28 Part I: Getting Started in TEFL
From the moment a student turns up at the reception area of your school or
makes contact with you directly, she expects you to understand that she has
a lack in her ability and that communicating in English is beyond her level
and presents a problem. Students want help. They don’t want to feel embar-
rassed or stupid.
You first need to determine your students’ level of English by some form of
testing. In a country where English is not the first language, students tend
to make contact with a school or teacher in their own language. However, a
form of speaking test happens quite quickly when (in the case of a language
school) a student is introduced to a teacher or teaching manager who begins
a conversation in English. You can buy written placement tests from EFL
publishers such as Oxford University Press or you can put one together using
questions that move progressively through the grammar and vocabulary
typical of each class level. It depends on the school and a student’s needs
whether to test speaking, grammar writing skills or all three. At the appropri-
ate level, students stretch themselves but won’t struggle too much.
Students need to make measurable progress from their starting level. Proof
of this may be completing a syllabus, gaining confidence or passing a test.
However, by the end of your course your students want to feel that it was all
worthwhile because they’ve bettered themselves.
Encouragement goes hand in hand with improving English skills. Your class
wants to know that you’re on its side by the praise you give the students when
they do well.
From the students’ perspective, it’s reassuring when the teacher seems to
know her stuff. You don’t have to be a professor of the language but you do
need to inspire confidence overall. Students want to know that you as the
teacher are an expert (and as a native or proficient speaker of English you
are) and that you know the process involved in making their English better.
Nobody wants to have a boring experience, so students rely on you to make
their lessons as lively and memorable as possible. They don’t want a stand-
up comedian or anything too eccentric, but there should be smiling, laughing
and interesting contexts. In this way your students won’t just remember that
they had a lesson about words for sports, for example, but they’ll remember
the story of a great athlete that you gave as the backdrop to the vocabulary.
Remembering is also a big deal for people learning a language, because they
need enough repetition to drive the point home but not so much that it
becomes tedious.
In most cases you use books and handouts to help you present your lessons.
Students want nicely presented, informative documents that they can still
understand when they look back at them a year later. Conscientious students
