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I have a very strong belief that confidence is one of the most important and powerful of our many human qualities, because self-confidence has an enormous influence on how successful we can become as well as determining what we might achieve; if you want to be a great teacher, you have to be a self-confident one. In this article, I would like to share a few tips about how to boost your self-confidence, based on my experience and the experiences of my colleagues. First of all, you have to be prepared and ready. Make sure that your lessons are always prepared. This will allow you to flow through a lesson not have to pause to think about what next to do during a lesson and therefore avoid looking confused. Being well prepared will allow you to assess how a lesson is going during the lesson itself. Of course at the end of a lesson you will have an opportunity to do a detailed evaluation and apply this knowledge to make the next lessons even better. But do not overdo it, your lesson plan should not be rigid, it should be flexible as conditions of the lesson (such as a number of students, their mood or home assignment readiness, etc.) might differ from time to time and you need to be able to adapt your lesson plan to those circumstances. In the end, you have to be prepared for the upcoming lesson and always be ready for the unforeseen and unexpected. Secondly, take care of your health. Do sport (at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day), sleep well (go to the bed and wake up at the same time each day), be on a healthy diet, and socialise with friends. If you are in romantic relationship, make sure that it benefits both partners and it in no way harms your career. These things might appear insignificant but actually, they have a very huge influence on your state of health and thus on your self-confidence. Moreover, if there is anything in your life that you don’t like, do not hesitate to change it. Being able to do what you want to do is the surest sign of a self-confident person. Also, try new activities at least every month (better every week). This will make you learn a lot of things, train your brain and get new experiences which will enrich your life and lead to you becoming a more self-confident person. Furthermore, if you are good at something, never hesitate to use it. Everyone has a unique feature which makes us special. By doing this, you will be able to engage people on a higher level and build a stronger connection. At the same time never stop get complacent and become too content with what you are good at right now; always find time for a new skill, learn something new, experiment with different things, develop. Get to know your students. And not only from an academic perspective like their English level. Get to know them as people. Bond with them. Knowledge builds confidence. In addition to that, never underestimate the power of feedback. Never wait to get one, be proactive enough to ask for yourself first. When you receive a response regarding your actions, behavior, work, etc. you can evaluate it from a different perspective and get to know more information about how to improve your performance as a teacher. Finally, I would like to talk about the most important part in my opinion; the sharing of self-confidence. As you build up your own self-confidence you will simultaneously and significantly boost self-confidence in your students. Remember: children see – children do. And actually, the best that you can do for them is to be a role model. They spend so much time with you and they are learning not only the subject, but they are taking a lot from your personality as well. Try to remember from the past when you were a kid yourself, what do you remember better: the subject or your teacher’s personality? To sum up, I would like to mention that building self-confidence is a long process and takes years. So, never give up when you face difficulties. It might help if you will find someone who can become a support system for yourself (ideally someone who is in the same situation right now or was in the same situation before). Try to become a support system yourself. Set clear goals and reflect on your experience to evaluate your way and improve it.
