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Teaching skills are something that can’t be handed to a teacher in an instant. These skills are honed through many years of experience. I say that because until now I keep on learning new skills. Every day is different for me. I feel that when I encounter or experience something new, it’s magical. I am not shy to admit that grammar and vocabulary are my weakness. I still learn new vocabularies and it amazes me to make use of them repeatedly during the first few days after learning. It’s just like owning a new pair of kicks. I abuse them until I’m fed up of using them. That process is the magic that I am talking about. Same thing if I learn a new trick of teaching my students a grammar concept and it works, that is magic for me. I love that feeling. It gives me a sense of fulfillment. Learning teaching skills is a journey that I try to commit every time I have a new student. I have to adjust to every student. I have to learn how to make a concept easier for them to understand at the same time that they’re trying to learn a new concept. In a general perspective, a teacher learns teaching skills through observation, experiences from other people as well as personal ones, guide books or materials, training courses and so on. In my case, I try to take note of the handling skills that worked for my students. I use them in my future classes and if it keeps on working, I stick on using that handling method in my future classes. That also applies if I noticed some ideas and activities that work in establishing a language point for my students. As mentioned earlier, I may focus more on my personal experience since I believe that exposure to such events, situations and special cases taught me to adjust to a certain teaching style or approach. For instance, I recently handled a 43-year-old Korean male for his IELTS class. He explained that it may be late for him to study English and take the IELTS test but he emphasized that he needed it for him and his family to move to Canada. He wants to have at least a score of 7 for his IELTS speaking test. Using my experience in handling Korean students who are older than me, I believe that he emphasized his reasons and repeatedly mentioned them because in Korea, one’s age may be relative to others but for them it’s an important culture. Respect for elders is important and having an English teacher younger than them makes them a little skeptical, a non-believer of the teaching capabilities. With the doubt that I felt from him and the experiences that I’ve had from my past students who are older than me, I already know how to handle the situation. I tried to respect their Confucian views regarding age but I also tried to be firm when it comes to following rules of the school, grading system, giving feedback and evaluating. I tried to be as professional with him and focused in attaining a certain goal. The moment my student felt my professionalism, I felt his respect regardless of the age gap. He became more compliant and I felt the trust when he follows my advice and made sure not to repeat the same mistake. For that situation, I can say that my experience played a big role. That day wouldn’t be the same if I haven’t had an experience or a situation before that changed my teaching skills. I can’t say that experience will have a 100% success rate in improving teaching skills. We may learn from them but it doesn’t mean if it worked before, it will work all the time. That’s where the other factors that I mentioned above may be considered (Guide books, training, observations…). This is just my perspective in learning teaching skills. I believe that there are more experienced teachers around who can share numerous insights about this topic. I have only about 4 years in teaching English to non-native speakers. I know that I still have a lot of things to learn. Being exposed to changes and having an open mind is the key to learning teaching skills. As a teacher, I always keep in mind that I must learn new skills the same time my students are improving their English skills. I must never be shy to admit my mistakes and never get demotivated if I encounter any obstacle. With those things in mind, I’m pretty sure I will have more future in TEFL.
