5 Tips for Teaching a Beginner’s English Class

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to www.engvid.com . I'm Adam.

In today's video, I want to answer a few requests that I've been receiving on the www.engvid.com

comment section.

Some people have been asking me if I could offer some tips for teaching in a classroom.

Now, the most common question I get is, "Can I make a lesson about tips for teaching a

beginner class?"

But this is very specific, and so I want to give a more general idea about teaching English.

And it doesn't necessarily apply only to English; it could apply to many other things.

But I'm going to give you...

Tell you a little bit about my own experiences as an English teacher.

Now, what I'm not going to do is teach you how to teach.

That you will have to learn on your own.

You can go to teacher's college, you can get a teaching job and start doing it, because

every teacher is different.

Every teacher will have his or her own style.

What I am going to do is share some experiences that helped me learn how to be a better teacher,

and I think it helped my students as well.

And if it can help you, great.

I'm very glad to do that.

Okay.

So, I'm going to give you five different general tips about teaching, what I think is very

important for all teachers to know.

Now, again, if you've been teaching for 30 years, 20 years even, you already know all

this stuff.

This is more geared, I guess, aiming towards the younger teachers who are just starting

out.

Okay?

Number one, and this I think is the most important, teachers are students.

If you're a teacher, you should always be learning.

Just because you're teaching something doesn't mean that there's nothing for you to learn.

It's a two-way street.

You will teach your students, your students will teach you, you will teach yourself.

There's always something new to learn.

Now, especially learn your trade.

Trade means basically your profession.

So, whether you're an English teacher or you're a car mechanic or you're a scientist, always

learn about your business.

If you're an English teacher, first of all, don't think that you know everything about

English.

I've been teaching 20 years and I still have to look up grammar points, I still have to

look up words in the dictionary, I don't know everything about English.

But I know how to learn, I know how to teach myself about English when things come up.

Okay?

So, always be learning.

If there's new developments in your industry, new methodologies, new techniques, new tools

like on the internet, for example, learn about these, use them, help your students.

Next, learn about your students.

Learn especially how to read faces.

So, the more you know about your students, the better you can make the classes for them,

the better you can make the classroom experience.

So, for example, if you find out that most of your students, especially if they're young,

they're into Instagram, make an Instagram lesson.

If they're following sports, introduce sports.

Again, all of these things can be spoken about in English.

All of the...

All of these topics need vocabulary, they need sentences that require grammar, adapt

your lessons to your students' needs, desires, etc.

And when I say learn how to read faces, basically understand when a student understands and

doesn't understand, when a student is angry or not angry.

But I'm going to talk more about this in part two because this is very, very important,

I think.

And this is another very important thing.

And at the beginning, every teacher makes the same mistake, but eventually you learn.

It's okay to make mistakes.

You're just a teacher.

You're not a robot, you're not perfect, you don't know everything.

If you make a mistake, that's fine.

What you should not do is try to talk your way out of a mistake.

If you make a mistake, say, "Sorry, I made a mistake", but then fix it right away.

Your students will respect you a lot more, I think, from my personal experience.

If you make a mistake and then try to cover it by talking and trying to say, "Oh, it's

not really a mistake, it's this and that", students will eventually just not like you

very much.

Again, as a...

When I was a beginner teacher, I learned that.

Every teacher, I think, goes through this experience.

And also, don't be afraid to say, "I don't know".

If a student asks you a question, and again, English, car mechanics, science, anything,

if you don't know, say, "I don't know".

Don't try to make up an answer just because you're the teacher.

Say you don't know, but when you go home at the end of the day, the first thing you should

do is find out what the answer to the student's question is, and then the next time you see

the students in the next class, that's the first thing you should do before you do anything

else, answer that student's question.

It shows them that you care about what they think, it shows them that you're professional

and you take your job seriously.

And again, you're a student, too.

And why not learn something new, right?

If you don't know, find out, teach it.

Next, know your students, and I put here just in case they are people.

Now, it seems a little bit obvious, but I think a lot of teachers, one of the things

that they don't take into consideration is that your students have a life outside the

classroom.

They have a home.

Happy home, unhappy home, not sure.

Every student is different.

They have friends.

They have problems with friends, they have caring friends, don't know.

There's all kinds of things that go on with a student's life, and unfortunately or fortunately,

it doesn't really matter, they bring those things with them into the classroom.

They can't leave them outside in the locker or in their bag or in their phone case, it's

in their heads.

You, as the teacher, have to deal with it.

If a student comes into class in a very, very bad mood, what I personally do, I give that

student space.

I don't push, I don't ask too many questions.

If I ask a question and I don't really get a response, no problem, I don't get angry.

This student has something on his or her mind, tomorrow he or she will be okay again.

Today, leave them alone.

If this continues for a few days, then you start to have...

You have to ask some questions and find out what's the problem and if you can help.

But again, remember that every student is bringing something into the class with them.

So, it's very, very important to...

When I say "know your students", it also means get to know their personalities.

So here, get to know what they like, and what's popular, and what everybody's talking about.

Here, get to know individual students.

This doesn't mean that you have to have an interview with each individual student, but

over time, over a few classes, you should start to get an idea who's the shy student,

who's the friendly student, who's the student who really doesn't want to be there, who's

the student who's really passionate about whatever it is you're teaching, right?

The more...

The more you know your students' personalities, the easier it is to conduct the class and

present materials to them.

So, for example, if you have shy students, one of the things I learned with shy students,

encourage them, try to get them to speak, but know when to step back.

Don't push.

Because shy students, if you push too hard, they will just go into a shell, and then it's

very difficult to get them out again.

Encourage them, and when they need a little bit of space, give them space and go to somebody

else.

That way, they will build their confidence, if a little bit at a time.

On the other hand, if you have a very friendly student, very confident, very outgoing, say,

you know, "Good job", and encourage them, but make sure you know how to control them.

Because if you don't control them, they will try to speak all the time and nobody else

will have a chance.

They will try to take over the class.

At the end of the day, you, the teacher, are the boss.

Be the boss, but be a friendly boss as much as you can.

Okay?

And give everybody a chance to speak.

Don't...

Don't keep going back to one or two students.

Even if you know that they're the only ones who are following you, they're the only ones

who might be able to answer, give everybody a chance to speak.

And again, just like it's okay for you to make mistakes, make sure they understand it's

okay for them to make mistakes, too.

That's how you learn.

That's how you build confidence.

If you make a mistake, the world is not going to end.

You will learn next time you won't make that mistake.

Now, individual attention.

This is a very tricky thing to do.

You don't want to look like you're favouring one student over the others, but if a student

has problems, like if one student is just not following, is just not getting the material,

just not getting the grammar and can't remember the vocab, but most of the other...

The rest of the class is getting better quickly, you can't spend their time helping this student.

And you can't focus too much on this student because he or she will feel bad for the rest

of the class.

So, what you need to do is take the student during the break or after class or before

class, find out what the problem is, and maybe give a little bit extra homework or a little

bit of extra attention outside of the class hours.

But again, you must recognize what the problem is with this student, and then try to deal

with it there.

So, those are about you and the students.

Let's look at some other things that I think are important to know.

Okay, so now I'm going to look a little bit more at the technical side, and now we're

looking more specifically at English, okay?

Very important, and I've seen so many teachers do this, and I've taught in many countries,

by the way.

I've taught in five countries, and I've seen all kinds of teachers, and I've seen all kinds

of students, but one of the things that I never really understood is teachers who only

stick to the book.

Don't...

In my opinion, don't rely too heavily on the textbooks.

Use the textbooks to teach the base of whatever topic it is you want to teach your students,

and then put the textbook away.

And be flexible, right?

You don't have to do the same thing all the time.

You can make adjustments.

You...

Be...

Like, be open to what your students are saying, be open to what other teachers might be suggesting.

Try different things.

Experiment.

The textbooks are not enough.

They're good for just the foundation, the base.

What you need is actually real English, and that's what you want to introduce into your

class.

And this is why I also say variety is the spice of life.

If students understand that every day they're going to come into the classroom and they're

going to just follow the book straight, straight, straight, well, you know what?

They can go home, finish the chapter, and then when they come to your class, they're

already covered.

They can do other things.

They can play on their phone, they can daydream.

But if they don't know what's coming, then they're always, you know, alert.

They're always not prepared for what's coming, so they want to make sure that you don't catch

them sleeping.

If you are flexible and you are introducing variety, they will be much more attentive

and receptive to the lesson.

Now, when I say real English, where does real English come from?

It comes from TV shows, from movies.

Take little clips, two-minute clips, three-minute clips, show it to them.

A, a video will already catch their attention.

A screen will already catch their attention.

Everybody is addicted to screens these days.

Bring in a screen.

Bring in a guest speaker.

Bring in an animal.

Bring in, like, a Muppet, like a toy or whatever.

Anything just to change the scenery.

If you're always doing the same, the same, the same, the same, not only will the students

get bored, you will get bored.

And when the teacher gets bored, it's finished.

The class is never going to work.

The teacher has to enjoy being there.

The students have to enjoy being there.

If it's real English, they will enjoy it more.

If you make it according to what they want, they will enjoy it more.

Another thing you can do, and this is what I mean by following trends, actually, find

out what is popular, bring it into the classroom.

Another thing you can do, engVid.

Bring engVid videos into your classroom.

I've heard from many teachers that they show our videos, mine and the other teachers, in

their classrooms because the students enjoy them.

It's on a screen, of course, so they already enjoy it.

It's a little bit different, different sound.

There are...

We have 10 teachers now, I think, on engVid.

Ten different voices, ten different styles.

Be flexible.

Bring in a different teacher each time.

Just show them the videos to learn something new.

You can also watch the videos.

If you're not sure, remember, you're a student, too.

If you're not sure about a particular topic, search engVid.

Maybe we made a video about it to help you.

But again, always do something different.

Always try to change the atmosphere, I guess, of the class.

Try to change how things are done so they don't get bored, you don't get bored, you

don't get stale, which is very, very important.

Now, a little bit more technical things, again, in terms of teaching English.

In my personal opinion, the most important thing you can do, and especially for beginners,

just drill the vocab.

Just vocab, vocab, vocab, vocab.

Not 60...

Like, if you have a 15-minute class, let's say, that's a typical class, you're not going

to do 15 minutes of vocab.

But 5 to 10 minutes every single class has to be for vocab.

Teach them at least 5 new words every single day, and then make sure that you give them

quizzes.

If they don't think they're going to be tested, they're not going to put any effort in because

why?

But if there's going to be a test, if there's going to be a quiz, if there's going to be

an exam, they will pay attention because they do care about their scores.

They have to take their scores home to show their parents.

And if their scores are not very good, their parents aren't very happy.

So, keep that in mind.

Remember, they're people.

They have houses to go to.

Now, of course, here I am standing in front of a camera and I'm just talking, talking,

talking, talking, but this is a video class.

I don't have students in front of me.

When I'm in the classroom, I speak enough so they understand, and then I shut up.

I get them to speak.

Teacher...

The teacher should speak less, the students should speak more.

Make sure that it's a student-centered class, not a teacher-centered class.

But again, everybody has their own style.

Beginner teachers, I find, get very nervous if they're not speaking.

Older teachers who are already bored with teaching, they don't speak enough.

They just hear some papers and then they go read, sit at their desk.

Don't be either of those.

Speak enough to teach them, and then let them use it.

If they don't use it, they don't actually absorb it, right?

Make sure they're actually speaking as much as possible.

And again, variety is the spice of life.

How are you going to get them to speak?

Use games, use role-playing, put them in pairs, put them in groups, have Q&A, have discussions.

Obviously, complete beginners are not going to be able to do this, but I remember I was

teaching in Turkey and I had a complete beginner class.

They didn't know any English.

Six months later, we were sitting in the cafeteria having regular discussions every day because

I just gave them the words to be able to have this discussion.

Drill them with words.

As soon as they can start putting together sentences, let them put together sentences.

Let them speak.

They will make mistakes, that's okay.

Remember to teach them that communication in any language is about being understood.

That's it.

You don't have to be perfect.

And now, again, depends where you're teaching.

Obviously, Turkish people are very friendly, very outgoing.

They had no problem just talking.

In other places, in other countries, other cultures, they're very shy about speaking

or they're very...

They're very careful not to make mistakes because in their culture, making a mistake

is a problem.

You have to make sure they understand that the classroom is not the country, it's not

the culture.

Your classroom is its own little world.

Everybody can speak, everybody can make mistakes, everybody can say whatever they want.

Everybody has to be comfortable.

Make sure you understand the culture, but make sure that you give them an opportunity

to a little bit step outside whatever boundaries they may have for themselves.

Now, last one, and it's going to seem obvious, but it's actually not that obvious.

"Be prepared".

Now, I remember when I started teaching TOEFL, okay?

I was an ESL teacher and then I was given a TOEFL teaching position, and there are a

certain group of students, and I'm not going to say from which country, but there's a certain

group of students who feel it is necessary for them to test the teacher, make sure the

teacher knows what he or she is talking about.

So they would come in with, like, the most ridiculously difficult grammar questions,

and I was like, "I don't know", because I didn't hear some of these words before.

I knew how the sentence works, how the grammar works, I didn't know some of the technical

vocabulary.

But what did I learn from that experience?

I learned to always be prepared.

So this is the old TOEFL test that used to have a grammar section.

I used to go home every day and spend two hours preparing the next day's lesson.

I would go over every single sentence, every single question to make sure that I knew every

single grammar rule in case one of these students would ask me a question about it.

And within a couple of weeks, they realized they can't stump me, they can't give me a

question that I'm not ready for, and then they eased up and everybody was relaxed and

went on from there.

And now I actually know grammar pretty well, thanks to them and thanks to my studying and

being prepared.

Don't let the students control the class.

Make sure you know what's coming, make sure you know how to answer their questions, and

if you don't know, say you don't know.

If I didn't know a question, I would tell them, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

But then, when I saw them the next day, first thing I did in the class was answer the question

from the day before.

Very important.

Be alert.

As a teacher, you're always awake.

You can't go daydreaming in the class, they will catch you daydreaming and it doesn't

look very good.

You're always on, be on, and be ready to be on.

This is the most important, be patient.

Some of your students will make you a little bit crazy, but that's okay, that's what it

is, that's what teaching is.

Be patient.

If you don't have patience, teaching will be a very, very difficult job for you.

It takes a lot of patience.

Which leads to my last one, love to teach.

If you don't like teaching, don't be a teacher.

Don't do it for any other reason than you want to help the students in front of you.

Okay?

It's not...

Don't do it for the money, because in a lot of places, you're not going to make a lot

of money anyway.

Do it just because you like to do it.

You like to learn from the students.

You like to learn about them, you like to learn about yourself, you like to learn about

the topic.

Now, personally, I love English.

My big dream is to be a writer, to write a novel or two or three novels, right?

I love the language and I like to teach it, I like to share it with other people.

But this applies to any profession.

If you don't love what you do, you're not going to be great at it.

In which case, why do it?

Go do something that you actually enjoy doing, you'll have a much better life.

But again, my personal opinion.

Everybody has their opinion, you do what works for you.

Okay?

So, those are two...

That's my two cents worth.

That's an idiom, meaning that's my opinion, that's my advice, that's what I have to say

about the topic.

Again, don't forget, engVid is full of useful videos to help you learn about English, and

even you can look...

Study all the different teachers and see how they approach this job, basically.

How they teach, how they put things together, how they explain things.

If you can learn from them, great.

Then that'll work.

So, you can also actually check out...

I have another website, www.writetotop.com, I teach how to write, it's a little bit more

advanced.

You can learn a little bit from there as well if you want, and you can give me some feedback

about that as well.

In the meantime, there is a quiz at www.engvid.com, you can go there and take the quiz and make

sure...

Check your comprehension about this lesson.

If you have any comments or questions, please put them in the comments section at www.engvid.com,

and I'll be happy to reply to you.

And that's it.

I hope you liked this lesson, I hope it was somehow useful for you.

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future videos.

And come back soon, we'll do more vocab building, grammar stuff, all kinds of stuff.

See you then.

Bye-bye.