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Teach English in Zhongce Zhen - Jining Shi

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhongce Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Jining Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.

As a new teacher, lessons can sometimes be really daunting. It certainly was for me. One common experience that can be unpleasant at times is having a class with mixed abilities. However, this is an inescapable part of teaching. After taking the placement exam students can do exceptionally well in certain areas and not in others, e.g. they are better at writing than speaking. Therefore classes will always have students that are varied in ability, and have different ways of learning. This can be a terrible ordeal if the teacher is unprepared for it, whilst still having to accommodate for everyone. Teaching can be especially hard if the students are put into levels/grades that don’t reflect their ability. Some schools want the students to graduate, so the students continue and are never really held back. Having a class with mixed ability can be frustrating, especially for the students. There are sometimes impatient students/individual students that get irritable with lower level students. Some students enjoy the class however the teacher presents it, and others don’t like to dumb down their English for other people. Occasionally there may be students who think they know a lot but don’t know that much. The teacher has to be able to juggle around all these people in one class. So how would the teacher deal with that? Now, some might blame the school for this inappropriate mesh of people that they had brought together for me, I could’ve complained, but it would’ve amounted to nothing. What about the teachers with 30 students that have to accommodate every single one of those students? It is something that the teacher must learn how to do. There were many skills that I had acquired from the TEFL course to manoeuvre my future classes to be more successful with this issue. In this order, I will talk about: structure, preparation, group work, and homework. First of all, having structures like the straight arrow technique can help a lot. A clear structure is good for the teacher to be able to see progression, but also for the students to ease into a structure they can expect. From a personal point of view, starting with engaging games has been vital to my classes now, and has made me excited to see how these can/will make these classes inviting and engaging for the student to create an environment for them. The second thing I would say is helpful is preparing and knowing what the teacher wants to achieve during the lesson time. This seems obvious but new teachers may observe more experienced teachers improvise and think they can achieve the same thing. What they may not consider that this is not due to on the spot creativity but derives from having years of lesson planning and experience. Knowing and planning while maintaining the balance of leaving space for change is critical to having a smooth lesson. Lesson preparation means you have to accommodate for students of all abilities and personalities. It’s important to make students feel comfortable with similar tasks while still making it accessible to those who may need more guidance. What also helps in a mixed ability class is group work which allows them to help and learn from each other, meaning students have less pressure to contribute. Rather than an equal amount for all, it lets the quieter pupils have their own space, which encourages them to be involved somewhat, and speak up. Homework can be overlooked, however it is vital because it allows the teacher to see how the student performs as an individual. However, homework can also be set into teams, where there is still group communication and team learning, which encourages socialisation and learning from peers, without the pressure of the classroom and the teacher. In conclusion, I think that having a mixed ability group can be difficult to manage at first because of the variation and requirements of students. However, if the teacher has the ideas of: structure, preparation, group work, and homework, they can build up their confidence and make more successful lessons. Overall, it can be better when the teacher considers a blanket lesson built to make the lesson enjoyable, educational, and the teacher is prepared for the job.


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