How to Find the Best English Teacher for YOU | Go Natural English

Hey Naturals! How are you? Welcome to a Go Natural

English lesson with me, your English teacher, Gabby.

I'm happy that you're here today because we're going to talk

about how to find your best English

teacher. Now you know that I encourage you to learn independently

and to be an active, self

starter, to practice on your own because

you're not always going to have a teacher with you and I don't think

that you only can learn from a teacher. I think that we can teach

ourselves a lot. However, when you want

to push to the next level, it's very

good to have a teacher to guide you, to show you how you can

improve and where to go next. So, I want

to talk to you in today's lesson about what to look for

in the ideal teacher, maybe if you're taking

an English class in a group or if

you're looking for a tutor to work with you 1-on-1.

I also would like to recommend Live Lingua because

they help you find your perfect English teacher

for you. So I've partnered with them and you can find

out how to sign up for your first

lesson at LiveLingua and GoNaturalEnglish.com/LiveLingua

GoNaturalEnglish.com/LiveLingua so they will match you

with the best teacher for you and it takes a lot of the work

and the thinking out of it so you don't have to spend a long time

searching for the perfect teacher or interviewing

teachers and spending a lot of time trying to find the right one.

But let's talk about what you need to look for

in order to find that perfect match. We think about

matching in terms of finding a partner

or maybe a job or your friends, but

I think it's also very important when you match with your teacher.

You know, thinking about the language teachers that I've had

I always felt like I learned more when I got

along with the teacher. I remember

my French teacher who would allow me to

write songs in French and she would give me feedback

on them. I could talk with her about French movies

and I really like that she

appreciated the arts and we could talk about that together. Or, one

of my Spanish teachers who also loved theater

and she allowed us to create our own plays

in Spanish. I really loved that. Those are some fun

memories I have of my language teachers and I

hope that you'll have great memories of your language teachers

who you match well with too. So let's

start with you. I made this beautiful venn diagram

two circles representing you and your best teacher

and things that I want you to have in common, too.

You: it's not just about your teacher, after all.

You have to be ready to be a motivated

student and to be ready to learn. You need to know

your goals for language learning. What is it you want to accomplish

through your lessons? What exactly

is your goal? Why are you learning English? What's your motivation?

Are you motivated by something that English can help you

get? Maybe a better job? Maybe a

new friend? Maybe networking? Maybe travel?

What is it that motivates you? Preparation.

This goes along with being an independent, self

starter. Don't depend on your teacher to

give you everything. Don't show up to your lessons

without preparing. How do you prepare?

I think that in our education systems around the world

we've become too dependent

on the teacher to give us everything and we've lost that ability

to prepare and to lead the way for our

lessons, but that's not a good thing. We shouldn't rely on

the teacher for everything. I think that you should come to your lessons

with an idea of what you want to learn with questions

So this is another point that, if you start to study

on your own, then you will have doubts, you will have questions.

It's a really good idea to bring those to your lessons. Now

let's go over here to your best teacher. I think

these things will be pretty clear

because of course you want an experienced teacher. You want someone who

knows how to communicate lessons

in a clear way and sometimes experience gives the teacher

a better ability to do that. Qualifications

are also really important. If your teacher has a degree

in teaching, or certificate, that can show you that

they have the ability to be a good teacher. Now qualifications

aren't the only important thing, but as you can see, I have several points

here, so let's talk about modeling, being a model.

No, I don't mean a supermodel. I don't mean your teacher needs to be good-looking.

I mean that they, he or she, needs to be a model of

what you want to learn. So if you want to learn English

with an American accent. I would recommend that you look for an American

teacher and not a British teacher or an Australian teacher.

But if you want to learn a South African accent, then look for a South

African teacher, or whatever it is that you want to learn, look for

someone who can model that. And of course,

your best teacher will really love teaching.

There's nothing worse than a teacher who is not

enjoying being a teacher, so look for someone who is really

passionate and knows why they want to be a teacher, just like you know

why you want to be a learner!

Ok, here are some things that I think you should have in common

with your teacher, ideally. Career. So, I'm not saying

that you should be a teacher, or that your teacher should have the

exact same career as you, but, let's say you're a

pharmacist and your English teacher enjoyed Biology

class in high school, that would be helpful.

Or maybe you could find, if you're a business person, you could find

a teacher who has experience in business

and that will really help you when you're discussing

advanced English to help you in your career.

Speaking of interests, it will be so much more fun if you have

some interests in common with your teacher. When you're practicing

advanced, free-flowing conversation. If you

have some similar hobbies or passions or

interests that you can discuss, it'll be so

much better because your teacher will be familiar with the vocabulary

that you need to discuss that topic when you want to discuss

outside of your lessons, maybe if you're at a dinner party or you're

networking, you'll be ready to go in-depth

on those topics. Character. So your

teacher's character, whether they're more Type A or

Type B. Type A, we say someone is

more organized and a bit rigid

sometimes, maybe strict. Type B is a little

more easy-going, free-flowing.

These are two different main personality types and you may

prefer one or the other depending on your personality or your

character. Now character also means something else. It also means

the values or the behaviors that we have and of course

you want a teacher who will be punctual and honest

and things like that. Schedule.

Whatever your schedule is, you need to find a teacher who can

match that so that your schedules fit. I think this is quite clear.

It's helpful when you can meet your teacher at the same

time each week or several times a week instead

of trying to find a time that works that's always

different for you each week. It can be a bit complicated and take a lot of time.

Learning style or teaching style. Do you want a teacher

who is going to tell you "Do this, this

and this." Or do you prefer a teacher who is going to ask you questions

and explore the language with you? There's different teaching styles

and you might want to think about what you prefer and find a teacher

who is willing and comfortable with teaching you in that way.

Age and gender. Now of course,

working with any teacher will help you but I do think that it's

valuable, at least once, to try working with a teacher who is in a

similar age range and the same gender as you because

we learn to copy our teachers and so if you

want to express yourself in a way that is

most appropriate, or how you want to appear in

the world, then you want to work with a teacher who is

the kind of person who you are or who you want to be.

If you, for example, you want to learn more slang or

vocabulary that someone in your age range or

gender and your kind of person, maybe

someone in your career or with your

interests uses a different set of vocabulary than someone

who wants to appear in another way. These are slight differences

but I think it's interesting to work with someone who

is similar to you, but also work with teachers who are different

from you. It's important to try learning

from different people because in the real world you're

going to have to interact with all different kinds of people,

genders, different ages, different backgrounds cultures,

different interests, and so when you meet people who are not

like you, you're going to feel much more comfortable speaking with

them on a variety of topics if you work with a teacher who is different

than you, too. So I'm saying try out different teachers.

Now if this sounds like a lot of work to find the perfect

teacher for you, it can be. It can be fun but it can take a lot of

time, a lot of trial and error. So I would recommend

to try LiveLingua because the awesome thing about

their online live lessons with qualified, native

English teachers, English-speaker teachers,

is they're going to match you with the teacher who they think is

best for you, the best fit for you.

Take the time and effort out of searching for your perfect teacher and

try them out. Learn more at GoNaturalEnglish.com/LiveLingua

GoNaturalEnglish.com/LiveLingua So I hope you'll try that out. I hope you enjoyed

this lesson, this tip for your English

lessons and I will talk to you again soon. Have a wonderful day.

Bye for now!