How Old Do You Have To Be To Teach

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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 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]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences As a kindergarten teacher working in China I have a lot of experience dealing with students, fellow teachers; Chinese and foreign, management and parents. A few years ago I came to China to learn Chinese. To pay for my living expenses I started teaching young learners. Pretty soon I got a full-time job in a kindergarten and I fell in love with the work and I decided to stay in China and keep teaching. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Paul E. One of the first problems I faced was of course the language barrier. In the schools I’ve worked at so far not many people speak English; especially the schools’ management. It’s always quite a task to find out what is expected of you. In China don’t...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore TEFL Information Alumni Experiences This is a question I’ve asked myself. I'm looking at it from the point of view of an established foreign language teacher. For years, I’ve been thinking about learning to teach English as a foreign language. I’ve wanted to teach more than just French, so I could find more work, and because TEFL appealed to me. As a French teacher—which is a foreign language, of course—my thought was that I already knew how to teach a foreign language. At times I was even thinking, “Why do I need a course? Shouldn’t I just be able to jump into teaching ESL without additional schooling?” I tried not to be naive in thinking “I could just take all the French teaching and do it in...  [Read more]

Carrie Kellenberger Visa and Legal TEFL Information Learning how to answer common questions in an ESL interview is easy if you’ve researched and prepared in advance, even if you’ve never had a formal job interview before. Before we head into answering the top 15 most asked questions in a TEFL interview, there are a few things to check off your to-do list before interviewing: 1. Tell me a little about yourself. This is an icebreaker question that gives you the opportunity to sell yourself. Be positive and tell the interviewer about your good points, especially the parts of your personality that make you a good teacher. Explain why you are interested in moving abroad to teach and focus on the care and attention you will give...  [Read more]

Francesca Marchi Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas What do you imagine there may be behind a group of old learners? Well, whatever comes to your mind, I can tell you it sounds like having an extended family that warms you up and makes you feel at home. Older students could be like loving grand-parents, great-uncles or great-aunts, and apart from relatives, caring neighbors and dearest friends. Actually, you may find out they are active pensioners, retired teachers or scholars, culture lovers, as well as humble workers without school-leaving certificates and, above all, passionate people and happy learners: these are senior students. In the following lines, I'm going to share my classroom experience with you. Join me to the end...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Being a teacher, you should know that children learn language differently from adults. Although grammar does play an important role in language learning- especially in the early stage of the process where a new language can seem very contradictory, lacking structure and rules and disorganized where grammar teaching comes into its own. So I think we should find “how to teach grammar for young learners?” This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Hien N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The children can imitate very quickly. With me when we teach grammar for young learners, we must make them funny and feel comfortable. There is a more...  [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 There are millions of English teachers out there and how do we know if they are teacher material or not. We don’t. Because every single person in this world has its own unique qualities that are lovable by someone. However, there are certain qualities that are needed if you are an English teacher, but they are just my own opinion. Besides you should be able to teach English in English, I think patience is the most important quality a teacher should have. You will experience from the most annoying kid to the most unreasonable adult. How can you handle them without causing a scene? Patience is all you need. Sometimes all you need to do is to talk to them patiently and not lose your temper. You will find it...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The purpose of flashcards is rather simple and mundane; we use flashcards to introduce and review vocabulary or concepts. My first language teacher said, “The only way to learn a foreign language is repetition, repetition, repetition.” Can’t argue with that. Unfortunately, it can be really… repetitious and boring. But, if you watch children playing, they’ll show you how to make it fun. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Thuy N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Here is my list of 41 Flash Card Activities. If you have an activity, not on this list, leave me a comment below! I’d love to hear how you use flashcards in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences When I was younger, I had a dog that played fetch, walked to the park, and learned new tricks with me. Over time, we created a bond that was irreplaceable and unconditional. One day my dog passed away and three weeks later, my family and I decided to get a new dog. This new dog was friendly at first but hardly wanted to learn anything new. However, I was quite distant from the new dog, to begin with, because I always thought about the good times I had with my previous dog. Afterward, I realized that I needed to move on and create a new bond which I then remembered how my previous dog and I became best friends and how we both learned from each other. It was a high relaxed positive energy, spending a good amount...  [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 Children going wild, shouting "O McDonald had a farm, eya eya oh, and a quack-quack here... and a...", chairs moving up and down the classroom, lights on and off, if you were in this situation, what would you do? I have seen Teachers crying and running out of the classroom, only to come back to find no one is in the classroom, where have they gone? Classroom Management is a vital skill that every teacher should have; a teacher without Classroom Management should not even teach. So where do we start? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Justin H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. You know that in the Teachers' Education curriculum,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Over the years I have pondered whether or not to try and teach English as a career. Watching countless online videos and reading travel blogs of 'wandering teachers' and articles on sites such as ' Dave's ESL Café, I sort of got mixed emotions about ESL teachers. That is of course until I took the chance and became one myself. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Leon G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In the two years of being a teacher I have certainly learned a lot, I've experienced extreme highs and extreme lows in a country where basic English is a rare find. With no prior experience or knowledge of how to educate, my...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Are games in a classroom a good idea? There seem to be two trains of thought regarding this. Games in the classroom can be seen as being a good thing and also seen as a time-waster and something that shouldn't be used at school once a student is out of the early years of elementary school. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandie K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. At the school, I currently work at, and with some of the schools previously, there are several native to Japan teachers who will get angry when they find out the students have played games in my English class. I have been told that it is a waste of time, something...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Through my experience teaching in both a classroom setting and in a less formal setting, for example, teaching swim lessons, I have noticed that age affects how you are teaching materials. Using the swim lessons example, teaching a five-year-old how to swim will be much different from teaching an adult how to swim. You will use different techniques and be required to have a different approach. This is the same as teaching English as a Second Language. Teaching children a foreign language and teaching adults a foreign language will require different skills and energy. Throughout one's teaching career, teachers will likely have to balance between teaching children and teaching adults. Throughout this essay, I will...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Children are the future, our future, the generation that will take the world, and all it encompasses the next age of the world; whatever that may be. Children are the future. This phrase is repeated all around the world, in different countries, continents, and even across the vast array of cultures that exist on planet Earth. One would be hard-pressed to find any one person who would disagree with this statement. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nisaa S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. What, then, do we do about this? We educate them, we teach them all we know, share all the knowledge and information that we have accumulated...  [Read more]

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Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching is a very enjoyable job and can also be highly rewarding. I had the opportunity to learn that by having an eighteen-month religious experience in which I shared all my beliefs with the people in Ecuador. Even though it wasn’t a job I gave it my full commitment and that might be why I gained so much knowledge and life lessons from it. After returning home, I realized that I wanted to keep having that feeling in my life. I wanted to teach people. Now, the question was what to teach. After talking to some of my close family members and friends, I remembered an old dream that I had when I was younger: Being an English teacher. I started having a passion for this language since elementary school or maybe...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas By the time a child is a year old, they can differentiate between the sounds that make up their first language but can’t distinguish between sounds that aren’t found in their first language. Even in the case of sounds that children may not be able to correctly produce until they are six years old, such as the /r/ sound. So, it would make sense that by the time a child is just a year old the way they learn language changes, as stated in Dr. Ryalls’ class. Further on when a child is finally in school they have some grasp of grammar, even if it isn’t complete by the time the child is school-aged. This means that by the time a child is in school when they would most likely start learning a language, they...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Establishing rapport with your students can be quite tricky. With all of the information online about teaching methods, testing and teaching effectiveness, rapport is often left out. Many times the relationship between the teacher and the student becomes just that. The teachers teach and the student is supposed to learn. In theory, this should work just fine but every person is different and they learn in different ways. We as teachers need to be able to create the best environment for these students to learn and feel that the teacher cares as much about what the student is learning as the student feels about what they are learning. Many universities have class sizes so large that the student feels like they...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I'm pleased to say that I could teach or lead a class to learn English as a foreign language, challenging and rewarding. I have little experience tutoring adults in learning English. My studies learning what could be ahead for a teacher looking to lead a class in English was so rewarding. The challenge to get the students to engage in activities is a top priority for the teacher. I'll have to develop and practice proven ways to present to the class a lesson where the students may absorb the English language and will stay with them for the rest of their life. I had to give some thought about what I would write for my Essay and how I would present this topic, so I'm happy to be able to present flashcards for...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences I chose to take a TEFL course to make me more professional. I am an English teacher and I teach young kids from the age of 4 to 12 in China. I have been teaching kids for around 7 years. I was teaching kids from Grade 1 to Grade 5 in a public primary school in China. Now I teach young kids in a language training center. Teaching in a Chinese public school is totally different to teaching in a private training center. In a public school, what the teacher does everyday is giving the questionnaire to the students and have them complete as many questionnaires as possible. The goal is for students to remember the grammar rules and know how to give correct answers so that they can do well in their tests. So in a public...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Prior to starting a class, an English teacher needs to take into consideration many parameters. How many students will I have to teach? How old are they? What are their levels? What knowledge did they already acquire in terms of vocabulary and grammar? What are their nationalities? In this blog post, we are going to focus on the problems that an English teacher can encounter when teaching to students of different nationalities and cultures. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Manon L. First of all, it is important to define what a monolingual class and a multilingual class are. Monolingual students are students who all have the same native language. For example, teaching English to Thai...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore TEFL Information I founded an English training center in China in 2017 and have been teaching a wide variety of English classes since then. I teach both one-to-one and groups, and I find them to be very different. Prospective TEFL teachers may want to consider: which kind of class fits you best? Below I would like to compare my experiences in teaching and managing these two types of class, and also give some suggestions for prospective TEFL teachers to make a realistic choice. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Yan Z. The first difference, obviously, is the class size, which decides your budget. When teaching one student, a single room of 10-20 square meters big would be enough. A group class will require at least 30 square...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching English to beginners is a challenge for new and experienced ESL teachers. Although with proper planning, materials, getting the students engaged and motivated in the lessons can make teaching English to beginners fun and rewarding especially when your students start to get the hang of it. It’s a great feeling to see them move from having absolutely no knowledge of English to be able to speak basic English. A few things to think about. Talking a lot is just going to waste your time and leave you frustrated. Two keep your lessons fun with as much talk time as possible for the students, allowing them to practice what they are learning in a fun environment. Always praise your students, a student who thinks...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas English is not the native language of those who begin to learn English. For children in Vietnam as a country using English as a second language, learning English grammar is difficult for children to learn. So how to teach children grammar effectively and children remember and use it most naturally. Young children have a habit of imitating and following quickly and not selectively, so if we understand this point, we should teach them how to develop naturally. There are many ways to teach grammar to children. Here are some ways I recommend when teaching grammar to children. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Le N. Please...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas We live in a community where we can have everything we desire with one click, with one single device, on one single screen, we can see the infinitive things the whole world has to offer, and we do not even need to stand up from our sofa to get whatever we want. We live in a world that makes us believe that what we have is never enough; we are always seeking what is not in our house, what is not in our bag, what is not in our garden; human beings are so overwhelmed with a constant creation of any imaginable thing, there is such an overproduction that not even in a thousand years we would be able to benefit and make a true usage of everything...  [Read more]

  Akira took the 120-hr online TEFL course with tutor support and videos from ITTT. In this TEFL review video he talks about what he learned on the course, including better ways to plan his lessons and activities he can use in his classes. ITTT's TEFL/TESOL courses are not only well suited for students who have never taught before but are also a great way to refresh old skills for working teachers. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Today's...  [Read more]