Back to school
Types of online ESL teaching
The beginning of September is a good time to look for new students! That’s why its important to know what to look for and what areas you want to teach.
- ESL jobs for Native and non-Native teachers
- Adults
- Business English
- Colleague students
- University students and proof-reading
- Kid and teenagers (Juniors)
- Smartphone and tablet teaching
- Audio only teaching
- Off-peak language school teaching
- Morning/ evening teaching
Back to school
Teachers are going back to school next week for the new academic year 2019/20. For many newly qualified TEFL teachers it will be the start of an exciting new adventure teaching English as a foreign language abroad. I’ve lived and worked in five countries teaching ESL. When I first started off I remember going into the unknown was scary. I didn’t read any online forums or blogs about moving to another country… I just went for it! However, for me the biggest thing that helped build confidence and independence was to immerse myself in the national language.
I’ve been living in Katowice, Poland since November 2018. I’ve only familiarised myself with the Polish language through listening to people speak and asking related questions. Such as what does that mean or what is this. What I benefit the most from is using language learning applications to study Polish. I recommend that you look at the following apps before you fly out to a new country which you will be calling home.
Best language learning apps
- Duolingo
- Tinycards by Duolingo
- Babbel – learn languages
- Quizlet
- Rosetta Stone: Learn languages
- Google Translate
- Memrise
Its all about having patience with yourself, learning a foreign language isn’t easy… let alone teaching it. For me the best app is Duolingo and I use it like a personal trainer for learning Polish.
Duolingo step-by-step guide
- Choose the language you want to learn
- Pick a goal – casual, regular, serious or insane. I chose regular as I am eager to learn Polish devoting a minimum of 15 minutes a day using the app.
- Why are you learning a language? – school, travel, career, brain training, culture. I chose career and brain training, but I don’t think it makes much difference at the beginning.
- Choose path – new to the language or already know some of it.
- Take the test
Each day you should open up the app and follow the lesson plans starting off at basic and moving onto animals, food, adjectives, plurals, clothing, present, pronouns and so on. It will also help your teaching style as you will understand what works and doesn’t work with learning a language. Tinycards app by Duolingo is also worth a mention because you can login with your account and access thousands of language games. Considering my last blog was about Gamification I find that this app could also be used to teach English with games as well as learning a foreign language such as Polish. For me its great to see visual education and vocabulary activities because as a visual learner I’m pretty hooked on this brand new app.
