TEFL teaching can be a complex and rewarding journey for everyone. Whether you’re teaching for the first time or you’ve got previous teaching experience, understanding how TEFL works can make all the difference to your career. It’s understandable if you feel nervous about getting started, and you might not know what to expect. We’ll go through 10 tips that you should know as a TEFL teacher! Ready to take notes?

1. Take the time to understand your students

Everyone is different. Everyone learns differently, studies differently and progresses differently. Each student has their own motivations for learning English, whether it be to learn a language as a personal challenge, for work or study purposes or because their parents want them to learn a new language, as usually in the case of young learners.

It’s extremely important that you understand why your students are learning English. This will help you understand how to teach them and encourage them. As you get to know your students, learn what type of activities they like best or what they struggle with. You can’t always offer personalised learning in a group class but you can be aware of how to help your students improve and enjoy their learning experience and implement various activities and techniques.

2. Be aware 

As a TEFL teacher, you will regularly interact with students of different cultures. This is especially true if you work online and teach students from all over the world. You might have students of various nationalities all in the same class, or you might teach the same nationality. Even in a class with students from the same country, there will be a variety of different students with different backgrounds.

Being culturally aware is an essential skill for any human being, but especially for a teacher! You need to be sensitive to the fact that some subjects might make your students feel uncomfortable, or might be very taboo in their culture. There’s no reason to bring these topics up in class if you know it will have a negative impact on your students, or cause controversy. 

3. Be flexible 

You might be the type of teacher who plans their lessons down to the minute and has plenty of extra activities ready to go if you need them. Of course, it’s good to be prepared for anything. Being a TEFL teacher means being ready for the class to go in any direction. There might be an activity you use that just doesn’t work well, or isn’t well-received by your students. What worked amazingly with one class might crash and burn with another! Be flexible and ready to change things up if you need to.

Remember, it’s perfectly natural to have some classes where the vibe is a little bit off, or activities that didn’t work as you’d hoped. Every teacher has this experience at some point in their career. What’s important is that you learn from it. You might adapt the activity next time or change the student groups – it’s about trial and error!

Being a good teacher means knowing that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all for TEFL lessons. Different groups have different dynamics – some might be more confident and chatty and some might be more timid. This is why we need to adapt our lessons to our learners to ensure they can learn in the best way for them.

4. Utilise technology 

There’s a lot of talk about technology in the classroom, and with the emergence of AI, we are discussing the use of this and tech in our lessons more than ever. Technology can be a great tool for you as a TEFL teacher, allowing your lessons to become more engaging and modern. There are lots of courses (often free) that can teach you how to use different online tools and programmes. If you take the time to learn, you will find that your skills will improve, and your lessons!

There is a wide range of tools you can use in the classroom, from videos to learning platforms. You can also use technology as a tool for your planning with readily made online lessons and websites where you can create your own materials. Online learning is more common than ever with a variety of platforms available for teaching and learning languages.

5. Speaking is key 

A lot of your students might have already had some form of English language instruction. Speaking to students, most will say that they lack confidence or haven’t had enough practice in speaking. Speaking is why students learn a language – to be able to communicate. For this reason, it needs to be prioritised in your lessons.

Every lesson should include some element of speaking. This might be a warmer at the start of the lesson to get your students talking, or it might be the main task. Students should have the opportunity to speak without the teacher interrupting too much so that they gain confidence and fluency. It is good to correct key errors at the end of a task.

6. Build a rapport 

Your students might feel vulnerable learning a language and speaking in front of you and the class. They need to feel that they are in a safe environment where they won’t be judged or laughed at for making mistakes. They also need to feel they have a good student-teacher relationship so they can come to you with any difficulties they might have. Be open to your students’ needs and aware of their feelings.

Take the time to get to know your students in the classroom. What are their interests? What are their learning goals? Making an effort to build a good rapport with your classes is crucial in helping them on their learning journey. You can still maintain important professional boundaries and show that you are approachable at the same time.

7. Keep growing as a teacher

Even as teachers, we never stop learning. TEFL is always changing, and we should keep up with the times so our students feel that they are learning via up-to-date methods. Professional development can help you avoid becoming complacent and keep you engaged in your own teaching. 

To continue your teaching development, you can undertake specialist courses, attend conferences/lectures or simply read the latest blogs and journals about TEFL. You can take note of any new techniques or activities that interest you and incorporate them into your lessons! Observing lessons is also a great way to learn from experience teachers. You can ask your company or school if this is possible.

If you teach young learners, then creating lessons with new activities is a good way to keep them motivated. A lot will have English language lessons at school and they will become bored if there’s no change in their learning between these lessons and their extra English lessons.

8. Don’t be afraid of feedback 

You may get observed in your teaching as part of your school or company’s routine training. A lot of teachers get very nervous about this and feel like they are being judged or criticised. Observations, when done right, are nothing to be scared of. They are a chance for you to receive feedback on your teaching and identify any areas where you can improve.

When you get a new job, ask about opportunities for observations and ongoing professional development. This will help you grow as a teacher. If the school or company have policies in place regarding this, then it’s usually a good sign. They are willing to help you learn and develop professionally.

9. Be efficient in your planning 

As we have covered, it’s good to be prepared and have the ability to be flexible when you are delivering your lessons. However, you need to monitor your planning time and ensure that you are not spending your life planning lessons all the time. While some planning time is often incorporated into your wage, sometimes it isn’t!

Of course, as teachers, we want to deliver the most engaging lessons and ensure our students leave the classroom talking about how much they loved the class. However, it shouldn’t be the case that it takes 3 hours to plan a 1-hour lesson – this is counterproductive. Try to identify the areas you can improve on to be more efficient in your TEFL lesson planning. If you’re new to TEFL, then it might take some time to get into the swing of things. As we get more experience, we need fewer ‘safety nets’ in our lesson planning.

Save any useful resources whether digitally or physically to help you with future planning. That way, you can refer back to them the next academic year and plan your lessons more quickly! Remember to change them up if you feel they need updating.

10. Enjoy the ride!

TEFL is a great adventure, especially if you move to another country to teach. It’s a time to explore new cultures, make new friends and have truly enriching experiences. Throw yourself into the adventure and really enjoy the experience. Working hard is a great ethos to have and will get you far professionally, but you also need to take the time to enjoy your new life and have a healthy work-life balance. By the end of the academic year, you’ll have some amazing stories to tell!

Applying these ten tips can help make your TEFL-teacher life run more smoothly and give you a better understanding of what teaching can be like. They will help you achieve success in many different contexts, whether you choose to teach face-to-face or online. Remember, TEFL is an exciting and rewarding experience so embrace every aspect of it!