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Teach English in Zhaili Zhen - Laiwu Shi

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During my 6 years of experience, I’ve come across variety of students and classes. When asked, about my students’ age, I jokingly say anything from the babies to grannies, for I have been teaching anything from kindergarten classes to adult classes, preparing students to work/travel abroad. Therefore, I like to change my teaching style according to which class I teach: First style I usually use would be the one of an “entertainer”. This is the style I most commonly use with the kindergarten students, where I have to keep the class funny, interesting and never allows students to do nothing. My warmer is usually a game, then we proceed with new words (or sounds), a game through which the students can repeatedly say the word, and then other activities and end up reading to them (or with them). Since kindergarten classes and students’ attention span are often short, I must maintain the pace of the class and be energetic. I must admit, I really enjoy teaching kindergarten classes, because the atmosphere is mostly friendly, comforting and pleasurable for anyone. Second style I commonly use is the “Friend”. I find this style to be extra rewarding with primary school students, who might feel intimidated by foreigner (I work and live in China), since I might be the first one, and for a long time the last one they’ll see. This style is more oriented on building trust and friendly relationship between the teacher and the students. Lots of encouragement, rarely correcting mistakes unless they happen on regular basis and might turn into a habit, and generally speaking treating the students completely differently to what their regular teachers would treat them in their public schools. After few classes, students understand that I’m not their enemy, quite the contrary, and with their trust, I have achieved far more than trying to mimic their regular classes in the school. Third style I commonly use, mostly with adult students is “I’m one of you”. This style focuses on earning trust of students by emphasizing that I too had to learn English just like them, and therefore we’re in the same boat. The reason this system works so well is because with the native speakers, students find themselves intimidated, especially because English comes easy to them. I, on the contrary, had to overcome the same difficulties my students have, and therefore can help them with my experience. “Been there, done that” can be used in various ways, for example when student makes quite obvious mistake, and feels insecure, I can make an example where I made even worse mistake in the past, and that they’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Eventually, with this style, students are far more prone to not only care less about making mistakes, but also use English and actually speak in the class. Fourth style is actually the combination of all above (and others) called “The Blender”. I like to use this style when I enter new classroom, especially one that the students of have very poor command of English. With The Blender, I can jump from one style to another, seemingly without making the class feeling structured, and achieve great results. I like to set my first class the way I’m going to teach for the rest of the course, but I can’t simply jump into the grammar for example, when I can’t even tell the names of the students. This way, the first class is interesting, encouraging, has a bit of learning and me and my students get to know each other. The following classes will have a lot less of Blender and a lot more of the style that’s suited the most for the students’ needs and wants. I could be going on and on with different examples of different teaching styles, but that’s not the purpose of this essay. The purpose is to explain, that every single situation, class, student, lesson plan or activities require different approach from the teacher. The important thing, however, is that not only the students, but also the teacher can enjoy the class as much as possible, since if the teacher takes his job as “just job”, the results will be far inferior to the results of a teacher that “was born and meant to be a teacher”. When people ask me why did I become a teacher, I usually say that it was because of the circumstances of life at that time. 6 years later, I still very much enjoy my job, and would change it for no other.


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