How to be an Effective EFL Teacher
1. Learn your students' names.
This cannot be overemphasized. You will be able to control your class better and gain more respect if you learn the students' names early on. If you are one who has a poor memory for names, have all the students hold up name cards and take a picture of them on the first day of class. On the second class, impress them by showing them you know all their names.
2. Establish authority from the beginning.
Expect your students to use English 100% of the time, and accept it if they only achieve 95% usage. Do not let them get away with speaking their mother tongue to communicate with their partner. Deal quickly with inappropriate conduct in a friendly yet firm manner.
3. Be overly prepared.
If you don't have a clear lesson-plan down on paper, then make sure you have a mental one. You should know about how long each activity will take and have an additional activity prepared in case you have extra time.
4. Always consider the learners' needs when preparing for each lesson.
Why are your students studying English? How will they use English in the future? What do they need to learn? If many of the students are going to work abroad, for example, then the teacher should be preparing them to be able to communicate at work. Answer the phone, meetings etc.
5. Be prepared to make changes to your lesson plan.
If the lesson you have prepared just isn't working, don't be afraid to modify it. Be sensitive to the students--don't forge ahead with something that is bound for disaster.
6. Find out what learners already know.
This is an ongoing process. Students may have already been taught a particular grammar point or vocabulary.
7. Be knowledgeable about grammar.
This includes pronunciation, syntax, and sociolinguistic areas. You don't have to be a linguist to teach EFL--most of what you need to know can be learned from reading the students' textbooks. Often the rules and explanations about structure in the students' texts are much more accessible and realistic than in texts used in TESL syntax courses.
8. Be knowledgeable about the learners' culture.
In monolingual classrooms the learners' culture can be a valuable tool for teaching.
9. Don't assume that your class textbook has the language that your students need or want to learn.
Most textbooks follow a good syllabus and have some good activates and plans. They are certainly a useful tool for the teacher though if you use it exclusively then students will be bored. That’s why it’s important to bring your course book alive. See what grammar/function the book wants to cover and see if you can make a fun activity for it. It is the teacher's responsibility to add any extra necessary vocabulary, functions, grammar, or topics that you feel the students may want or need.
10. Don't assume (falsely) that the class textbook will work.
Some activities in EFL textbooks fall apart completely in real classroom usage. It all depends on your students, how they like to learn, what they need etc. Many activities must be modified to make them work, and some have to be scrapped completely.
11. Choose your class textbooks very carefully.
Choose a textbook that is truly communicative and meets the needs of your students.
12. Don't neglect useful vocabulary teaching.
The building blocks of language are not grammar and functions. The most essential thing students need to learn is vocabulary; without vocabulary you have no words to form syntax, no words to pronounce. Help your students to become vocabulary hungry.
13. Proceed from more controlled activities to less controlled ones.
Yes, so you can check they are on the right track before letting go of the reins.
14. Don't neglect the teaching of listening.
It is the opinion of many ESL experts that listening is the most important skill to teach your students. While listening to each other and to the teacher will improve their overall listening ability, this can be no substitute for listening to authentic English. As much as possible, try to expose your students to authentic English in a variety of situations. The best way to do this and the most realistic is through videos. Listening to audio cassettes in the classroom can improve listening ability, but videos are much more motivating and culturally loaded.
15. Turn regular activities into games.
Many familiar teaching points can be turned into games, or activities with a fun angle. A sure way to motivate students and liven up your classroom.
16. Motivate your students with variety.
By giving a variety of interesting topics and activities, students will be more motivated and interested, and they are likely to practice more. With more on-task time they will improve more rapidly.
17. Show interest in the students as individuals.
Treat students as individuals, not subjects. Don't patronise or talk down to them; talk to them as you would any other person. Only in this way will true communication take place.
18. Allow time for free communication.
For speaking this would mean allowing time for free conversation, for writing doing freewriting, for reading allowing time for extensive pleasure reading, and for listening, listening for entertainment sake.
19. Use humour to liven up the class.
Make it a habit to get the students to laugh at least once per lesson.
20. Circulate.
Move about the classroom. At times sit with groups and monitor, as well as joining in on the communication. At times walk about, listen and observe.
21. Make your instructions short and clear.
Demonstrate rather than explaining whenever possible.
22. Speak up, but don't break anyone's eardrum.
If the students can't hear you, you are wasting your breath. Not as bad, but still annoying is the teacher who thinks s/he must speak louder to be comprehended. Research has already proven this to be false.
23. Don't talk too much.
Depending on the subject, you should be talking from about 5% to 30% of the lesson. For speaking or writing, more than 10-15% would probably be too much. Most lessons should be student-centred, not teacher-centred.
24. Don't talk too slow.
How do you expect your students to understand real English if you don't speak at a fairly natural speed? Oversimplified and affected speech will hurt your students in the long run. Shoot for moderate complexity and more repetition if needed.
25. Be sensitive to your students.
Watch their faces and reactions. Do they understand you? Are they interested or bored? Try to be aware of what is going on in your classroom at all times. If you are starting class and one student is still talking, try to gently get him/her to stop. If you are sitting with a pair of students on one side of the room, try to be attentive to what is happening in other groups as well. There may be a group across the room that is confused and doesn't know what to do.
26. Don't be a psychiatrist.
Shy, introverted students are not going to change their personalities overnight in order to learn English. Give these students opportunities to talk in small groups, but don't expect them to shout out answers in front of the whole class.
27. Respect both "slow" and "fast" learners.
Language learning is not about intelligence; the important thing to stress is that the students are improving.
28. Don't lose your cool.
If you do, you will lose hard-won respect. Even if you have to go so far as to leave the classroom, do it in a controlled manner, explaining to the class or student why you are unhappy with them.
29. Be frank.
Praise your students when they are getting better, and encourage them when they are not doing as well as they can.
30. Be a coach.
At times you must be more of a coach than a teacher. Push the students to write those few extra lines, to get into their groups faster, to extend their conversations.
31. Be fair and realistic in testing.
Teach first and then test; don't test things that haven't been taught.
32. Don't overcorrect.
For example, when correcting a narrative composition at low-intermediate level, it doesn't make much sense to correct mistakes with relative clauses. Likewise, if your class is practicing simple past tense, don't correct article usage at the same time. If you think a student can correct their own mistake, don't supply the correction for them, rather allow for some self-monitoring.
33. Be reflective.
Think about your own teaching. After each lesson is over take some time to reflect. Was the lesson effective? What were the good and bad points? How could it be improved?
34. Keep in shape.
EFL teachers don't have to become jaded with teaching. Get into it. Look at new coursebooks and teacher training books to get new ideas. Share your ideas with colleagues. Go to conferences.
35. Laugh at yourself sometimes.
There are those times when nothing goes right despite our best intentions. We must be humble enough to admit to ourselves and to our students that we just messed up.