6. Helpful Sentence Completion
Student: Eating fruits and vegetables is good…
Teacher: …for your health. Definitely, I try to eat at least…
When a teacher is trying to elicit particular vocabulary from the student, he/she is eager, often too eager, to hear the correct answer.
If you start predicting the words a student is going to say, and blurting out the tail-end of a sentence, you are taking away from the student.
An EFL learner needs time to think and produce their own words and ideas. Taking that away from them by doing the sentence completion for them is counter-productive, and actually pretty annoying.
7. Not listening
It is very easy to believe that since you are the teacher, you should be talking and the student should be listening. Learn how to be a good listener.
The better you listen, the better you will know your student, and the better you can teach.
8. Missing the other layers
You are always teaching more than one thing at a time, whether you mean to or not. Notice what you say, how you teach, how you stand, your tone, gestures etc.
Watch your students as they respond. How many layers are you teaching at once?
9. Keeping to a script
Sometimes the difference between a plan and a script is how present you are for the action. For any given day it is easy to believe that you know what will happen, to believe that the structure of the day is already in place.
This is never true. Teach the student, teach the moment.
10. Ignoring boundaries between teacher and students
EFL teachers should be friendly and strive to bond with students in order to achieve the best learning outcomes. But there’s a line between being friendly and being a friend.
It’s all right to share some personal things and talk about family, pets, interests or hobbies. But you must never let it get too personal.
Any personal information shared must be supplied to give students context when they are learning something new. It is not meant to be shared so you may be accepted by students.
This is when the lines become blurred and students get confused. You lose all authority and any effective classroom management is severely compromised.
Be on friendly terms, talk about your dog or what you did last weekend, but make sure students feel there is a boundary that can’t be crossed.
