Classroom Management for Teaching English as a Foreign Language - Using Students' Names

It is very important that whenever we?re doing an activity that we use the students names wherever possible when we're asking for feedback and so on and so forth. There are a number of benefits to using the students? names and they can include helping to actually organize the class itself, certainly to acknowledge when a student has given the correct answer and so forth, to indicate who should respond, rather than just asking a general question to the whole class. By using the names we can ask an individual to respond to that particular question. One point to note here is that if you are going to ask an individual student it is very useful if you put their name at the end of the question. This is useful because if you start with their name then all of the other students know that you're not going to be asking them, whereas if you leave the name until the end of the question everyone at least will have the chance to think about the answer in case you actually call upon them. So moving on from the use of their names, the use of your eyes and voice and gesture, what about the actual classroom arrangement itself?

Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.

From this unit I learned about the progression of a Business English course from beginning to end in terms of what the teacher needs to do and how they need to do so in order to have the most successful course possible. Upon initial meeting, it is a good idea to do both a level test and a needs analysis, because Business English groupings can be split according to management with many types of job levels and English levels. Conducting these tests means the teacher will have an idea of what English skills their students need for the course so that the teacher can plan their syllabus to best suit everyone and their needs. Any General English test to fit them into the levels from the European Framework for languages will suffice for the level test. For the needs analysis, the students can complete a questionnaire or fill out a form to determine what they know and what they need to know. After these two tests are done the groups can be formed by the teacher with help from the Human Resources department, and the teacher can begin to create the syllabus in regards to the needs of the students. The syllabus should convey what the unit is called, what skills it covers, what grammar or vocabulary is involved, what tasks or functions the language has, and what resources are used. Be sure to leave time in the syllabus and lesson planning for the first lesson to be a discussion of needs and what will take place in the course and for the last lesson to be an assessment or evaluation class. For longer courses, perhaps more evaluations are needed and time should be left for that as well. It is also always a good idea to leave a free hour or lesson for any problems or work that comes up during the course that needs to be addressed, and so that the teacher has extra time to work with if needed. The end of course assessment and evaluation normally has two parts. Firstly, the students should get a chance to evaluate the course and the content of the course. This helps the teacher improve their materials, see how the course went for the students, and gives the teacher ideas for any future courses. This can be done by having students complete an end of course questionnaire. Secondly, the teacher should have evaluation paperwork from their students throughout the course. It is likely that the company that hired you will expect you to have paperwork on the course and the students such as attendance records, progress reports and grades, notes on achievements, and so on. An end of course report for the student is also a good thing to have, such as a certification of course completion or a portfolio of experience. These are always good to give the students so they can see their progress, and also good to have on record so that if the student needs to ask for references in the future, they can contact the teacher.