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How my personal teaching experience will help me in teaching English in the EFL classroom? I have been teaching mathematics to EFL students for five years in the United Arab Emirates. Prior to this, I taught mathematics to students whose second language was English, in my home country South Africa. I feel the experience I gained will help me tremendously in an EFL classroom. I would like to touch on some very important key aspects of teaching EFL or ESL students. Such topics include classroom management and environment , differentiation and student-teacher rapport. Classroom management and environment are two aspects which I feel go hand in hand with each other. Setting up a classroom is crucial to ensure that teaching and learning takes place. Setting the scene will create an ambiance where students feel safe and will be eager to learn. To do this, ensure that you have the basics. These are classroom rules, visuals such as bright colored charts with important vocabulary and information, awards and duties. If you are teaching young learners you will want to make sure that there are no items which can cause harm or injury to them. Have a space in the classroom where you will display student work with constructive feedback. This serves as motivation for students. In terms of classroom management, it is wise to lay out your classroom rules on day one. Have students involved in making the rules. This way they are more likely to adhere to them. Award students. Making use of class dojo is an excellent way to award students, keep track of attendance and display events which take place in the classroom. Award students positively most of the time. Children like to be rewarded, so there is less likely to be any disruption during teaching and learning time. If you have to take away points from students, ensure that you have spoken to the student in private first and that the student understands why his or her points are being taken away. Give them a chance to earn the points back. All students are not the same and all students do not learn in the same way. Modern day teaching emphasize on differentiation. A diagnostic test at the beginning of each term allows me to know more about the level of each student in my classroom. After marking and I analyze the results so that I can group my students. My lessons generally cater for three different levels of students. Activities must be designed to suit each level of students. Differentiation can take place in different ways however data is crucial in planning. Data should be ongoing on a daily basis. For example, if you taught a lesson on reported speech, give students an assessment at the end of the period. It does not have to be lengthy. Mark it and give constructive feedback. Use this in determining your action plan for the next lesson. There are different ways in which you can build a good student-teacher rapport. Know your students. Knowing their names is on top the list. They love it when you call them by their names. Know their likes and dislikes. This is easy. Have random conversations. It doesn’t have to be all work and no play. Whenever I feel the lesson is too long and students are tired, we take a break and have a conversation or I would play growth mindset videos for them. There are many other aspects in my teaching experience which will help me in teaching English in the EFL classroom. Although I have been teaching Mathematics, there are strategies that will be common to all learning areas.
