TEFL New Albany Mississippi

While there are a lot of rewards, teaching english as a foreign language is a challenging occupation. For many teachers, grammar is a difficulty that they didn't anticipate. Non-native english speakers often find some aspects of learning correct english grammar difficult to comprehend. One especially tricky task is distinguishing between tenses that exist in english, but may not exist in their native language. In addition, teachers struggle with helping students learn correct pronunciation. Like tenses, this is difficult to convey because not every language has the same punctuation characteristics. If a teacher is a native english speaker, he or she doesn't always think about how to pronounce something. Yet a teacher needs to slow down, explain information in a way that others can understand, and focus on the tiniest of details. Another difficulty tefl teachers face is that many of their students are often adult learners. These students have spent their whole lives developing their native language skills, and helping them apply new things they've learned can be incredibly labor intensive because habits are deeply entrenched. One of the biggest challenges tefl teachers face is guiding their students to think in english. Thinking in another language is often the culmination of years of study and is difficult to achieve because students often think in their own language and then translate words and phrases into english. Doing this can be confusing for both the teacher and the student, as things that are translated are often done so using grammar that doesn't exist in english. When teaching younger students, students can often become overly dependent on their teacher. This is a difficulty because it encourages students to seek the teacher's help in solving problems as opposed to taking the time to learn a solution on their own. Situations like this can be avoided if the teacher doesn't automatically answer every single question. Because tefl teachers are giving instruction in english, it can be challenging for students to understand what is expected of them. This seems to be a common occurrence in the tefl classroom. In order to avoid this situation, it's important for the teacher to be very clear when conveying tasks. Speaking slowly, clearly, using gestures, writing information on the board, and miming can reach students and help to pre-emptively avoid confusion. Other ways to guide students include using visual images and modeling the behavior expected of students. Sometimes, students can feel lost and overwhelmed. After all, learning a new language can be intimidating. Ensuring these students stay in the course is another challenge that tefl teachers face. To help address this challenge, instructors can build community within the course by engaging students in group activities. If a student is connected to others in the class, he or she will be less likely to give up. In addition, if a teacher makes a point of checking for understanding before moving on to another topic, then students are less likely to be lost. While there are many challenges to teaching tefl, the reward of helping a student learn a new language is worth the effort.