status.

If you’re a little hazy on your verb tenses or tag questions, try to brush up before classes start, and it never hurts to have a small grammar book or online resource at your fingertips to consult when those weird questions come up. This is also important if you know you have a very strong accent – obviously you can’t (and shouldn’t) try to make your accent disappear, but be aware of how you’re teaching your students during pronunciation lessons, and try to provide contrasting examples so they can hear how accents change the way words sound.

2. Fail to correct your own mistakes

Pratice English
Sometimes we start talking too fast, or talk about one thing while thinking about something else, or try to write while having a separate conversation. We are people. We make mistakes. Just because you’re in front of a classroom doesn’t mean you’re going to be infallible, so it’s better to accept from the beginning that you’re going to switch letters, or mispronounce something, or accidentally start incorporating grammatical quirks of your students’ native language (almost guaranteed this last one will happen). This is fine, but don’t try to brush it under the carpet when, not if, it happens. Though some of your students are undoubtedly doodling, napping or texting, there are plenty that are paying close attention to what you do and say, and they will pick up on every word, even the wrong ones.

Even better, try to make intentional mistakes once in a while, especially with writing, to see if students can catch them. This is great for students’ confidence and makes them feel more comfortable making their own mistakes – if even the teacher is wrong once in a while, it can’t be that bad!

3. Let students know you speak their native language

The whole point of immersion language teaching is that it creates a situation in which students, by necessity, have to speak the second language. This is a great way to encourage vocabulary building, cooperation, creative problem solving, and the occasional informal game of charades – which all goes out the window the second the students catch on that you understand what they’re whispering about in the back of the room.

The shortcuts aren’t doing them any good in the long run, so don’t let them start.

4. Underestimate the value of games – or songs

Sometimes we think games are best suited for younger students, while older students need a more “serious” classroom environment to learn. While some lessons do require relative levels of silence and note-taking, interactive lessons can sometimes be the best way to teach a topic – not to mention they’re great at keeping students of all ages engaged. Younger learners love new songs, while high school students have an astonishing ability to memorize lyrics to popular tunes, even if they don’t understand what the words actually mean.

And games are fun for everyone from the smallest children to middle-aged adults – just because they’re grown-ups doesn’t mean they don’t like to play and sing, too! Don’t cheat your students out of fun lessons because you feel like the activities might be too childish – most of us would rather go back to first grade than high school.

Music is also a fantastic memory device and teaching aid – I know I still remember some songs I learned all the way back in my middle-school Spanish classes, well over a decade ago.

5. Ignore your students' levels

Just because your students are in the same class doesn’t mean they all have the same level of English (or learning style, or learning challenges, or socioeconomic backgrounds, or so on ad infinitum). This is especially true in large classes, where it’s impossible that all 45 students have exactly the same level of comprehension and vocabulary set.

You can see a range of multiple grade levels within just one of these classes, from advanced students to the ones who won’t understand a word you say. It can seem near-impossible to design classroom activities that account for so many different levels, but practicing scaffolding your lessons and pairing students in mindful ways that allow them to help each other will improve their language levels across the board, regardless of where they started.

6. Pass up the opportunity for cultural exchange

Your primary job may be to teach English, but your presence in the classroom has so many effects beyond greater understanding of the present perfect tense. For some students, you may be the first native English speaker they’ve ever met, the first person from your region or country, or even the first person they’ve ever encountered from any other country. This role of “cultural ambassador” can be tiring for some people, but remember that your very presence in the classroom is expanding their world.

You may be the first native English speaker they’ve ever met, the first person from your region or country, or ... any other country.

Don’t be afraid to incorporate lessons about your country, culture, customs or hometown – these details can be eye-opening for your students, who are probably already immensely curious about you and where you come from. You’re learning about their lives and culture just by living there, so it’s only fair for you to reciprocate a little.

7. Have no backup plan

Teaching is just like evolution – it’s survival of the fittest out there, and sometimes your teenage students arrive with sudden, strange mutations. Well, maybe the second one isn’t always true, but it’s a fact of teaching that things almost never go according to plan, and you have to be ready to adapt to deal with new situations.

Surprise assembly? Classes cancelled for a school-wide soccer match? Two extra hours of class because the chemistry lab flooded? Whatever happens, you’re going to have to roll with it, which is why it’s always smart to have a few fallback, tried and true options up your sleeve just in case. Yes, lesson planning is important, but no matter what a perfect, Type A micromanager you are, you can’t control those weather systems or faulty walls, so even if your Plan A is perfect, don’t forget about a Plan B.

8. Expect special treatment

Yes, you will probably get some additional attention for being both new and a foreigner, especially if you’re the only foreigner at your school. While it can be exciting (or annoying, depending on how introverted you are) to be the center of attention, it’s also not the reason you’re there, nor does it automatically entitle you to special or preferential treatment.

Your contract may very well be different from those of the other teachers you’re working with, and it’s important to know exactly what it says, so that you don’t end up at those six-hour Saturday “trainings” when your presence isn’t required. Still, beyond any contractual differences, you’re expected to be working as part of a team contributing to the overall education of your students.

Asking to leave work early or trying to get out of completing evaluations by playing the “clueless gringo” card might work (at least the first few times), but it won’t make you any friends among your co-workers and will make you look less committed in the long run.

9. Say you are “not a real teacher”

Yes, plenty of us who choose to work as ESL/EFL teachers, either in our home countries or abroad, are not certified teachers. We may have studied history, anthropology, biology, law, or something else that didn’t involve public speaking. While it is important to go through TEFL certification if at all possible so you have a background in the unique challenges and teaching tools necessary for this line of work, it is entirely possible to be a successful, compassionate, effective teacher without completing a master’s degree in education.

Referring to yourself as less than a “real teacher,” whether to yourself or in public, does a disservice to you and your students. If you don’t think of yourself as a real teacher, it’s unreasonable to expect your students to do so, and it also shows them that you don’t think of your job as “real” work.

Вы говорите по-английски? Хотите посетить разные страны, обогатиться новыми ощущениями и при этом строить свою карьеру?

Если вы хотите и мечтаете преподавать заграницей, то сертификат TEFL поможет осуществить ваши желания 🙂

Что такое TEFL?

Сертификат TEFL – это сертификат, который является официальным документом для управления по трудоустройству, и при предъявлении этого документа вы можете получить официальное разрешение на работу как преподаватель английского языка.

Тема преподавания иностранного языка иностранцам всегда актуальна. В настоящее время многие, кто предлагает индивидуальные занятия по обучению иностранному языку, не имеют ни педагогического образования, ни международных сертификатов. Вряд ли кто-то станет спорить с тем, что успех обучения иностранному языку во многом зависит от преподавателя. Хороший преподаватель может научить даже самого бездарного, а плохой – отбить интерес даже у самого заинтересованного. Поэтому важно знать, что проходить обучение иностранному языку стоит у профессионального дипломированного педагога.

Отметим, что Британский Совет выдвигает наличие международного сертификата TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) в качестве минимальных требований для тех, кто собирается преподавать английский язык носителям других языков, а также наличие сертификата сейчас стало одним из стандартных пунктов для работодателей при заполнении должностей преподавателей.

Помните, в настоящее время профессиональный диплом и опыт работы – главные критерии отбора новых преподавателей в хороших языковых школах.

Удачи!

Fürsətlər ictimai nəqliyyətə bənzəyir. Hər zaman növbəti avtobus yoldadır.

Tony Robbins