A traditional classroom has mostly seen a stern authoritative teacher with a blackboard and chalk teaching a class full of kids. However, within the ESL industry the scene is completely different. The clientele of a TEFL can be of any age – 8 to 80 or even beyond. A lot of tricks and tactics are involved when a teacher has to teach students out of which some of them are even older to him/her. Many factors require special care in such occasions like respect, way of talking and ensuring that no one is being patronized.
Here are a few things that can be looked upon while teaching EFL to adults.
• Often the teacher is quite younger than the students and hence it is important for the teacher to find topics for the class that will interest the students. For instance if the topic of the class is “Aspects of modern youth culture”, this might not cast any impact on the students falling under the age bracket of fifty and more.
• Be passionate with what you are teaching in your language class as this requires a lot of class involvement. When you are teaching a set of mature folks they can immediately sense if you yourself are interested with the class and in case they find it otherwise, they themselves get a switch off.
• Adults often are not aware of proper classroom protocol for they have been away from school or college atmosphere for quite a long time. So, it is extremely important to encourage them for asking questions. In this way, you will be able to keep them on track.
• The secret of a successful teacher is to keep his/her students engaged. They often get tempted to focus only on the active participants of the class but it is essential to include everyone in the class and one who can do it efficaciously ends up properly teaching something or the other at the end of every session.
• Distributional practice is another important aspect of adult teaching sessions. Ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak of their skills; come up with innovative ideas that will keep everyone involved throughout the class.
Read More : Explore the Best of Koh Samui while Pursuing TEFL Course
• Smile always helps connect a teacher to the students bringing them closer to each other. Teaching styles have evolved over years and your adult students might have pictures of strict people as teachers in their minds. Thus, showing a pleasant face will definitely radiate more ease and relaxation around.
• Everyone has specific ways of learning and adults are also no different. Visual learning is the most common form across age groups; however, there can be other styles as well. Do your part of research to come up with the most functional ones.
• As a teacher you need to rectify the errors committed by your students. With adult students sometimes the task is a bit difficult but you anyway have to do it. Just be a little diplomatic while pointing out their errors and try to use rounded statements like “That was a good sentence but… Can you think of a way of improving it?” or something closer.
• Quite a lot of teachers, especially the ones on the initial days of their career go to a class with a well chalked plan. Nonetheless, sometimes the class will not go just the way you have planned and you need to be flexible with the constantly changing topics. At the end of the day what is important is that the students are speaking English.
• Smile always helps connect a teacher to the students bringing them closer to each other. Teaching styles have evolved over years and your adult students might have pictures of strict people as teachers in their minds. Thus, showing a pleasant face will definitely radiate more ease and relaxation around.
• Everyone has specific ways of learning and adults are also no different. Visual learning is the most common form across age groups; however, there can be other styles as well. Do your part of research to come up with the most functional ones.
• As a teacher you need to rectify the errors committed by your students. With adult students sometimes the task is a bit difficult but you anyway have to do it. Just be a little diplomatic while pointing out their errors and try to use rounded statements like “That was a good sentence but… Can you think of a way of improving it?” or something closer.
• Quite a lot of teachers, especially the ones on the initial days of their career go to a class with a well chalked plan. Nonetheless, sometimes the class will not go just the way you have planned and you need to be flexible with the constantly changing topics. At the end of the day what is important is that the students are speaking English.
Its really great and interesting blog which is knowledgeable. Thanks for sharing this inspirational blog.
ReplyDeleteEnglish Teaching Jobs Asia
Teach in Asia