It is hard to learn any language other than your mother tongue. It is easier to learn something than to impart that learning to others. In Indian society, a person who knows how to speak English is hailed as a remarkable person, and that makes the job of English teachers more challenging when teaching English in the classroom.
Here, we will discuss six steps to improve English teaching skills:
1. Pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar skills:
It is obvious to say that once you start working as an English teacher, you must improve your language skills. Furthermore, your students need to trust your grammar skills and be able to understand what you want to convey. Just like a parrot, students will copy your pronunciation. If students have learned wrong pronunciation, it is hard to unlearn it, and the same goes for vocabulary and grammar. Teachers should be confident in their grammar when speaking in English because it will affect the other party if they listen to incorrect sentence formation or grammar. A strong vocabulary helps when writing or explaining something on the blackboard.
2. Skills and confidence to impart exciting and motivating lessons to students:
Teachers are almost like actors. They must wear masks and present a show to their students to keep classes interesting. Whatever a teacher does, they must be confident when delivering to students. Last but not least, it is important to keep motivating students every once in a while. Positive motivation works better than negative motivation.
3. Develop your teaching materials:
If you want to be a popular teacher among your students, then look beyond the textbook and start preparing teaching materials for your weekly lesson plans. Making teaching materials will keep you and your students motivated for classroom lessons. It also enriches creativity among students to learn from different teaching materials, making the classroom more engaging.
4. Assessment skills:
A good English teacher is exceptionally skilled at assessing their students. Assessment helps teachers identify students’ progress, strengths and weaknesses. Later, teachers can develop plans to tackle students’ problems and fill gaps in their knowledge to help them improve. It is also vital to monitor slow-learning students regularly and keep the cycle of assessments going on to allow students to thoroughly practice what the teacher has taught.
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5. Reflect on your practice and micro-teaching:
Good teachers are like a bottle of old wine; they keep improving throughout their careers. These teachers make errors on the first attempt and correct them on the second attempt. It is also possible for new English teachers to improve tremendously through micro-teaching training. Micro-teaching techniques are an innovative training where a teacher trainee or a regular teacher conducts a class for a small group of students for a short amount of time. In this method, the observer of the class will point out areas of improvement in their feedback at the end to work on in the next session. Implementing such practices yields excellent results in a short amount of time for new English teachers.Â
6. Mastery of your subject:
If an English teacher from an English medium school teaches other subjects such as Math, Science, Social Science, etc., then the English teacher needs to enthuse students with their vocabulary to help them learn more. Any subject teacher must have a thorough knowledge of their subjects to handle any student asking any random question. It also helps teachers build rapport among their peers and students.
Many teachers have recognized that having a high level of English can greatly help them advance their careers in the education field and bring more opportunities. Data shows that 1/3rd of the world’s population can speak or understand English, and millions of other people are trying to learn English. Now is the best time to learn and improve English and make a great career.