Teach English in Yujing Zhen - Shuozhou Shi

A great teacher is a great motivator. A motivated student is a teacher's dream and with the right attitude and know-how, any teacher can make that dream a reality. Throughout my teaching career I have focused mainly on teaching Young Learners, ranging from ages 3 all the way up to 16. When starting out one of the hardest things for me as a new teacher was to get my students truly motivated throughout an entire class, not just for a few minutes at a time. Motivation was a struggle because the entire experience is so new to you once you start your teaching career. Once I became more relaxed in my role, motivation became easier, but it wasn't at a level where I was happy with it yet. I saw many teachers around me, decent teachers, who were on the same level as me, but they seemed content to remain there. I wanted more and I wanted to be able to provide my students more. I achieved this goal by not taking myself so seriously all the time (this was hard for me as I am very much introverted and I shy away from the spotlight, in a social sense, whenever I'm able to. I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and just go for it. I began not caring about how silly I look in class and how stupid I must look to people looking on. I found an immediate response from the students. Just as we are nervous as new teachers, the majority of students are nervous in class and especially with a new teacher. My being at ease immediately put the students at ease and this led to a much better overall flow of my lessons. In return, seeing the students at ease gave me more confidence in myself and my abilities to handle my students. Through this confidence I was able to integrate more games into my lesson plans and raise the overall enjoyment and level of entertainment. I love playing games with my students. Always have, always will. I do have 1 MAJOR rule with regards to games, thought; games that serve no purpose with regards to facilitating the use of English have no place in my classroom. I've met many teachers who play games simply for the sake of playing games and I find that to be quite lazy on the part of the teacher. Any creative teacher can find ways to integrate English into games that students find entertaining. It can be as simple as 'oh, I've lost' or 'yeah, I won'. Games also have the added benefit of distracting the students as they use English. It thus flows out of them a lot more naturally and easily. Individual attention is also key. Students, especially younger learners, crave individual attention and encouragement. They also crave praise upon completion of a task. I have sat in on new teachers and seen the look of utter disappointment on the students' faces when their good deeds go unnoticed, or worse, ignored. A good teacher takes the time to get to know the personalities of every student. Every quirk and oddity. I had a student once, Sam, who was a real problem student when I first started teaching him. From his drawings I quickly figured out that Sam loved train (the word love might be an understatement. He was absolutely obsessed with them). His knowledge of trains astounded me. Whenever Sam participated well and completed his tasks satisfactorily, I would ask him about specific trains and quiz him on their specifications (top speeds, passenger capacity; he knew it all). He absolutely glowed during those few minutes. I saw a remarkable improvement in Sam's grades over the 2 years that I taught him. In regards to the flow of a normal lesson I have one very important rule that I enforce always; The rule is that you (the students) can only laugh at a classmate after they've laughed at themselves. When covering important aspects of a class (let's say essential grammar) I tend not to ignore or gloss over the mistakes that my students make. I act as dramatically as I can and I point out the mistake in a way that amuses the student that made the error (for this to work properly you need to know your students and their personalities). I then immediately help them find the correct way of getting the point across and we move on from there. I've had other teachers disagree with me on this, saying that this method could lead to breaking down the student's self-confidence (I stress again that I would only ever do this with students that I know well). I've actually found the opposite to be true. Once a student learns how to laugh it himself/herself, the laughter of others serves more as a complement than a detracting factor. And laughter has near-magical properties in a classroom full of young learners. A student who is at ease and entertained is a lot easier to motivate and guide than a student who is in his/her head the whole time. Motivation is, in my humble opinion, the key to being a great teacher. A motivated student is such a joy to have in any classroom and a joyful student is infectious. Never be afraid to experiment with different ways of motivating your students. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for all. Keep at it and find your groove.