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How teachers can increase their confidence in the classroom?Concept to classroom? this is a phrase that will strike fear into any new teacher like myself, I have studied for the last six months to obtain my TEFL qualification online, it is a new concept for me but now I have to take it to the classroom. Am I Scared? Am I nervous? Am I Prepared? Am I ready for a new challenge? Am I able to teach? If your answers to all of the above questions are YES, then like me you are ready to become a teacher. Am I lacking confidence? The short answer is NO, why, because when we look in-depth at ourselves, we realise that, in actual fact, we teach all the time, every day of lives, what we don?t realise, is that we are not conscious that we are doing it. For example ? telling your neighbour how to make your favourite recipe or giving directions to someone who is lost, explaining to a child how something works, what we are doing is teaching somebody something they did not know before. Teaching in my mind is a concept of turning knowledge into explanation and then ensuring the person understands and takes the knowledge. My grandmother always taught me to never speak with my mouth full, my mother taught to me never drop the letter ?T? in water or ?H? in Hello, these were things taught to them when they were at school, I was taught these things before I went to school, the point I am making with the last comments are the same as James Eison [1] wrote in his opening paragraph, Henry Adams once proclaimed ?a teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops?, teachers who taught my mother and grandmother, (those teachers are no longer alive) taught them things that are still influencing people 130 years later and will continue to do so. ?Look smart ? feel smart? I?m sure a lot of people know this expression, the same applies to confidence ?look confident ? feel confident?, We can do many things ourselves to build our confidence, as new teachers we need to use the things we have been taught throughout our TEFL course and from other peers as we progress through our new careers. So what can we do to look and feel more confident in the classroom? I have listed below some of things I believe will help our confidence in the classroom. Organisation ? Know what you are going to teach and how. Complete your lesson plan properly. Take additional material. Have pens, paper, worksheets, projector pens, and whiteboard markers/chalk with you at all times. Attitude ? Smile ? a smile is infectious, smile and the world smiles with you. Friendly Polite Engaging Serious ? be serious about your work, and be serious without being severely strict when it comes to discipline. Technique ? Speak slowly, loudly and clearly Use gestures and mimes Be interested in student?s answers and encourage them Walk around the classroom and show you are available and approachable Don?t over correct and involve students as much as possible As new teachers we will all make mistakes, we will all learn from the mistakes and we will all gain experience, if we use the principals of what we have learnt on our courses and are willing to learn and experiment with new ideas then confidence is a natural side effect of this. The only thing left for me to say is ?Be enthusiastic, friendly, open to constructive criticism and above all else confident? I wish everyone the best of luck in your new career. [1] Journal article by James Eison; College Teaching, Vol. 38, 1990 - http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=95149924
