Tips to Teach English as a Second Language
Varied Approaches of teaching ESL The demand for an English teacher abroad is gradually rising with each and every passing day. English is slowly rising to a supreme position due to its importance as a universal language.The non English speaking countries around the world are in the constant effort to upgrade their English communication skills to be at par with the rest of the world and to contribute to the economic growth of the nation.
Varied Approaches of teaching ESL This in turn is resulting in the demand for efficient EFL/ESL teachers who are competent to work in a culturally varied atmosphere and adapt themselves accordingly to teach internationally. The field of EFL/ESL teaching is not as easy as it seems. It includes a lot of efforts, methods, approaches and skills.
Listed below are some tips to teach ESL/EFL efficiently: • • • • •
Group work Reading aloud Checking understanding Pronunciation Communicating to others in English
• • • •
Guessing answers Stopping an activity Feedback Dealing with vocabulary queries • Monitoring
Listed Below Are Some Tips To Teach ESL/EFL Efficiently: • Group Work: It is good for learners to speak to each other in English and to work with another student, sometimes, rather than alone. • Reading Aloud: Apart from saving the teacher’s time, this activity allows the teacher to check pronunciations and helps them to understand better. Students tend to follow a fellow student more than they would follow a teacher.
Listed Below Are Some Tips To Teach ESL/EFL Efficiently: • Checking Understanding: It is quite vital to check on students to see if they have understood or not, because it’s unlikely for them to ask the teacher. At the end teacher need to ask the learners whether it’s clear for them or not, providing the space for them to answer. • Pronunciation: Checking on pronunciation will help the student to improve which is very important because there is a new word, they learn its’ meaning and how to use it in a sentence. If no one understands them, that’s because their pronunciation may be bad.
Listed Below Are Some Tips To Teach ESL/EFL Efficiently: • Communicating to others in English: This fosters a better learning environment for students as they tend to learn from fellow students and increases their practise time while the teacher presides over the whole activity. • Guessing answers: The students know much more than they think they know. It’s probably likely that they’ve seen or heard a word or phrase but they don’t remember it consciously. It is the teachers’ duty to get them to make a guess; the chances are that they will get it right very often. If they are put into pairs or small groups the chances are that with their combined passive knowledge they’ll get most of the answers right, though they won’t know how they did it. The rise in their confidence is half the battle won with speaking a foreign language.
Listed Below Are Some Tips To Teach ESL/EFL Efficiently: • Stopping an activity: Leave the students hanging mid-air with a high level of enthusiasm that will create a feeling of ‘want’ among them. Alternatively, don’t stop it too soon because not everyone will have had a chance to speak or guess the answers or they’ll feel cheated. • Feedback: Getting feedback from the students makes it easier for the teacher to check how they deal with the exercise. A teacher doesn’t only need to get the answer, but also checks the process involved.
Listed Below Are Some Tips To Teach ESL/EFL Efficiently: • Dealing with vocabulary queries: This can be a good way to check the progress of students. When a student asks the teacher to explain the meaning of a word, it shouldn’t be done right away. Ask other students if anyone can explain it. It is a good idea to get the students to try to guess the meaning of the word from the context where the word lies. • Monitoring: While the students are busy doing an activity, the teacher can walk slowly round the classroom and listen to their conversations. This will provide the teacher with the opportunity to hear how the students are dealing with the activity and notice their pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar points that may be causing difficulty.
Tips to teach English as a Second Language The previous mentioned points may come to the help of an English teacher with a TEFL certification in order to provide efficient ESL teaching to the non-native learners.