120 Hr TEFL Course Module 1-Teaching and Learning Pt.1

Module 1: Teaching and learning

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1.4 Getting started

It is no mystery that teaching students a new language is a difficult task, but it can be infinitely rewarding. So, how do you actually get started on your career? The first step, of course, you have already taken, which is to seek training. Let’s take a look at some other important aspects of successfully helping your students.

1.4.1 Ensuring your success

Here are some basic tips to ensure that you are successful and able to help your students learn English as a second language:

• Make sure you are well versed in the structure and makeup of the English language. We will discuss many things you need to know, but it couldn’t hurt to supplement this course with further study of the language. The English language is incredibly complex and full of rules that are not necessarily logical, so it will always help you to study up. 

• While we will give you many tools to become an effective teacher of English as a second language, it is important you continually seek out research and professional journal articles to keep up with the current educational trends. We are constantly discovering how we attain language and how we learn, so teaching English as a second language is a lifelong educational commitment.

• Make sure you understand how learners acquire new knowledge. As we have discussed earlier in this module, that does not just refer to language acquisition, but to knowledge acquisition as a whole. Learn everything you need to know about differentiation (which we will discuss at length in a future module) to give your students the best chance to succeed in learning their new language.
• Be prepared to be patient. If you do not come from a teaching background, you may not be aware the patience it takes to help someone learn something new. If you do come from a teaching background, then understand this may be the most difficult thing to teach someone, and you will need to be even more patient than you may have expected.
• Continually use your experiences to build strategies and concepts that work for your students. All the training in the world will help you, but the true answers to your questions of “how?” will come from experience. Make sure you don’t forget any of the lessons you learn along the way.