Throughout my career as a teacher for more than 14 years, what I have wondered about when working in any school as a principal or academic director in charge of the entire English section of the International School, I have always wondered how to get the students of the school to speak. write good English, which is not easy.
Ironically, I love it, I like to conquer difficult things, especially this is a big challenge for many students in Vietnam that I have been thinking about since I started teaching more than 14 years ago. Back then as a teacher, I myself was sometimes dissatisfied.
Even if the time for English is quite a lot, the teacher is well qualified, somehow the students still do not use it much.
And then my journey to build a good team of teachers started quite arduously, in the context of Vietnam’s increasing shortage of teachers. After a long enough time of giving my heart and mind, putting personal tasks aside, I really found the answer to what it means to be a good foreign language teacher, and from there set specific criteria about teaching methods, processes and content.
So, what is a good English teacher?
(First of all, I would like to exclude “inherently intelligent” students who are gifted in foreign languages. I know quite a few teachers who are supposed to be good because they filter good students from the beginning. I just want to talk about teachers of normal, very ordinary students.)
- Someone who inspires students to learn?
- Are people proficient in teaching methods?
- Is the person who fully completes the assigned lesson, does not burn the lesson plan?
- Someone who knows many good games, many tricks that make students excited?
- Is the person gentle, affable and loved by students?
In all of the above there is a true part. But despite satisfying all these conditions, the students of these teachers cannot use English, even though they have a lot of knowledge in their minds.
To find out if you’re a good teacher, every time you walk out of the classroom when the class is over, ask yourself if your students have used the new knowledge you’ve just taught them, or if it’s all still in your students’ heads: they know all their vocabulary, The grammar I teach thanks to my good pedagogy, but when they have to speak or write, they slurred, stammered, dangled …
That’s just the first question.
The 2nd question teachers need to ask to know if they are good teachers, is when I walk out of the classroom after a lesson, I see that somewhere in the class there are still 1 number of students who do not grasp the lesson.
When practicing with others, they answer vague answers, but when they really have to do it themselves, they are like a completely different person, dementia remembers nothing, the knowledge just taught passes in their heads like a flood, washing themselves away.
Those same students, even if they love your fun class, will slowly slip out of your class in a way they don’t want. Will you give in?
We want good teachers, but actually students need an EFFECTIVE teacher who teaches students to do it. An English COACH instead of someone who TEACHES English.
If you are young (age or soul), and still have a lot of concerns every time you step out of class after a lesson, and it is important that you really want to strive to be an EFFECTIVE teacher, join my teaching team at HALE – Practical English and The Little Giong – Vietnamese Year Chau.
My team puts efficiency first and we have a system of people and support expertise that we have worked hard to build.
