9 ways you can teach English to foreigners without ever leaving home! – ESL

More and more people are beginning to learn English across the world. This means that English speakers with qualifications such as a Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) TQUK are in high demand. With the support of technology, teaching English from the comfort of your home has become a lucrative career option. In this article, we discuss 10 ways you can begin to teach English from home.

Find out TQUK options to get qualified

Whether you are a native English speaker or a fluent non-native speaker, you can earn qualifications like TQUK Level 5 Diploma in Education & Training (RQF) to become qualified in teaching English. Earning sound qualifications will provide you with the necessary skills to become a good teacher. Before you decide on the type of qualifications to follow, determine your target audience. What are the teaching requirements of different countries? Find out what kind of qualifications would your potential students or institutes require. For example, you can follow the online TQUK Level 5 Certificate in teaching English as a foreign language to improve your skills. Once you have the qualifications and skills, you can embark on a rewarding career teaching English from the comfort of your home.

1. Why do you need to get to know your students first?

Learning a language is a subjective journey for each individual. Effective teachers first seek to understand students’ backgrounds, and personal strengths and weaknesses. Before you begin teaching, get to know your students and find out what their educational needs are. This way, you will be able to customise your teaching material and use interactive tools that encourage innate learning. Once you earn a reputation as an English teacher who can work with students’ capabilities and weaknesses, you will gain more opportunities to teach.

2. How to establish the classroom language early on?

Even though you make your online classroom feel friendly, warm, and inviting, most students will find grasping new language tools daunting. This is why you need to establish your classroom language early. Ensure that your students know the safe classroom phrases. For example, you can establish that anyone can at any time come out and say; ‘can you speak slowly?’ Or ‘what does (insert word) mean?’ Some other examples are; ‘I don’t understand’, and ‘how do you say (insert word) in English?’ If you get to know your students well before you start the lessons, establishing a common classroom language will come easily. Once you equip them with the classroom language, learning will go smoothly.

3. Why do you need to plan and prepare in advance?

Ask any good teacher, and they will tell you that ‘winging it’ will never work. Lesson planning is half the battle. Prepare a timeline and a rough lesson plan for the duration of the course, and expand on each session plan more elaborately with the student’s abilities and input in mind. Even when you prepare an excellent lesson for the day, have a backup plan if plan A doesn’t seem to be working. Make sure that you don’t move on to new lessons without allowing your students to absorb the content well. You can check their level of comprehension by doing pop quizzes.

4. Why do you need to use different techniques in teaching English to foreigners?

As you gain the necessary skills through Teaching English as a Foreign Language TQUK, you will create your own teaching techniques. You can try different approaches such as games, pop quizzes, act-it-out challenges, and lots of visuals. It is always good to plan to use different techniques and mix those during a session. As you progress with each class, you will know which techniques work better for each.

5. How to use technology to teach English to foreigners?

Technology provides plenty of space to teach English. It is especially true in an online classroom setting. You can use films and videos to teach the correct use of phrases, pronunciation, etc. Apps can help you teach your students grammar rules without making it boring. You can take them on digital field trips to assimilate into the language. Online games and blogging can be effective tools in teaching English.

6. How to use visuals to teach English as a foreign language?

Visual aid is perfect for online ESL (English as a second language) classes. They not only help students understand and remember concepts more easily but also provide touch points that you can refer back to throughout the lesson. You can use pictures to introduce nouns, adjectives, and concepts, and even celebrity photos to spark interest. You can use videos to personalise your lessons based on student’s interests.

7. How to use interactive activities in teaching English to foreigners?

Interactive activities and group work are always effective in helping students grasp the fundamental rules of English and confidently use those to communicate. Prepare some interactive lesson plans for the day, and make your students feel at ease even if they make mistakes. It will help them acquire verbal communication skills and gain confidence in doing so. You can get them to interact in pairs or interact with you for practical purposes in online teaching.

8. Why do you need to encourage students to set learning goals?

We all learn better and stay motivated when we have pragmatic goals in mind. You can help each student to set short-term and long-term goals at the outset. It could be something simple as reading a popular short novel in English or watching an English language movie without subtitles in their native tongue. This way your students will stay on track, and you can design appropriate lessons.

9. Why do you need to use positive reinforcement in teaching English as a foreign language?

Learning a new language is never easy, and it is your job as a teacher to be encouraging. This is why it is important to connect with your students from the beginning. You need to make sure that they feel safe in practising their newly acquired skills and making mistakes along the way. Instead of telling a student where they went wrong, you can praise the effort and gently encourage them to try again. You can also use authentic, positive praise to help them feel motivated.