#teachingexperience

For more details:https://www.studyspectrum.com/blog/teaching-experience

Listening involves many aspects of a language, such as pronunciation, getting familiar with thespeaker’s accent and intonation. Listening also entails identifying and understanding the lexis used by the speaker, as well as the tone (i.e. formal or informal). Putting aside the quality of the audio/video, speed represents a major obstacle for EFL learners. Similarly, the clarity of the speaker’s voice and the way he/she enunciates highly influences EFL learners’ understanding. Once, we were practicing listening with an episode of Kids Reacts, and students found it particularly difficult to understand kids, as they often mumble or speak quite low. Secondly, rather than being a passive skill, listening is active. Listening requires particular attention from EFL learners and demands them to engage with the recording. In this respect, a mechanical way for teachers to make sure that their students understand it to ask them repeatedly if they understand and what they understand. Listening is not a mere receptive skill, and a methodological and critical mind is often needed to handle the activity. Different steps can be distinguished: before rushing into catching specific details, students should identify the number of speakers and their identity. Then they can identify what is the topic of the audio/video, and finally they can focus on getting detailed information. Thirdly, what makes listening so crucial is that it implies speaking. Active listening is ultimately important when students have conversations with each other, or when they will be interacting with other English speakers. In fact, one of the main concerns of an EFL learners is not being able to understand and reply to an English interlocutor. A situation as simple and common as giving/asking for directions can be problematic. As a result, practicing listening is of high importance for EFL learners. In the class, listening activities include dictation, listening to news, TV shows, movie trailers, podcasts... Dictation is also a good exercise during which students focus exclusively on what is said and can get familiar with English pronunciation. “How can I improve my listening skills?” is a question that comes up regularly. Answersare in fact numerous, since most of the listening activities can also easily be done at home. A prolific way for students to improve their listening competences is to incorporate some English into their daily life, by listening to music, watching films or series for instance. In this respect, listening to the radio is a fruitful and passive way of getting used to hearing English on a regular basis. An advice I give them is to look up the lyrics of the songs they like, and start watching a movie with their language’s subtitles.However, students often tell me that they tend to read the subtitles more than focusing on what is actually said. To counter that, I suggest them to watch a movie they already know with English subtitles, so that they can focus primarily on the speeches. Listening is part and parcel of language learning and of everyday life. It may not be the most difficult skill, but is surely important. Read the full article

Diary submitted by Christion W., Erasmus+ internship in Valencia What are the main constraints in the classroom facing TEFL teachers? (large multilevel classes, textbooks, curriculum, hours, motivation, special needs) From my personal experience of Teaching in the classroom, I have discovered a few constraints that I have faced as a TEFL Teacher in Spain. First of all, the fact that It has been an issue for me to adjust to the Spanish Timetable. Working 30 hours a week is not that much but 2 to 5-hour breaks between morning and evening classes has forced me to go home sometimes or just hang around in the office doing nothing. Over time, I have been slowly adjusting and finding things to do such as staying in the staffroom to mark work which at first, I was doing at home but slowly realized that this was counterproductive. Finishing at 8:50 pm most days has been quite a drain on my spirit for waking up in mornings.  Another constraint I´d like to highlight is that some students are not motivated to learn English at all. I have had some classes where some students would be completely disengaged with the class and leave the classroom every now and again to make a phone call. It seems that this is more evident in the B1 classes and hardly happens in B2-C1 classes. While browsing the blog posts on the TEFL Trainer website I could see that I was not the only person who was experiencing difficulties in adjusting to the lifestyle of an English teacher in Spain as well as coping with disengaged students. Mary had posted a blog stating that she had struggled a great deal adjusting to her timetable when she had arrived In Spain and had also experienced a disengagement amongst her students. (What are the main constraints in the classroom facing TEFL teachers? 2019). I can see that this is a common theme that just needs some adjusting to as time moves on like all new things in life.  In addition to the lack of engagement amongst beginner students as well as timetable adjustments, I have also experienced a last-minute approach that most teachers take before they begin to teach their classes. I have found this extremely difficult to adjust myself and adapt because I have to revise a grammar rule or read through an activity 10 minutes before the next class but as the weeks go by, I am slowly getting used to the fast pace culture which I assume is different depending on the language school. I know that it’s just a matter of time for me to get into the full swing of teaching in Spain.  Read the full article

Are you available to work on Tuesday afternoons from 3-5pm in the Baulkham hills area? Starting from March? I'm am searching for the right person to help me with art classes for primary aged students. You must enjoy art & not afraid to get a little messy and most important of all live kids! This casual job offers excellent remuneration for the right person in a nurturing artistic environment. Would be excellent experience for student teachers & art students. If you feel you have something to offer email elaine@@funtimeart.com.au now. For this position you will require to have a working with children check. #artjob #job #artsactivitycoordinator #funtimeart # Baulkham #Hills #teachingexperience

I realised that I had other important experiences that immensely helped me in my first day like the projects I was in and my internships. In my opinion, there’s no a real line to be trespassed when it comes to be a teacher or not, because it is all a matter of feeling like one or not. Now I question what kind of experiences have you had to feel like a teacher?