If you speak English, you can teach English. Around the world, speakers of other languages are desperate to learn English, which is necessary for interacting with tourists, building a business, and more on the international stage. At most institutions, you hardly need more than a bachelor’s degree and a native knowledge of English to qualify for teaching positions.

However, just because you meet the requirements to be an English teacher doesn’t mean you will excel at it. If you truly want to help non-native speakers acquire English language skills, you need the following tips on being the best possible teacher of English.

Become Better Educated

After you obtain your bachelor’s degree, you can hop on a flight and find paying English-teaching jobs nearly anywhere – but maybe you shouldn’t. If you want to be the best English teacher you can be, you should consider fighting your wanderlust and bettering your knowledge and skill through additional education. There are a few subjects you should focus on improving to enhance your English teaching ability, to include:

• English. You can speak and write, but do you really understand the language? If you don’t have a strong grasp of English grammar and vocabulary, you should work toward mastering English fundamentals before you teach.
• Language acquisition. Language is an essential feature of being human, but the mechanics of language acquisition are complicated and nuanced. Humans gain language abilities different ways at different ages, and by understanding the variations, you can develop more effective plans for teaching your students.
• Education. Teaching isn’t easy – ask any educator. By engaging in an educational program on education, you will be better prepared to manage a classroom and improve the knowledge and skill of your students.

Fortunately, you can improve your understanding and ability in all these subjects by enrolling in TESOL master’s programs online. These accelerated, affordable programs prepare you specifically for a career as an English language teacher, so you can be certain that you are providing the best English language education to your students.

Get to Know Your Students

When you are in a new place, surrounded by speakers of an unfamiliar language, your mind tends to blend all foreigners together into one unintelligible mass. This is the work of a few psychological principles, including a fear of the unknown. However, just because they don’t speak English doesn’t mean each of your students lacks a rich, unique personality, background, and educational need. You should fight your instinct to dehumanize or amalgamate your classroom and strive to acquaint yourself with each individual student.

This serves two purposes. First, it helps you understand the average background and intention of your classroom, so you can tailor your lessons to target students’ goals. Secondly, it shows your students that you care about their well-being, which will help them feel more at-ease. Comfort increases one’s receptiveness to new ideas and one’s ability to master new skills, so is behooves you to establish a familiar, calm atmosphere in your classroom.

Develop Effective and Interesting Lessons

It is possible to float through English language instruction using pre-generated lesson plans and materials. However, just as you might remember reviling lessons taken straight from textbooks, your students are unlikely to learn efficiently from these imitation, oversimplified sources.

Instead, you should try to incorporate authenticity into your lessons. Before you leave the U.S., you might gather English visuals and manipulatives, such as menus, post cards, photographs, and video clips. During your lessons, you can use these tools to teach your students English with real-world examples.

You should also remember to SWRL every day: speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Language takes many forms, and your students need to be proficient in all of them to function effectively in English. By practicing the different forms of language use every day, your students will advance in all of them equally, which is more advantageous than understanding how to read and listen but not speak or write.

Join a Teacher Network

There are dozens of networks designed to connect teachers to facilitate the spread of useful information. Often, networks share resources, explain emerging education concepts and connect teachers for emotional and social support. By joining one or more networks, you might find a mentor or connect with a group of like-minded English language instructors around the world.

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May 9, 2018