How can i improve myself as a teacher of English ,as a second language,?

Answer 1

First, ignore the snide idiot above. You are a teacher, not a student.


Good teachers:
• have a sense of purpose;
• have expectations of success for all students;
• tolerate ambiguity;
• demonstrate a willingness to adapt and change to meet student needs;
• are comfortable with not knowing;
• reflect on their work;
• learn from a variety of models;
• enjoy their work and their students.


Good teachers have a sense of purpose.
Students are in school for a reason. This might be to pass the exam, or to get a good job. A good teacher knows what their students need and makes lessons plans with aims and objectives that fill that need. You can't be good in a generic sense; you have to be good for something.

Good teachers have expectations of success for all students.
A good teacher will have expectations about what happens in their classroom, based on the goals they are trying to achieve. If you want to prepare your students for employment, you expect punctuality and good attendance. If you teach an exam preparation class, you spend time explaining the format of the test and helping students to improve their test-taking skills. And if you want your students to become better, more involved readers, you allow time for reading and provide access to books. A good teacher knows what the students need and tells the students what they expect from them during class time.

Good teachers know how to live with ambiguity.
One of the greatest challenges of teaching stems from the lack of immediate, accurate feedback. The student who walks out of your classroom tonight shaking his head and muttering under his breath about algebra may burst into class tomorrow proclaiming his triumph over math, and thanking you for the previous lesson. There is no way to predict precisely what the long-term results of our work will be. But if we have a sense of purpose informing our choice of strategies and materials, and we try to cultivate expectations of success for all our students, we will be less likely to dwell on that unpredictability, choosing instead to focus on what we can control, and trusting that thoughtful preparation makes good outcomes more likely than bad ones.

Good teachers adapt and change to meet student needs.
Can we really claim to have taught if no one learned? If none of our students ever pick up a book outside of the classroom, have we really taught them to be better readers? We don't always think about these issues, but they are at the heart of effective teaching. A great lesson plan and a great lesson are two entirely different things; it's nice when one follows the other, but we all know that it doesn't always work out that way. We teach so that students will learn, and when learning doesn't happen, we need to be willing to devise new strategies, think in new ways, and generally do anything possible to revive the learning process. It's wonderful to have a good methodology, but it's better to have students engaged in good learning.

Good teachers are reflective.
This may be the only infallible, absolute characteristic of all good teachers, because without it, none of the other traits we've discussed can fully mature. Good teachers routinely think about and reflect on their classes, their students, their methods, and their materials. They compare and contrast, draw parallels and distinctions, review, remove and restore. Failing to observe what happens in our classes on a daily basis disconnects us from the teaching and learning process, because it's impossible to create connectivity if you've disconnected yourself.

Good teachers are comfortable with not knowing.
If we reflect honestly and thoughtfully on what happens in our classes, we will often find dilemmas we cannot immediately resolve, questions we cannot answer. Our teaching benefits if we can live for a little while with a question, think and observe, and let an answer develop in response to the specific situation we face. In his Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that his correspondent, "try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language…. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer" (1986, pp. 34-35).

Good teachers had good role models.
Think back again to your three best teachers. How has your own teaching been shaped by their practices, consciously or unconsciously? Think also of the worst teacher you ever had. Are there things you absolutely will not do because you remember how devastating they were to you or your classmates? We learn to teach gradually, and absorb ideas and practices from a variety of sources. How many movies have you seen that include a teacher as a character, and how might those films have contributed to your practice? We are not always aware of the influences on our teaching, good and bad; reflecting on the different models of teaching we've acquired, and looking at how we acquired them, makes us better able to adapt and change to suit new challenges.

Good teachers enjoy their work and their students.
This may seem obvious, but it's easy to lose sight of its importance. Teachers who enjoy their work and their students are motivated, energized, and creative. The opposite of enjoyment is burnout-the state where no one and nothing can spark any interest. Notice, too, that enjoying your work and enjoying your students may be two different things. Focusing too much on content may make students feel extraneous, misunderstood, or left out. Focusing exclusively on students, without an eye to content, may make students feel understood and appreciated, but may not help them to achieve their educational goals as quickly as they'd like. Achieving a balance between the two extremes takes time and attention; it demands that we observe closely, evaluate carefully, and act on our findings.

Answer 2

As a teacher you are supposed to have command over written as well as spoken English and mastery in grammar.

For improving your language skills you should 'READ A LOT'. You should read newspapers, magazines, novels (and English classics also though you will find those some what difficult to understand.) daily. You must possess one good dictionary. More the words you know, richer will be your knowledge of language.
Make it a habit to mentally translate your every sentence in English . The best thing will be to think in English only.

Secondly, to improve your spoken English 'LISTEN CAREFULLY' radio / TV programmes or even English movies. Carefully note their accent and how they pronounce various words. PRACTICE speaking fluent and correct English. Keep on improving. Have confidence. Strive forever. It is not impossible. Remember, when a child is born it does not know any language. As the baby grows it picks up the language - however difficult it may be. And it keeps on improving. Be in a company of people who speak English.

Lastly, knowledge of grammar is of importance to teacher of any language. Though it is some what technical or academic one, it is a must. You have to take help of some good grammar book in this regard. Make it a habit to mentally analyse the sentences from grammatical point of view.

Best luck !

Answer 3

Here is an idea to help your students with their accents. Have them get a DVD of a modern day movie that they enjoy. (from the country you are in) Have them go to a scene that they like and listen closely to how they say their lines. Have them repeat the lines exactly how the actors do. To have some fun, have them go through the motions too! As they perfect scenes, go on to other scenes and other movies. With just a little practice, they will start sounding like a native speakers! Twenty minutes a day should be enough.

Good luck!

Answer 4

put stickers on items. a sticker on a book says "book", a shirt can have a sticker that says "shirt". Even cupboard doors, furniture, windows. Most things can hold a sticker with the english word and maybe even the language thay are used to. Use both words on the stickers or just the english version. I suggest just the english word by itself, but that's just my opinion.