Teach English in ChengguAn Zhen - Zhangye Shi

this unit discuss all about common problem situations that a teacher might face when teaching. Usually the first lessons can be quite difficult for the teacher, especially when it's a new group and they are not familiar with anyone or anything. When having a first lesson with a new group, it is important to keep in mind that the teacher should establish rapport between the students. When teaching existing groups, it can be a little more easier as the students are already comfortable with each other and already have an idea on EFL teaching. During the first lesson, it can be very helpful if the teacher finds out more about their students and their interests. This can help the teacher prepare for further lessons, but it will also give the teacher an idea of what the students' need when learning English. Warmers is a great way to get students involved and more motivated during a lesson, because no student wants to start of with verbs or anything that may cause boredom. Great warmers to motivate and get students to use English could be Hangman, pictionary, memory games, etc. You don't want warmers to take to long, keep them fun and short, enough time for the students to warm up and want to learn English. Different levels is a problem that many teachers face, in any class, it is likely that you will have some more stronger students than others. As a teacher, it can be difficult figuring what to do with the stronger students that may have finished an assignment faster than the weaker students. One great thing to do would be doing pair work, putting stronger and weaker students can help a lot, but try to watch out that the stronger students don't end up doing all the work and the weaker ones just watch. You can also create some extra work in case that during an assignment, the stronger students have something to work on and don't get bored. There will be times when a teacher may get a large class, during this situation it can be difficult gaining everyone's attention. Having a loud and clear voice will help and gaining the students attention, group and pair work is great when teaching a large class. As a teacher, you want to be very dynamic in the classroom and remember to always keep everything clear so there is no misunderstandings during the lesson. Use of native language happens more often in monolingual classes. It can be very difficult as a teacher when faced with this problem. To help encourage the students to only speak English, try to do activities that are at an appropriate level that the students can communicate and work with. Always encourage the students to speak more English, usually that's the only time they have to speak English so try to encourage it. Another thing that could help get students to speak more English would be by only responding in English, this will force the students to try and speak to you. Even if the sentence is grammatically incorrect, at least this will give the students more confidence to try and use the language. There are always reluctant students at one point, so as a teacher, it is important to find activities to try and get those students to participate. Some ideas that could help could be role-play, using a tape recorder or even using pair work. Finally there is the difficulties with listening texts, when teaching, you really want to speak at a slower pace and be very clear when teaching English. It is important that the students understand the majority of what is being said during lessons. Cassettes can help quite a bit, so if a teacher is given an opportunity to use cassettes, they should take advantages of that opportunity as it will help students hear what daily conversations are like and what it sounds like from other people.