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Michele Griffin Why Learning Teaching Skills Are Important for the EFL Teacher As a non-experienced EFL teacher myself, learning various techniques of teaching to EFL students is a highly beneficial and helpful strategy to become the most successful and efficient teacher. Without a previous knowledge, such as an ITTT course, or experience of teaching English as a foreign language in a classroom already, first-time beginner teachers would not be able to illustrate or demonstrate the English language clearly or productively. Thus, it would be difficult to organize lessons to be the most efficient, and it would be difficult to motivate and inspire the students to want to learn English. Moreover, learning teaching skills, such as in an EFL teaching course, will provide the non-experienced EFL teacher with useful and effective background knowledge of how to teach a language. If a teacher knows how to teach a language by using various methodologies and techniques that have been taught in a course that he or she has taken, such as myself, the teacher will be able to teach English productively, and the learners will be able to learn effectively. For example, the Engage-Study-Activate methodology that is explained in an EFL teaching course, is a useful technique to be introduced and taught to an in-experienced EFL teacher beforehand; there as before teaching their first EFL course in a real classroom of foreign students. Learning teaching skills, such as learning the Engage-Study-Activate methodology, provides a sense of organization for beginning first-time language teachers. Like myself, with my in-experience of teaching EFL in a real classroom and being a first-time teacher, learning the Engage-Study-Activate methodology has given me an organized idea of how to teach a lesson in the classroom. Moreover, with out having been introduced to this methodology in the ITTT course, I would not have any idea of how to even begin or conduct or prepare a lesson to my students. Therefore, the Engage-Study-Activate methodology has provided me with the techniques to deliver a successful lesson, such as incorporating elicitation. This type of methodology teaches new teachers what to include in each stage. For example, the Engage stage, that is discussed in the ITTT course, Unit 3, explains to new teachers that they should first get the students involved, stimulated and motivated in the lesson. The Engage stage that is discussed in the course also helps new teachers to understand that they can get their students motivated by using discussions, prompts, pictures, drawings, mimes, and/or bringing real objects into class. With out being taught these techniques in the course, I would not know how to engage my students or even begin to teach English as a foreign language. I would be completely lost in preparing my first lesson to the students if it wasn’t for learning these useful teaching skills and methodologies. Furthermore, by learning teaching skills in the ITTT course, Unit 3, the Engage-Study-Activate methodology teaches great ideas and activities for new teachers to use and apply in the Study stage, such as suggesting using elicitation, language drills for practicing pronunciation, spelling drills, and meaning. For example, by learning these strategies, I have learned that I can use activities such as hangman, word searches, and crosswords for spelling exercises. I have also learned that I can use gap-fills and matching exercises to teach meaning. First-time teachers, such as my-self, learn that gap-fill exercises are used for students to fill in missing words in a sentence, and that matching exercises can be completed by illustrating pictures to the students and have them match definitions to the pictures in order to effectively teach vocabulary and its meaning. Without previously being taught these teaching techniques, I would not know which effective activities to use in my classroom to make the best possible learning experience for my students. Therefore, learning teaching skills, such as methodologies and techniques, is important for a non-experienced and first-time language teacher to prepare and deliver effective lessons to the learners.
