Dec 16

TIPS FOR CLASSROOM SUCCESS

Posted on December 16, 2011 by rida

TIPS TO SUCCEED IN YOUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

BY: RIDA AFRILYASANTI

Engaging students' attention

Engaging students' attention

This might be your first teaching day. Getting nervous is something common. What you need to do is how to deal with that feeling. What you need is to focus on engaging your students. Here are some tips to help you get your students’ attention and succeed in your English language classroom:

  1. Have games in your teaching. As we know, many teachers employ games to help their students learn English. Games are very helpful in language teaching because they can help to motivate students and make repetition less tiresome and boring. You can browse from the Internet for some fun games that can be employed in your language class depending on the materials and your students’ level of ability. You have to be creative to create a repertoire of games that focus on different skills, so when your students begin to lose interest in one game, you can switch to another and keep the learning process fresh. Make sure that your games really suitable with your students’ ability level; avoid very complicated games.
  2. Have fun with songs. Everyone likes to sing and enjoy music. Thus, why don’t you bring some songs and employ them in your classroom teaching as your teaching variety. In having song, you first have to analyze the dictions within it. Bring songs that are on your students’ interest, don’t bring your favorite song because your students may won’t recognize it.
  3. Bring drama into the classroom. Adding some drama to your lesson plans can effectively hold your students’ interest. Instead of having monotonous activities by reading dialogue from a text book, you can assign your students to have roles and act out the words to their favorite English movie, dramas, music shows, or others. If you are creative enough, you can create a simplified script that includes famous movie quotes and let your students have fun. Your students will even enjoy more if you can record your students’ performance. This will not only give you more opportunities to review on your students’ ability in English, but also offer the prospect of very engaging, entertaining in-class activities.
  4. Ask for your students’ feedback to improve your teaching. Feedback from your students is very important to know the most suitable activity that you can employ for them. As your students which activities they enjoyed the most at the end of the class, then adapt your lesson plans based on their feedback. By having this, you can understand better the teaching methods that are most effective for your students. Adapting your lessons to your students’ language level and learning style is the best way to meet their language need.

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Dec 14

TESOL TEACHER TIPS

Posted on December 14, 2011 by rida

TIPS TO BE A TESOL TEACHER

By: RIDA AFRILYASANTI

becoming TESOL teachers

becoming TESOL teachers

The great thing of being a TESOL teacher is to know and explore other countries, recognize and experience different cultures and people while still earning money. This path of career really offers you unique rewards and challenges. Thus, to make you ready more on becoming a TESOL teacher have a look at these top tips below:

  1. Learn any acronym, jargon, and anything relate to TESOL. TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language) includes TEFL and TESL. TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) represents teaching the language in countries in which English is not the primary language; it is not used for daily conversation. The countries in which English is as a foreign language (EFL), for instance, are Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and so forth. Furthermore, TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) refers to teaching non-English speakers within English-speaking countries, for instance you are teaching immigrants from other countries in United State.
  2. Find information on TESOL career opportunities. Browse and find out as much as information on career opportunities, the countries in which you want to teach including the living cost, the requirements, and other valuable information. Investigate degree and certificate programs. Besides browsing, you can also create network with former TESOL teachers to ask them about their experiences.
  3. Be qualified. Learn about the requirement of teaching in the country you want to be in. Requirements for teaching English vary from country to country and job to job. Make sure that you have to fulfill the requirements.
  4. Choose a school that you are in your interest. You will be able to work well if you work in a place in which you feel comfortable. Many TESOL teachers choose international schools. This is because international schools promote an international curriculum that you are much more familiar than the local curriculum. Moreover, in international schools, you will have both, foreign and local children. You can consult about this with institutions that provide TESOL certification. They can offer you advice for locating teaching positions. TESOL jobs can be found in the public and private sectors in both urban and rural settings around the world. In choosing it you should also consider the culture and geography of countries where you would like to teach.
  5. Catch up with current technology and engage it in your teaching. Students are very eager to know and learn about the advance of technology. If it is possible to employ it in the school in which you teach at, use the technology to help students speak, read, and write the English language.
  6. Deal with the culture shock. Learn about the customs and culture of your host country before you are heading the country. This is the best way to be able to avoid the culture shock. Then, as you arrive, familiarize yourself with your new environment and neighborhood. Find the grocery shops and restaurants that serve the food you like and your daily needs. Spend weekends exploring the surrounding area and get to know with the people.
  7. Make friends with the local people. Don’t isolate yourself. Meet people and form a social network, you can go for a gym, club, or class to familiarize with the local people. Humor can work a lot on making friends. At last, approach new experiences with an open mind.
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Dec 13

ONLINE TEACHING PROGRAM TIPS

Posted on December 13, 2011 by rida

TIPS FOR ONLINE TEACHING PROGRAM

BY: RIDA AFRILYASANTI

learning online

learning online

Catching up with today technology and social needs, online teaching program is not something new anymore. However, it somehow does not work quite well if do not have the techniques. Here are some tips you can employ to help develop your confidence and experience in online teaching program. Therefore, in turn, an effective, efficient and satisfying teaching and learning experience for both you and your students can be created.

  1. Construct course policies at the beginning of the program. This will give detail and clear explanation to your students when you will be present and when you will not. Set regular times when you can meet in a virtual classroom or be available by email or texting, and thus be available – almost in real time similar to office hours, can be invaluable. It is reported that students prefer to have an online teaching program that can show their presence multiple times a week, and at best, daily.
  2. Design a course with a balanced set of dialogues. You have to be able to create a supportive online course community. You are not only creating dialogues between you and your students but also between students and other students, and also students to resources. You can provide dialogue to students with (1) mini-lectures in text or video or audio podcasts, (2) weekly coaching and reminder announcements and (3) explanations/interactions with the students. Make sure that you can cover social presence teaching presence and cognitive/content presence in your teaching program. To open an interactive dialogue you can:
    1. Make a personal introduction board in which your students can explain about themselves and get to know one another.
    2. Create a student forum in which your students are free to post and request helps and assistance from you and other students. Besides, you can also have problem-solving forums or discussions boards, and assign students or student teams to monitor and support or direct questions.
    3. Set up small groups in which students can learn how to work within a group. This is similar to study group on onsite teaching.
  3. Match your expectation with your students’. By knowing your students expectation, you can then plan how you will communicate with them and how much time your student should work on the course each week. You also have to know what kind of communication and dialogue your students actually want; for instance, most students expect response within 24 hours during the week. If on the process you think that you need to change the schedule, you have to communicate it with your students. Just let them know what is going on.
  4. Provide your students with variety of learning experiences whether it is large group, small group or even individual work. Build up options and opportunities for your students to work together and individually. Besides, also provide your students different kinds of activities. For instance, engage students in more collaborative and more reflective activities, and what happens is recorded and archived and there for review and occasionally revision. You can also make them have a real-time interactive brainstorming and sharing discussion; other times the requirement to think, plan, write and summarize is what makes learning most effective for an individual. A real time problem-solving and question and answer review sessions can also be very effective learning experiences.
  5. Ask for your students’ early feedback on the teaching and learning process they have experienced. This course evaluation can help you to improve your teaching in order to increase satisfaction as well as to facilitate learning. By having early feedback, you can immediately make corrections and modifications on particular points.
  6. Link the materials with current events or situations. Students really enjoy this experience. Building into a course discussions and links to current events is often motivating to your students.
  7. Make your students’ thinking visible by combining core concept with customized and personalized learning. To make the concept visible to your students, you have to make them create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire. Such activities stimulate student’s growth from concept awareness to concept acquisition. Some activities you can employ, for instance, discussion forums, blogging, journals, and small group work.
  8. Help your students to have their own “TO DO” list and schedule for their learning. And finally, at the end of the course session, don’t forget to have reflection and integration of useful knowledge. With your students, you can also wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences. This helps students to memorize the core concepts and fundamental principles.

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