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Teach English in Xiayang Zhen - Zhuzhou Shi

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Xiayang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Zhuzhou Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.

We have all experienced some kind of stress in school in some particular ways. We can cite for example a careless teacher who keeps “reciting” the lesson while the Armageddon is taking place in the classroom, maybe feeling overwhelmed by the class’ level. We can have unlimited examples and scenarios. However, we can see the same students acting differently in a much positive and productive way. This is where we get to our questions: How did this stress grow? Can we eliminate or at least prevent it? In this presentation, we will see the major reasons and triggers of stress in the classroom and how we, the teachers can handle it. Students are the most vulnerable, yet the most crucial part of the classroom. All of the methods can’t work if the soil is not good, even by taking all measures to manage your class in all efficiency. We will need to create a proper guidance and leadership instead of barely controlling the flow of the lesson. In other words, we should break the barrier between the students and us. There are few steps we will have to follow at the first lesson: • Get to know your students: We should know their names, backgrounds, lives and interests outside of the classroom, do they know each other. This will help you have a more defined idea of their personalities and create some kind of trust. This is easily achieved by some methods and techniques. For example: Throw the ball. With this method we will ask some simple questions and the class will become less intimidating. • Focus on their needs: At this point we already have an idea of the class level we will be teaching and their speaking fluency. However, we can make it clearer by giving a questionnaire or a quiz. Writing forms are always less intimidating than public speaking. This will give let the students express their thoughts freely. Generally we will need the students to answer more about some personal questions, also, their purposes and goals they want to achieve with this class, and mostly their level in the classroom. • Combine your knowledge: This freshly acquired data can help us manage the classroom in a way that will boost the students’ productivity. This will help you to make the suitable grouping for the students in the classroom, how you will position yourself around them, how to keep a communal spirit by letting the students help each other both on personal and language levels. We should keep in mind that grouping the students shouldn’t be an excuse or a comfort zone for the struggling students. For example: letting a higher level student taking care of everything, or an attention seeker dominating every speaking opportunity. By the end of the first lesson, we will be able to have a blueprint that will help us keep the class evolve. However with more time and work spending with the class, we will see more details to refine the efficiency of our class. After all, everyone have their own stress outside of class. This is where we should interfere to stop the outer elements from deterring the lesson’s flow. To maintain the stability in the classroom, we will need to focus on few terms and keep them a base for our methods in the classroom: • Minimize the inner stress: Students come already tired and frustrated from their daily lives. Some work all day, some have been in school. This means we will meet students who might lack some motivation to study. The best way is to start your class is by making it more intimate: welcoming them, asking them about their daily lives; basically to let them express themselves. After that you should make some activities that would make a recapitulation of the previous lessons and warm up their motivation to study. For example, we can have some Pictionary activities to remember previously learned vocabulary, or some tongue twisters for pronunciation. This kind of activities will help to create a smooth atmosphere to focus on the lesson. • Don’t be a source of stress: That intimacy you created at the beginning of the lesson can backfire if you over do it. Speaking too much will make you lose all that trust from the class. Keep your speaking minimal barely to monitor the conversation between the students. Make a suggestion or a trigger so that the students will speak more by practicing their newly learned vocabulary and evolving their fluency. By this point also you should realize that the students have a lot of priorities in their lives. So don’t overuse your class to stress them also. Minimize homework or eliminate it if possible. Compensate between what they want to learn and what they still need. Keep your attitude positive toward mistakes, because no one really needs another person to judge and criticize them. In conclusion, as teachers, we have a duty to achieve, and it encompasses creating a productive atmosphere in the classroom to guide students achieve their language learning goals.


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