Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified in Tennessee? Are you interested in teaching English in Knoxville, Tennessee? Check out our opportunities in Knoxville, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English in your community or abroad! Teflonline.net offers a wide variety of Online TESOL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Here Below you can check out the feedback (for one of our units) of one of the 16.000 students that last year took an online course with ITTT!
This unit takes a lot of the guesswork out of establishing friendly, productive relationships between teacher and students. In previous units we've looked at different types of activities in terms of how they improve language acquisition (with examples including groupwork, individual work, etc.), but this unit focuses on how these specific arrangements might affect things like student confidence, rapport, and the overall mood of the classroom. And when it's all said and done, language acquisition will be very difficult if these things aren't in place first.
Thankfully I have had a significant amount of practice managing a different type of "classroom" during my many hours as a yoga instructor, and I am able to see a number of overlaps that will help me to adjust to this new form of teaching. I have been able to gain experience in things like using eye contact without overdoing it, using gestures to help clarify instructions, speaking clearly and at a level appropriate to the size of the class, being punctual and well-prepared, teaching to groups with mixed levels of ability, staying positive, and yes, even dealing with behavior problems from yoga students!
On that note, one of the most helpful parts of this unit is that it mentions possible problems that might arise--for example: students who don't like each other being sorted into a pair, students becoming bored and disruptive, or family problems affecting classroom behavior. Suggestions are given for how to avoid these problems to begin with, but it is important to be prepared for problems that arise despite my best efforts to prevent them. By being prepared, I won't risk losing my student's confidence in me as a leader.
I also really enjoyed the section on how the physical layout of the classroom and desks/tables might affect rapport and behavior, because this is something I have less experience with and is less intuitive to me in general--but very interesting.
