1. Your students (usually) want you to succeed.
In my very first teaching job in Italy, I had a dreadful experience. Do you remember the ‘make a piece of paper into a ball, throw the ball and the beginner student catches it and says their name’ activity? I can see the young woman's face now. She let the piece of paper hit the floor and looked at me with such chilling pity in her eyes. I had no idea what to do. But the rest of the students took over and made it very clear to her that she ought to pick up the ball, say her name and throw it back to me. And she did. They had my back, and they usually do.
2. Be ready to show some of your weaknesses and a pinch of human frailty.
I think a lot of students think teachers come from another planet. But suppose you're an EFL teacher who has learned English from scratch, or English is your native language and you're learning another language, possibly your students’ home language. In that case, it can be tremendously reassuring for learners to understand that you too had problems either with learning English or with their language. They realise it's not just them, but it's also you. Be prepared to share little snippets of language learning difficulties with the students, but not of course to the extent that they see you as a bumbling failure with languages.
3. Course books are not carved in stone.
The orthodoxy around advice to new teachers is not to deviate from the course books in your first year of teaching. I'm not sure that's good advice. If you see something that in terms of topic, for example, will just not be of interest to them, change it, find something else and fiddle around with the tasks to suit it. It's not difficult with the Internet or (holding my nose) AI.
Of course, replacing a whole reading text is quite a big ask for a new teacher, but if the choice is an okayish comprehension activity around a text the learners really want to engage with, or a great activity around a text they find as exciting as watching paint dry, I know which I’d prefer.
And if the school management don't know about it, they don't have to worry about it.
4. Never be afraid to ask. There are no stupid questions. Well, one or two maybe, but…. .
I was a very overconfident new teacher. I knew everything. As a result, a number of my classes were complete carnage, because I didn't have the humility to ask the Director of Studies for help. If you aren’t sure about something, ask. You kind of owe it to your students.
5. Try to understand your students’ motivations as quickly as possible.
Sometimes it’s easy to assume that your learners are homogeneous, not just in terms of language level, but in terms of aspirations and hopes for English. Even in a school setting where English is perhaps a compulsory subject, everybody has different reasons, different attitudes towards English and different things that they might want to achieve in life and English. Try to find out about this - do it in the first language if you have to. It's invaluable information.
6. Never underestimate how stressed or anxious students might be.
Particularly with adults, but also with teenagers, learning a language requiring as it generally does some degree of public performance, can be an extraordinarily stressful thing to do. Don't ever forget that. And don't forget the hidden relationships between learners, and that there is often a little voice in the back of students’ heads telling them they will be teased or laughed at in class. Group them well, be gentle, and jump on any bullies.
7. Dispel the idea of the ‘sound like a native’ goal.
The idea of a group of insert name of non-native English-speaking country students ever sounding as if they were born in LA, Glasgow or Sydney is unachievable nonsense. Undesirable, even. And anyway, what do native speakers sound like? Learning aspirations should perhaps better revolve around comprehensibility and comprehension. Getting things done in the language, that's what matters. The first school I taught in had a life-sized cardboard Beefeater in one corner, and that’s scarred me forever. Hopefully, that kind of stuff doesn’t go on any more. It’s a global language, remember.
8. Most of your students will probably never speak English to a native speaker.
Whether or not the course book does it, do your best to expose your learners to as many different accents in English as possible. And that means accents from so-called non-native speakers too. Anyone that ever says to you that only native speakers should be used as a model, should be referred to point 7 above.
9. Being able to construct a perfect third conditional in class has nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to communicate in English.
My early teaching jobs (a fair few years ago if I’m honest with you) seemed to revolve around endless written grammar manipulation exercises. Why students didn’t die of boredom is not clear to me. I used to be delighted when one of them got the form correct. I now realise this had zero positive impact on their ability to communicate in English on a day-to-day basis.
10. Reflection Reflection Reflection.
Show your students how to reflect, and do it yourself. That moment of silence, looking back at a part of a lesson or a series of lessons, in my view, is where a lot of learning happens. Where things are pieced together. Where connections are made. Where things that might otherwise have been forgotten are filed away for future reference.
This piece is called ‘A Foreign Country’ after a quote from the 1953 L P Hartley novel ‘The Go-Between’. The opening line is “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”. A nice sentiment to have in mind as you look back at your own teaching perhaps.
About Christopher Graham
Christopher is the current Vice President of IATEFL. You can read an interview with him from earlier this year here.
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