Teach English in Changzhi Gaoxin Jishu Kaifaqu [Changzhi High-tech Development Zone] - Changzhi Shi

As twenty-six years old student and teacher, I have already encountered a variety of students. They differ in age, gender, work occupancy and most importantly in motivation to learn English and what they want to achieve. I always prepare the class according to their needs. I make sure to accumulate the necessary information in orientation class and then prepare the lesson accordingly. Some students might want to improve their grade at school, others would like to get a job or a promotion or some of them would just like to travel and be able to communicate with people. Therefore, I need to prepare according to their desire. However, there is added value to just learning English and that’s the fact that I incorporate the same soft skills to everyone despite their English level. It does not matter if the person is 5 or 40 years old. I make sure that they will be able to apply what they have learned in their real-life situations. For instance, I had a male student, 35 years old who worked in an IT company. He came to me in order to be able to communicate more effectively. What I did was that I managed his classes to his known topics. I made sure he knew the words relevant to his business environment, how to make presentations, how to write emails and, we communicated about topics he was just dealing with at work. This way, what he has learned he could immediately use at work. This also helped him to remember the vocabulary better because he was constantly using it. Another soft skill that teachers like me can incorporate is teamwork. For example, I had two eight years old students, twins, their mother wanted them to improve their grades at school. They did not want to cooperate or study together, they were fighting all the time. I made games where they needed each other and without the other, they could not finish the task I gave them. When they went back to school it was easier for them to be part of the group. While they played games, they gained English knowledge in a playful way without trying too much. Another great skill teacher can teach is the ability to solve problems. We have the power to choose the tasks students are going to concentrate on and think about. It can be something along the lines of riddle, puzzle or mystery. This way we make them think, we make it enjoyable and we also train their capability to solve the problem while teaching them new vocabulary. If these tasks are done in groups, we are also working on their strength to work well with each other and learn from each other. While they are in the teams or classroom, teachers might include activities where the kids share their ideas and their perspective, this way the kids are not only learning English, but they are also gaining the skills to see issues, problems or ideas from a different point of view. If we take a scenario where I had taught in a business company. In order to incorporate problem-solving and English in a non-academic way during a lesson, I included participants in problem-solving issues that may have arisen in their workplace. Finally, I used warm-up activities that gave them opportunities to foster critical thinking. Those were discussing current events, solving riddles or some investigative activities that helped students to improve their critical thinking in a fun and easy way and it put them immediately into work at the beginning of the class. This way they learned the words and sentence structures that they already used in their native language. That is why being a teacher is very important, it goes beyond the classroom. What we teach the students can also be part of their regular daily activities and can help them personally and professionally. The tasks we choose to do during the class could be applied in their day to day activities. That way we make sure they stay motivated to learn English because they will see the use and practicality in real-life situations.