Top 10 Tips for New English Teachers | Lesson Plans, Activities

I’m going to talk about my top 10 tips for new ESL or EFL teachers. So if you’re new to teaching English, this is the video for you.

Tips for New ESL/EFL Teachers

Let’s get into the tips for newbie teachers! And you’ll also want to check out: How to Create a Positive Classroom Environment.

#1: Names

My first tip is to know or remember names somehow. It’s very very difficult to conduct a class if you don’t know the students’ names. You won’t be able to really ask specific students questions. If someone is misbehaving, it’s difficult to address unless you actually know their name.

The way to get around this if you have a lot of students is to have a seating chart and then have the master list. Or, just have students write up a little name tag and put it on their desks. I kind of do the name tag on the desk thing. I just find it easier than a seating chart. You can also use something like the name game.

Of all the tips for new English teachers, this is the one that can make the biggest difference.

#2: Do Lots of Review Activities

The second tip for newbie ESL/EFL teachers is to use lots of review activities. I personally would rather my students know a few things very, very well than a million things not really at all by the time they leave my class.

If you have a textbook, you may feel like you’re kind of forced to just power through the textbook over the course of the semester. However, focus on a few things in that textbook and don’t feel like you need to cover every single activity. Choose the best ones and then do lots of review activities.

So this could happen even at the end of class or at the beginning of the next class and then you could have like maybe a monthly review session. And you could do some review before the midterm and final exam if you have to give exams. This is one my top tips if you’re serious about students seeing some great results.

#3: All About Goals

The next tip is to set some goals. Find out why students are studying English and then tailor your classes towards that. If students feel like they’re achieving what they want out of that class, it’s going to go much more smoothly instead of you trying to impose what you think they should be learning. Their needs are different than what you might think they are, so ask the students what they want out of that class.

#4 Tips for Teachers: Create a Lesson Plan

The next tip for new English teachers is to create a lesson plan. I know it’s tempting to just kind of walk into class with a textbook and just kind of open it up and say, “What are we doing? What am I teaching you?” Or, just kind of chit-chat with students.

That’s not actually the best way to teach English. Come to class with at least a very basic lesson plan of what you’re going to do. It takes a few minutes but it’s totally worthwhile in terms of the results that students will get.

#5: All about a Relationship

The next tip is that teaching is all about a relationship. So do whatever you can to kind of foster a good relationship with your students. I won’t say bribe them but I mean if it’s their birthday like bring in a little snack or a gift and like you can sing Happy Birthday to them.

For the holidays kind of do some fun activities or games and kind of bring in some treats or some like homemade baking, something like that. It can go a really, really long way towards this kind of fostering a good class environment.

#6: Use a Variety of Activities and Games

The next one is to use a variety of ESL activities and games. So nobody really likes doing the same thing over and over and over and over again in a language class. It kind of leads to this feeling of dread of like, oh I’m going to class and I’m going to do the same old thing and it’s so boring. The way to combat that is just to get creative and use some different activities.

#7: Have some Routines

However, the next tip is all about routine. I know I just said to use a ton of activities and that’s true, but you should also have some sort of routine. People also don’t like when it’s just very, very random and then when they come into class, they have no idea what to expect.

Have routines for things like how to take attendance, how to collect papers, how to hand out papers, what time the students maybe should line up before the bell starts, and how to clean up for the day. And this is especially true if you teach children. You will definitely want to have some routines in order to prevent chaos in your class. This is one of my top tips!

You should also consider having a few simple English classroom rules.

#8: Use ICQs

The next tip is to use ICQs. So ICQs are instruction-checking questions. These are very simple questions that you would ask students after you’ve given instructions.

Some examples:

• How many students are on your team? Four.
• How long do you have? Five minutes.

That kind of thing. Just check to make sure the students have understood what you’ve told them before you turn them loose to go do their activity or game or whatever they’re doing. It can go a long way just to ensure the students are doing what you want them to do.

#9: Use CCQs

Okay, the next one is CCQs. These are concept-checking questions. I would say, for example, “I didn’t ate?” And students would say, no! “I didn’t eat.” That kind of thing. You’re just checking what you taught them just to make sure they’ve 100 understood.

#10: Positive Reinforcement

And then finally, the last one is positive reinforcement. You know in every class, in every country, with every age there’s always the class clown. There’s like the one person who’s maybe a little bit lazy. There’s one person who doesn’t like English. There’s the kind of Keener.

In any country, in any situation that you’re teaching, there are always kind of those common different types of people. I personally try to focus on the positives. I choose things to call out that are not negative.

Some examples:

• You worked so well as a team. Great job.
• You did a really nice job on that assignment or worksheet.
• Thank you so much for helping me hand out those papers.
• You took such a short time to clean up. I really appreciate it and you did a very good job. Thank you for picking up that trash off the floor.

Things like that. Focus on the positive and not the negative and the result is you’ll get more positive things happening in your class. This is a key tip for new ESL teachers.

Tips for New English Teachers: Join the Conversation

Those are my top 10 tips for new ESL teachers. I hope you enjoyed it and please leave a comment and tell me your top tip for newbie teachers.

Last update on 2022-10-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API