It can be incredibly nerve-wracking and daunting to teach others. However, it would help if you didn't worry - teaching a language will quickly become one of the most gratifying experiences you can ever have.
Here are 10 Things Teachers Should Do To Prepare For Their Language Lesson:
Prepare Yourself Mentally Before Your Language Lesson
The most basic type of preparation is mental preparation, which should come before any actual preparation for the lessons. Rest and reorganize your household obligations to mentally prepare for the upcoming language lessons you will be teaching. In addition, prioritizing time for yourself and your family might help you refocus on the road ahead.
You are now ready for some teaching preparation after having some "me" time and family time. However, daily success in the classroom is contingent on your ability to organize and prepare and an awareness of the professional teaching standards that will guide your preparation and produce positive teaching outcomes
Pre-Language Class Preparation
What does it mean to come to class prepared? Professors have an easier time answering this question because, while challenging to attain, the criteria for a successful lecture are simple to define.
A specific type of preparation is required for each section or lesson in which you want students to act on, think about, critique, or practice utilizing content. The most apparent and significant distinction is that a language lesson can only succeed if everyone is prepared, not just you. As a result, you should focus on your students' preparation and learning.
You may be teaching unnecessary information or including irrelevant exercises during the lessons. Removing these inessential portions of your lessons allows your lessons to become more effective.
Ensure Your First Language Lesson Is Engaging
It's all too simple to muck up your first lessons and make them boring with monotonous introductions and run-throughs of the curriculum. However, don't fall into the trap of wasting an hour talking your students to sleep - Your students will want the lesson to end quickly as it is not engaging. Instead, make sure you develop an engaging lesson plan for your students - including activities to stimulate their minds, such as pair work if you are teaching them in groups.
Ensure that you manage your time wisely and prepare all your supplies before the lesson. Utilize resources that aim to make lessons more interesting - If you have media, photographs, or props related to the lesson that you can bring in, use them.
The main goal here is for your lessons to be so memorable and fun that your students always look forward to their following lessons.
Develop Your Personal Language Teaching Style
To support language lesson ideas and the growth of your teaching style, you should begin to save and explore internet resources and sites that you like. You may just be hit with a sudden burst of inspiration that brings about growth in developing your teaching style. There are many different websites, articles, blogs, and teacher groups online tailored to your field of study. This will allow you to converse with other professionals in the teaching industry so that you can learn from their experiences.
Be selective of the sites and resources you view to use for your lessons since there are thousands of fantastic resources online. Choose what works best for you and tailor your language lessons to your teaching style.
Investing in a planner could also turn out to be highly beneficial for meetings, general lesson preparation, class schedules, and any other activities you participate in. Of course, a comfortable bag for your general supplies, such as pens, paper, and markers, would be handy too. But all in all, the most important thing to do is to develop your teaching style to teach without feeling uncomfortable.
Design Your Own Syllabus & Lesson Plan
Understanding your students' needs and personalities is the first step to creating a successful language lesson course. First, take some time to think about what you want them to learn during their dedicated language learning time. Next, determine how you'll assess your students' abilities to learn the language - Are you teaching English as a second language to a beginner, or are you providing language tuition to a native speaker? Then, to assist their learning, develop engaging activities, and assignments, and provide resources to further pique their curiosity in learning the language.
The syllabus will serve as a common reference point for you and your students, setting the pacing for the lessons throughout the course.
Regardless of how long a class is, what it covers, or how advanced it is, a systematic approach can help you design and structure your lessons and syllabus to meet your instructional objectives.
Have A Lesson Itinerary
After figuring out your objectives for a particular lesson, you can then start preparing what to teach during the lesson. For example, after reading a passage, many teachers ask their students terrible questions. Take this question as an example - "So, what did you think of the passage?" - Questions like this are usually ineffective, and students often do not know how to answer.
Unless the assigned reading were particularly interesting or controversial, such questions would be met with groans, sighs, and brains shutting down.
Teaching a language to someone who has no prior experience or just basic understanding takes time and patience. If it were your first time working out, would you immediately head to the treadmill and start a 4km sprint? I highly doubt so. Consider teaching in the same light - Whatever the lesson objectives are, it is critical to go forward slowly and wisely, rather than sprinting foolishly to the finish line.
Include Show & Tells In Your Language Lessons
One of the essential steps to successfully teach a new language to beginners is to show, not tell, in the classroom. Students will better understand what you are trying to say if you use visual cues rather than spill words in their direction.
What does this mean exactly? Instead of saying, "Let's learn the passive tense", teach a language by giving clear examples of the language structure with simple drawings, pictures, short skits, and exaggerated gestures.
One of the best games to teach a language through show & tell is Charades. It can be used as a warm-up or to practice a language with any age group as it requires lots of gestures and speaking and engages your students.
Do Not Give Up
Many language teachers spend hours reading through their lesson plans to perfect them. However, that only adds to your stress and causes you to second guess your plans. Get up and practice your lesson instead. To be successful, you'll need to practice teaching others.
Start practising teaching, whether to yourself or to your friends and family. Move about the classroom and get used to the environment. Anticipate all possible outcomes if anything unexpected were to happen.
If you are still feeling uneasy, nervous, and afraid before your lesson, then keep practising! Video yourself to monitor your behaviour and see what you can improve on. Always keep in mind not to be so harsh on yourself.
After every lesson, reassess your performance to see which teaching styles caused your students to react better and which ones didn't. Then practice again until you are comfortable with teaching.
Build Rapport With Your Students
It is important to remember that good language teaching and learning is done with students, not to them. "We cannot teach children something we do not know," stated educator and author Rick Wormelli, who is most recognized for his best practices in individualized teaching.
When students believe their teachers understand them, they feel most connected. The links between emotions and thinking are the foundation of positive teacher-student relationships.
Don’t Skip On Humor
Don't lose your sense of humour while going through lessons. Instead, maintain a cheerful attitude and crack a joke or two to lighten the atmosphere and put your students at ease. Joking also helps to bring their attention back to the lesson and you.
If you believe you have made a mistake during the lesson, reassess it, learn from it, and don't get too upset about it. You will not lose the respect of your students unless you lose your composure and dignity. Reflect on your mistakes, and know that you are prepared, even in the face of hardship. You have already accomplished something significant by reaching this point. Learn from your mistakes and move on.
And there you go! Ten things teachers should do to prepare for their language lesson. Teaching a language can be very simple and fun!
TUTOROO shall leave you with a quote by Dr. Berry that might help you out on this language teaching journey: "Every day is a new opportunity to do your best. Leave the past behind you and create a new success in each subsequent encounter.".
Looking for lessons or want to teach online?
Are you looking to teach English online? Here at TUTOROO, you can teach English at your convenience, from anywhere in the world.
With our extensive student database, TUTOROO helps kickstart your online teacher career by connecting you with thousands of potential students. In addition, TUTOROO coordinates and facilitates the entire recruitment process, pairing suitable candidates to tutors and doing all the hard work for you. The only thing that our tutors have to do is to accept or decline the teaching offer.
Join TUTOROO today to start teaching!
Are you a student looking for English tutoring or tuition from fluent or native English tutors to learn English online? You're in luck! With TUTOROO, you no longer have to search "English tutors near me" on Google blindly - TUTOROO offers an easy search system with hundreds of private tutors to choose from around the world - Looking for online home tutors from Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, and other countries is as simple as one click away!
Having English as a second language is universally applicable; Start your journey to improving on or learning a new language with TUTOROO's online private English teachers today!