Recommendations for aspiring English teachers

What's the most common misconception you've ever heard about English teachers? There are many funny things, for example, "Teachers have the shortest working hours" or "Yes, this job is as easy as shelling pears!", But my favorite is "You just need to know English." Having so many prejudices about the representatives of this profession, you can change your decision about choosing a career several times. What to do?



Fight off delusions
They cloud the sober view of society and the teacher himself on this profession. Yet they are easy to deal with if you understand the logic. Some of the most common biases are:

• "Teaching is easy." Count the hours you spend preparing for lessons, checking homework, and endless conversations with your parents about how best to teach you.
• "To teach English you just need to know English." Knowledge of the subject itself does not automatically make the teacher cool. You need to be able to organize work and the educational process, overcome conflicts, and also have knowledge of pedagogy and psychology.
• "All students are eager to learn English." Oh, how by! This may be true for older students who may have a specific study purpose (getting a promotion, moving to another country, getting an international certificate, etc.). However, everyone else should be motivated by the teacher, parents, or someone else.
• “A student's poor grades are a student’s problem.” No matter how hard the teacher tries, there are so many other, very different factors that affect the student's progress! In particular, these can be individual memorization abilities, problems with friends or at home, which does not apply to the teacher at all.

Understanding the situation often helps to direct efforts in the right direction. What can be done?



Apply Tips

1. Dose your grammar. You shouldn't devote all the time of the lesson to this. You can set video tasks as homework for better memorization.
2. Practice first. In theory, you can make out a huge amount of material, but all this will be useless if students do not master the application of the new topic. It is better to devote time to quality study, even if only verbal, so as not to waste time. Written practice can be asked at home.
3. Take time to read. This will make students' reading and speech smoother and more literate, significantly expanding their vocabulary and showing the use of some grammatical structures. Depending on the interests and capabilities of the student, you can ask him to read as an independent work or go through some passages together.
4. No grades are required for individual lessons. It is much better to give the student a verbal assessment with specific praise and advice for improvement.
5. Talk to students. A useful tool if the student has at least a little vocabulary. At the most basic levels, it may be useless until a certain amount of knowledge is accumulated. Otherwise, you will have to ask the most simple questions.
6. From time to time, check the level of knowledge of students using various tests and quizzes. Try not to overwhelm students with materials and differentiate the type and difficulty of assignments.

Getting started with teaching students can be difficult at times, in part due to many biases from others. Over time, however, you will learn to ignore such little things. The main thing is to be practical and apply the tips mentioned. Good luck in job!