Teaching English – Essential skills for every teacher

A person who is good at English is not necessarily a good teacher. A native speaker born and raised in an English environment may not be able to effectively convey knowledge of this foreign language. A good English teacher not only teaches students how to read and write well, but also how to understand, learn from everything around and be able to communicate effectively. Therefore, the following article will mention some necessary skills for teachers when teaching English.

Some essential skills are required with jobs related to teaching English

Teachers need to own the communication skills with students
Currently, many schools still apply the teaching method of ‘teacher-centered’ – which means that in the classroom, the teacher is the center. With this method, the interaction between teachers and students is very limited because students mainly listen and follow instructions. Therefore, learners become shy and timid when interacting with classmates and teachers and using English in real-life conversations.
To create a good English learning environment, English classes need to be student-centered and maximize interaction between students and teachers. This method requires teachers to communicate more with students, so it will make them feel more comfortable and confident when communicating in English.

Classroom management is also one of the essential skills when teaching English
Most English classes have more than 10 students. Even in public or international schools, class sizes can be up to 30 or 40 students. Therefore, teachers need to understand each of their students well to manage their classes effectively. Teachers should consider how to group students in order to maximize the effectiveness of group learning. In addition, it is necessary for teachers to arrange classroom activities reasonably (warm-up before class starts, game activities to memorize knowledge,…) so that students can clearly understand the purpose of each lesson and achieve the main goal set by the teacher.

It is the empathic intelligence that can connect teachers and students
Empathic intelligence is the ability to see problems by putting yourself in the shoes and situations of others. To have a good English learning environment, it is necessary to have connections and cooperation between students and teachers. This requires students and teachers to have empathy. Teachers need to know how to observe, monitor, and listen to students to analyze and handle problems logically in order to build students’ trust and respect.

Last but not least, creative skills are extremely important for English teachers
In today’s ever-changing education, every English teacher also needs to update and be flexible with new changes. In addition, teachers also need to possess creative skills to make lessons’ content more interesting and new.
Teachers need to pay attention to how to start a lesson interestingly and how to end this lesson to impress students as well as ensure diversity in teaching methods. For example, with an animal theme, teachers can organize games related to the animal world or let students transform into characters from animated movies about animals. Or in terms of learning new words, teachers can share many flexible ways to learn vocabulary for students: learning with flashcards, learning through songs, or learning new words by journaling every day.

Creative skills are extremely important when teaching English

Teachers whose role is teaching English play an indispensable role in the learning process of every student. Hopefully, with the above sharing, you can become a good English teacher, helping students achieve the best results in their learning process.