Calabash, North Carolina TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

I’ve learned important things about how various factors can impact whether students are motivated to learn in an ESL or TESOL classroom. Implicitly, my mind has been opened to whether these factors necessarily influence how much students do learn. For example, I hadn’t realized that adult learners are inherently more motivated but may also be hampered by negative classroom experiences and may also be less likely to experiment because they are concerned about losing face. I also didn’t know that adolescent learners, many of whom may have been forced to be in an English language learning classroom may be unmotivated to learn. I also hadn’t thought that the same concern about losing face would also hinder adolescent students, because it would render them less likely to experiment and actually ‘play with’ expressing their ideas in English. I also didn’t realize that very young learners are inherently receptive to songs and games that may help them to learn a new language more easily. At the same time, very young learners may, because of not yet being fluent in their own language, have more trouble assimilating grammatical rules and advanced vocabulary. I’ve also learned that an effective TEFL or TESOL teacher must learn to fulfill different roles, including prompter, model, assessor, and observer. A good teacher instinctively knows when to take on one role as opposed to another and listens carefully to his or her students to see what their needs are and even which teaching style or approach best suits an individual student’s ability to learn.