Job Discussion Forums

melilly · Joined: 21 May 2008 Posts: 44

What do you actually do as an EFL teacher?

What skills do you bring to the classroom?

What personal qualities do you have?

Here's my view:

* At least 50% of what I do is having the ability to smile a genuine smile of warmth and acceptance. Friendliness is a cornerstone of teaching. Being a friendly person comes from happiness within, from liking my job, and from enjoying the time I spend with my students.

It comes from feeling fortunate to be doing what I'm doing for a living. I don't think it matters how I got here; I'm here, and I'm thankful to have a job that I like that gives me a flexible schedule and a monthly salary/income that provides my wife and I with a lifestyle we're quite content with.

Along with this I need patience, compassion, and understanding. Communication skills play a very important role here. I must know when to listen and when to speak. These are basic skills that everyone can develop. It's NOT about fake smiles and feigned enthusiasm. It's about sincerity and geniuneness.

Since I'm not motivated by money, this is easier to do. It's not easy ALL the time, but when I slip and make misakes, I learn and move on.

Since I speak and listen to people directly, and interact and communicate with them in real time, you could say it's important to have people skills. It's a generic term, and quite broad, but I think it's true, the most important skills and abilities of an EFL teacher fall into this category.

Sure, this sounds simplistic, but that's my point: being an EFL teacher takes basic and easily-developed skills and techniques. If you're a true people person, you're half way there.

* The other 50% is about the nuts and bolts, the techniques, principles, methods, foundations, what have you, of EFL teaching and training. Again, with a little effort and enthusiasm, this stuff can be easily learned.

So, what I do as an EFL teacher involves skills and abilities that most people can learn, develop, and do well. Of course, learning is a key. I'm always learning how to be a better teacher, and this comes mainly from learning how to be a better person. Smiling is also a key. There are many keys, but a real smile may be the greatest teacher technique of them all.

As the saying goes, "Smile, and the world will smile back at you."

And now, my esteemed colleagues, as another saying goes, "Fire away! Razz

Poster's Note: Double and triple quoting on this thread strictly prohibited. Laughing

GeminiTiger · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:29 am Post subject:

Before anyone jumps in here and cries about how bad teaching/China is, I would like to say that I think you covered it quite well.

mandu · Joined: 29 Jul 2004 Posts: 794 Location: china

I get to work on time,prepare well for my classes,work hard
i care about the children i teach
i get on well with the teachers i work with
i dont try and be someone Iam not
I have fun
Iam good at my job
iam a teacher caregiver brother father friend all rolled into one

shuize · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 1270

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is the easiest job I've ever had. Show up on time and don't be an asshat and you are already a step ahead of the majority of people who think it's, like, really hard, man.

As noted above, if you can show your students you give a sh`t about them and will do your best to try and teach them something new every day you are well ahead of 90% of the "teachers" in this field.

Of course, I'm just a bit cynical these days, so take my comments with a grain of salt. Now I'm going to refill my drink.

Lobster · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject:

I am completely motivated by money.

Red

un · Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Posts: 670 Location: on-line china

Motivation is a key concept in the process.

What MOVES us.

There can be an edu-tainment element...
...teacher-as-performing artist...
...sending out Good Vibes to the students...which students respond to...
(for example, in a Role Play, describing an event/movie scene)
...being a MODEL of use of the language...with spirit/LIFE

Teacher cultivating whole-brained language INPUT
...activating the process of students' OUTPUT...
...with low affective filter...

Resulting in more than mere LEARNING...
BUT...actual ACQUISITION...

louis.p · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 107 Location: Tainan, Taiwan

I've recently realized that most children need to be happy before they will put effort into learning. (It took an un-ordinary situation for me to grasp this extraordinary concept -- usually successful interface with strange situations require creativity, and creativity tends to catalyze learning/innovation.) This realization has taken my teaching into new realms. But, [un]fortunately, I'll be leaving for China soon to teach adults. I suspect that most adults don't need to be encouraged to be happy, at least not with stickers, jokes, fun talk, and games.

un · Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Posts: 670 Location: on-line china

Check out the research discoveries about

MIRROR NEURONS

louis.p · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 107 Location: Tainan, Taiwan

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

Emotion, Rhyme, Song, Physical activity, all further activate the brain. In my Psych research, worked with a prof. who was doing studies on how emotion helped with memory and recall.

I find a diference just between them talking monotone or with emotive quality

louis.p · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 107 Location: Tainan, Taiwan

louis.p · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 107 Location: Tainan, Taiwan

un · Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Posts: 670 Location: on-line china

Also relevant to the discussion ABOVE
is the concept of CONSTRUCTIVISM

The brain unconsciously screens out INFO...
...and INFO which is initially accepted as INPUT
is then selected...as to where in the brain to store it...
...whether in long-term memory or elsewhere...

"Learn-for-the-test" cram items are NOT generally stored
in long-term memory, eh?

Anda · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 2199 Location: Jiangsu Province

I started into this game in 1990 and found that it provided good rewards for the effort put into it. By rewards I am not talking about money so much as enjoyment out of life. Sure you can always find a few problems with poor management and a few bad eggs to work with but students always warm to a teacher who wants to teach them. Trying to turn students around into motivated learners can take a toll on oneself but that is what teaching is about.

I prepped a young lady a couple of weeks back for a scholarship entrance interview into an overseas Uni where I needed to teach her about goal setting and ambition as despite being a top student she lacked in this area. Her mother rang overjoyed after her daughter was accepted by the university. This is an example of getting job satisfaction.

Yesterday I started at the main branch of the institute that I have worked for twelve months part time. My boss questioned students to see if they liked my teaching methods and they all said yes. Student numbers went up over the main branch at the branch where I worked and eighty percent of parents expressed satisfaction with teaching results without being asked compared to none at the main branch. I have a fun time with the other teachers that I work with.

Most of the Chinese teachers at the institute where I work were interviewed by me and hired on my recommendation. As Melilly comments ESL is NOT about fake smiles and feigned enthusiasm as I spot that a mile away when I interview and know that the kids hate fakes. Also you have to be the same person out of the class to you students as in. I tell my boss that you can train a person to be able to teach ESL to kids easily but you can't train a person to be able to smile naturally or like kids. Kids only pay attention to someone that pays attention to them.

So what do I bring to the classroom? I would say the ability to motivate students into studying for their future. I see myself as a teaching Facilitator:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=teaching+facilitator&spell=1

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