Am I Too Old To Become A Teacher

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Until now, I have been an English teacher for 6 months. Before that, in 2016 I was a teaching assistant. That is my part-time job. And this is a journey even though I have not yet taken a TESOL class but I am still confident that I can become a teacher. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tieu T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. For the first half of the year, I was an assistant tutor for the preschool. I had very little contact with kids before so I was very confused at the time. I told the teacher that I couldn't make them obey. She is a master of special needs education. She told me to play with them and not to care about...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I started my journey as a TEFL tutor by having classes online. I just tried my luck and applied for some random ad postings on social media. A few days later, I received a call and it turned out to be a phone interview. I got the job soon after that phone call ended and later that day I was introduced to my trainer. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate John K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Next, I was trained for just one day about the tools, the materials and how to handle classes online. Soon, I just need to pass the demo and I’m good to go. Without any background in teaching, I managed my way to become a top tutor with just...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences My experience in teaching English to young learners is based in Japan. At the start of my time teaching, my student group consisted of two children of the same family. The siblings are a boy, age five, and a girl, age three, who participate equally in the English conversation sessions. Three main factors of this situation present difficult walls, preventing forward progress. Those three factors are distracting objects, counter-productive classroom philosophies, and personality conflicts. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandon F. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First, the English conversation takes place in the children's...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences .As I learned from the 50-hour CTBE course, teaching business English always involves one-to-one mode. Imagine there is a student who is a high profile business person in China. He needs to learn English for his own Business work and he prefers one-to-one lessons. Then, what traits should an EFL teacher have in order to get this teaching job? In this essay, I would like to use this case to discuss some attributes that a businessman would seek in an EFL teacher and why he would demand those traits. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lisha L. First, the EFL teacher should have a broad knowledge of English language and some basic knowledge of the businessman’s first language. If the teacher...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Having spent more than 20 years as a marketing consultant, I decided to change career, to become an English language teacher. Hence, I took up the 120-hour TEFL course with ITTT, along with a specialised course in teaching young learners and another one in teaching business English. Even before I finished my TEFL course, I was offered a teaching job with a private school in Bangkok, Thailand. I have since been teaching kindergarten kids for about 8 months. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Albert P. Teaching kindergarten kids is definitely a lot more fun and less stressful than working for corporate clients in my previous job. I start work at 8:00 a.m. and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences If you're a native language speaker, you've likely heard the phrase, “You can't teach an old dog new tricks”. There has been little evidence found to support this claim, but the belief persists. Many adult learners believe that it is too late for them to learn a new language. If you are teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language you may find yourself teaching a class of adult learners. Adult learners differ in many ways from young learners, and one such issue you may encounter is a doubt from the learners that they are capable of picking up a new language now that they are no longer children. Though the style of learning and the issues encountered will inevitably differ from those of young learners,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As an aspirant teaching English to Chinese children, I chose ‘Pronunciation problems of Chinese people’ as the most attractive and the most useful topic for my summative task at this moment. As resources of this joyful and useful research on the internet, I have used three videos on Youtube made by the three experienced teachers of the English language. Only one of them works with children. And only one of them (accent coach from London, Luke Nicholson) gave a lot of live examples of the flaws in pronunciation that Chinese people, in general, make when speaking English, by showing the interviews with the Chinese actor Jackie Chan who sometimes manages to confuse his experienced interviewers. This post was...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas What if students don’t like me? What if I forget my planning and ruin the whole lesson? What if I trip and fall flat on my face? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lizelle K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. What if this and what if that, these are the type of questions that go through a new teacher’s mind before they enter their first classroom. Stepping into a classroom for the first time can be overwhelming and a new teacher can easily feel lost when all the attention in the class falls on them. When studying to become an educator, be it for 3-year olds or 30-year olds, practical exposure to an active teaching environment...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore TEFL Information Teaching English abroad is one of the most interesting career paths one might take up. You get to move to a new country and even get paid for it! However, too many people are unsure whether teaching EFL is right for them. This article highlights 6 things you will miss out on if you don’t teach English abroad. When routine becomes a ball and chain, you know it’s time for something new. Moving to a new country to teach English is the perfect opportunity to discover a whole new world. Whether it’s cherry blossom season in Japan, Chinese New Year festivities in Taiwan, Christmas markets in Germany or the Carnival in Brazil - there are new experiences ahead of you on every corner! It’s not only large cultural...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The year was 1992, I was going to my first English class. I was so excited to begin. I’d always wanted to learn that language. The movies, music and everything I loved the most was in English. I was ten years old, my whole class was the same age, but the only thing I didn’t know was they were much ahead of me. The course placed me in a classroom with kids that were already speaking English since they were six years old. They spoke all the time and I couldn’t understand anything. I felt so disappointed and ashamed, I couldn’t even comprehend the difference between him and her. Even my teacher made fun of me. As a result, I got out of the course after lots of swollen eyes and arguments with my parents....  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Having worked in South Korea for almost 8 years, I have been fortunate enough to experience a rapid influx of new technology in the classroom. As a hub of new technology, Korea promotes the use of new technology by teachers in public schools. These new technologies include the use of touch-screen TVs, Ipads and tablets, as well as VR systems. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Hannah P. Touch screen TVs can really benefit the teacher in the language classroom. It makes creating interactive materials a lot simpler, as well as allowing for students interaction during the class. Interactive games and PPTs can make the materials more fun and help to increase...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English, like any language, is first and foremost the mother tongue of a person. Languages often are influenced by or entirely derive from migratory groups of people. The original native tongue of France, for example, was Gallic. The Latinized French we know today was only born after centuries of Roman occupation and assimilation. More confusing still, the nation takes its name from the Franks, who were themselves a Germanic tribe which conquered the territory from Rome. Despite this, their native German tongue had an only minor influence on French, as Roman Gaul had a quite large population. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Cole T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Young children, even when they are learning their native tongue, learn the words before they learn how to apply them correctly and as a result, children often make mistakes in their grammar, however, even when they do, it is mostly the vocabulary or the order of the words which still provides a degree of context which makes the message they intend to convey understandably and thus susceptible to improvement. It is exactly because of this fact that in this essay, I would like to dive into teaching vocabulary. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Johnny B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. About teaching vocabulary, I could say that...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences The majority of children turning 5 years old attend kindergarten for two years in preparation for primary school. Some kids enter kindergarten earlier at the age of only four. This actually varies according from state to state and also from country to country. In China, most kindergartens combine childcare with teaching so that the children will develop physically, morally, and intellectually in a harmonious way to get ready for their formal school education. A good environment is assured for the kids to have a conducive place to learn actively. Teaching English in China can be overwhelming considering that English teachers are also assigned to teach kids as young as one year old or even younger. Chinese parents...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I was an English teacher in Japan for over three and a half years. In that time, I gained a lot of experience teaching young learners. My students were aged from two to fourteen. As I taught these students, I learned a lot about how songs can be used effectively in the classroom. Songs can be used to teach sentence structure, routines, vocabulary, and help aid the understanding of instructions in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Megan B. Before students can even grasp the language, they can understand rhythm and music. When teaching the youngest students (two years old), we used a lot of chants. Chants are not necessarily music but work much in the same way. Generally,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The first job as an English teacher abroad is a challenging change, especially if the country you are choosing to work is culturally different from your home country. There are so many differences between one country and other but usually, those differences look bigger when the place you move belongs to another political and social organization mode. My experience as an English teacher in China has allowed me to see these huge differences between western culture and the Asian world. In the following essay, I will try to point out the main cultural challenges that a teacher I had to face and how this may become a sensitivity source inside the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Maria...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Destinations The Chinese education market has been growing for the recent ten years. As the country is getting more and more open towards the rest of the world, the demand for proper English training becomes ubiquitous. Compared to the Russian system, where English starts to be taught in primary school, in China, they try to include English as early as the nursery. The difference in culture, language structure, and the lack of proper training of the school staff open the doors to expats. If you find a position for an ESL teacher in China, chances are you get into a kindergarten. Two years ago, I found a teaching job in a private bilingual kindergarten chain in China. There were two main branches: a multiple intelligences...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Besides the thousands of things they have on their minds (personal problems, health issues, daydreaming, etc.) and the temptation to chat with their neighbors in the classroom, students can also be easily distracted by their smartphones. Distraction is not the only obstacle to the class. Boredom and absenteeism don't help the course either. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Melanie P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Students need to be motivated to prevent those behaviors, which is every teacher's challenge. While all students have different backgrounds...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In the following essay, I have chosen to explain my late-in-life interest in becoming certified as an EFL teacher, based on my background with foreign language experience, which began at an early age. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Manuel GK. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I was what some would call an early bloomer. As a baby, my mother read to me at night until I fell asleep. By the age of 2, I could speak in simple but uninterrupted sentences with proper syntax. By a few months after my third birthday, I was able to read the same children's’ books that my mother used to read for me and speak more complex sentences...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching has been my dream since a very young age! This should be the normal and most common answer when you ask a teacher about his childhood dream job. For me, It was absolutely the opposite. I have never seen myself teaching anybody even my closest friends and relatives! I have always considered myself an introvert. My best friend used to be a book I’m reading! I have never liked crowded places or getting to know new people! Going to a wedding or a party was more like a nightmare to me. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate MANEL R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Anyways, all of this has changed when I helped a friend in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In 2010, I was on a cultural fact-finding mission. While living as an ex-pat in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, I decided I would like to teach English to Chinese students. I thought it would be a fun, constructive way to spend my extra time while my husband was working. So, I took the challenge! I call this a challenge because I had no prior ESL experience at the time. I soon found that understanding the Chinese culture was going to become a priority. Is sensitivity to the Chinese cultural norms significant in teaching ESL in China? A very important puzzle piece in successful teaching in China is defined by their culture. Learning about it and implementing it in my teaching classes smoothed many a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This is a subject that many have spoken of at length before however new perspectives are put forward all the time which can and do have positive outcomes. This can happen even in an area such as “student motivation”. This is an area that has been under the academic microscope as far back as we can remember. I will now put forward my perspectives and hopefully add something new to the equation. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Padraig O B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I would like to complete an assignment encompassing all areas that affect student motivation which may include but not exclusively: genetics (nature),...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I adore books, and reading aloud to our young students is one of the highlights of my job as a Teaching Assistant. Most of our students are Turkish, whose ages range from four to eleven years old, who have had little or no exposure to the English language. The students come to our school to receive an English education and therefore use daily a language of which their parents have little knowledge. It can be overwhelming to suddenly be thrust into an environment where everything is taught or spoken to them in a foreign language. Consequently, reading aloud to this age group is an invaluable method of language delivery, especially as many may be reluctant learners, and may actively resist learning as it was not...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas When working with a large group, it is important to maintain class management to ensure all students can learn the material. A class can easily become off task due to a lack of dominance within a teacher. I had the opportunity to manage a group of six and seven-year-old students in the past and I am aware that it can be rather difficult to keep children on task. Throughout my internship, I was able to see what skills worked and what needed improvement. After reading unit 5, from the online course, I was able to connect concepts and thoughts I had from managing my class. Now that I am aware of new concepts it is easier to see how teachers can manage a classroom in a friendly but orderly manner. This post was...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Career development is a process of improving one’s self-based on their chosen career path. This is a lifelong process. There is no time limit, however, skills should be met and strengthened as efficiently as possible. One's adaptability, capacity to work under pressure, ability to work with minimal supervision, analytical, and social skills are crucial in any career path. These things are taught in schools, though at a fundamental scale. Most of the time, these are enhanced and improved through effort, practice, and experience. People also learn more about how ethics, communication skills and technological savvy contribute to the success of any endeavor. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Diane Ackerman coined the phrase “play is our brain’s favorite way of learning” and we have discovered tough various studies and examples of how play in and out of the classroom improves learning skills and encourages involvement. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rebeccah G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Within the classroom teachers have discovered that using games can increase motivation and can benefit students in a variety of ways. It is often found that students will pay more attention, become more motivated to learn and be more inclined to participate. While we know reading, writing and listening are very...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Besides the thousands of things they have on their minds (personal problems, health issues, daydreaming, etc.) and the temptation to just chat with their neighbors in the classroom, students can also be easily distracted by their smartphones. Distraction is not the only obstacle to the class, boredom and absenteeism don’t help the class either. To prevent those behaviors, students need to be motivated, which is every teacher's challenge. While all students have different backgrounds and expectations, the teacher still has plenty of resources to tease students' attention and increase their participation. How do you keep students motivated in the English class? This essay lists and elicits a few possibilities to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I have been teaching English in Japan for 8 months now, acquiring the job solely with the qualifications of being a native speaker and having a bachelor’s degree. After 6 months of teaching with these credentials and the two weeks of initial training provided by my employers, I felt I owed it to myself and my students to complete a TEFL and receive a sounder understanding of EFL/ESL pedagogy. In this essay, I will elaborate on the benefits of the TEFL course as they apply to my own teaching experience and professional development by first providing background on my experience before the course, the practical applications of the course in my current position, and finally by addressing how the course will be...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Being an ESL teacher is not an easy task, especially if you work as a freelancer TEFL teacher online. In this case, you have to be even more organized to provide better services to your students. This blog post offers you 3 apps for digital ESL lesson plans that will save you a lot of time. I know that many teachers still prefer to write their notes and plans on paper because it's the best way to make imagination flow. However, there is a considerable disadvantage with this approach: even if you are a very organized person, in time, it becomes challenging to figure out your thoughts on scattered lesson plans. A digital planner can help you...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This is defined by Google as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry” or by Wikipedia as “the collection of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation”. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dan S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. We are in the new world of technology, almost every sector in every nation is imbibed and subjected to technology because as people say it is reliable and makes everything easier. What are the most important technological gadgets that...  [Read more]