Teaching is hard and teaching language is harder. You have to have both knowledge of your subject matter and a technical, skill-based knowledge, to pull it off. If I were to list the top 7 mistakes that new teachers make in the classroom, they would be the following.
1. Teacher Talking Time (TTT) This is all of the output that teachers make while in the classroom. I'll include here Graded Language, Running Commentary, Speed, Tone, Question Stacking, Confusing Directions...etc. The trick to get your students speaking is to speak less and to speak clearly. Don't explain what you're going to do, just do it. Don't use confusing or complicated language, speak directly and clearly. If you can limit your output to the essentials, you'll improve your pace, student comprehension and student output.
2. Lack of Language Awareness. Know your grammar. You shouldn't be lecturing your students on grammatical points, but you should be aware of the mistakes that they are making and why they are making them. If you improve your own grammar awareness, your confidence level will rise and your students will trust your competency as their educator.
3. Not Enough Error Correction. A lot of new teachers feel uncomfortable error correcting in class. Don't. Without error correction, your students won't improve. Practice being able to pick up errors during class/group work and quickly deal with them. As your error correction increases, your ability to find these errors and handle them, will increase as well. Note that errors come in all forms. Don't just focus on correcting students' 'mistakes', but also on improving their general language ability. Push your students to use contractions, to speak faster, to speak louder, to incorporate more natural sounding expressions and words (phrasal verbs for example). If you consistently hit these mistakes ,while pushing general language training, you'll see a vast improvement in their abilities.
4. Over Reliance on Textbooks. Textbooks are great, but they should be adapted. Find out what your students are in to and be able to create materials from scratch that deal with these needs. I've got a lot of lesson plans on this blog that are created 100 percent from scratch. Try to create your own. You'll find handmade lessons are often considerably more engaging and entertaining than the ones found in your average textbook.
5. Emphasize Roleplays. Doing excersises and worksheets are a great way to practice language components, but your students are not really using language authentically. Learn to create language speaking roleplays and activities that use the language in a real setting (context) and have a clear language tasks. Also, work on question forming. Students should be interacting with each other. That means asking and answering questions rather than just reporting back to the class. If you watch any of my lessons online, and fast forward near the end, you'll get the idea of what a student interaction should look like.
6. Not Engaging. Loosen up in the class. Dress up. Use props. Get your students interested in what you're doing. Play music in the background...etc. A lot of new teachers can come across as dead weight. Part of our job as educators is to entertain. Is there anything that you can bring in to make the lesson more interesting? Is there any kind of game/competition you can add to the activity to give it that extra flare? Make the element of interest part of your lesson plan and lesson construction. If you actively try and find ways to make your lessons, topics, activities more engaging, you'll get a great response from your students.
7. Not Having Clear Goals. Each lesson should have an aim. What do you want them to get out of the lesson? What are you working on? Do you have specific Target Language? A grammar point? How do you want them to be using the language? These things should be thought of first before any lesson construction begins.
Hope those help!
Chris
TLH TEFL
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