Ultimate Guide To ESL Resources For New Teachers
To begin with this blog, first of all, congratulations on choosing the field of ESL/EFL teaching and if you’re new to this, you’ll get to know one thing for sure, there’s plenty to learn!After completing a at least an online 120 hours International Certificate in TEFL program, you can embark on an exciting journey as a teaching professional. The exciting new journey entails an enormous amount of growth during your first few weeks, months, and even years is truly mind-blowing. But, before you start feeling lost as in where to start, there are plenty of resources available that has the potential to aid you in your growth towards being an efficient ESL/EFL teacher.
Rather than starting from scratch, you can get to learn more from the footprints left behind by experienced teachers. These footprints talk loudly of the resources that they have tried and tested along the path of their long career life.
To assist you along yourpath, mentioned here are some of the ultimate guides to ESL resources for new teachers.
1. Finding the right job for you
One of the significant steps in your new career is finding a job that fits you perfectly.Doing your research and submitting applications is a smart move, but who doesn’t want some extra bit of support through the process?Proper and trusted job portals can be a good place to start for the job hunt.Createa profile that demonstrates your skills better than a regular cover letter would, thus allowing you to include supporting documents, videos, and pictures.And the best part is that you can apply for as many jobs as you want.
2. Learning resources online
Once you land with a job, it’s now time to teach. Numerous schools will provide custom-made ESL teaching materials to be used byeducators, while other institutions may leave it up to the teachers to plan the lesson contents. It’s helpful to know that there are hundreds of online resources out here which can be of great help.
3. Games and activities
As you begin your ESL/EFL teaching journey, one thing you gradually realise is that games and activities are crucial to the classroom, especially if you’re teaching young learners.
As an expert teacher, you can even introduce simple games and activities to energize online classrooms.The good thing is that,it doesn’t require a lot of effort or the need to learn a ton of games to make your lessons fun and engaging.Once you get a few games in tune, your learners will enjoy playing them over and over, and you can opt to adapt them to suit new learning purposes.
Some age-old games like hangman, Taboo, Pictionary, and Scattergories require minimal equipment and are quite simple to explain. They have real learning advantages for your learners other than being plenty of fun!
4. Getting organized
Organization is one of the best ESL resources for your classroom and there are several online tools to help you make resources and organize your lesson plans and calendars. A simple tip is to design your lesson plans and resources in Google Docs, then you precisely know where they are whenever you want to spare yourself some time and reuse them. Some other apps can be advantageous as well.
- TeacherKit aids you in tracking things like attendance grades and learner behaviour in one place.
- Trello boards is a great way to chalk out school terms and keep track of your classes and learning goals.
- Class Dojo can assist you in keeping touch with your students’ parents easily (the message translation tool is especially handy for ESL teachers), and give your learners feedback.
Certainly, you can use physical resources such as a weekly calendar, watch, a well-organized locker, or even stationary supplies as well.
5. Online communities for teachers
Social media, if used correctly, can be a great help for support, advice or just to speak to like-minded educators via various online communities.If you are talking about particular events in your classroom or school online, be subtle. While posting anything, make sure you don’t say anything that could be labelled unprofessional or lead directly back to teachers, parents, or learners you work with.
Following trending hashtags in social media is a great way to join wider teaching discussions. It is recommended that you use #tinyvoicetuesday for tips and advice, #edutwitter for news, #teacher5oclockclub, #teachertwitter and #twitterstaffroom for chat, and #planningshoutout for lesson plans and resources. You can also consider joining Facebook groups which is also a great way to join dedicated communities for deeper discussions.There are also several ESL groups dedicated to teachers in particular countries or cities across the globe, providing requisite information, advice, for the local teaching community.
6. The best resource of all
The ‘bestest’ ESL resource for educators is, by far, other ESL teaching professionals. You can gain so much knowledge from having a robust conversationwith your co-workers. Whether virtually or in physically, the staff room is a place where you can deliberate the ups and downs of your day and get needed support and advice.
As a novice ESL teacher, this is precious. So,grab the opportunity to connect with your colleagues whenever and wherever possible. And who knows, maybe you’ll become an experienced ESL educator able to give out advice yourself.
Final thoughts
In a contemporary world, there is a vast amount of information out there. You just need to know, look for, and find the useful tools and resources from well-known and trusted sites, who are expert in teaching English language learners online and abroad. Consider online 120 hours International Certificate in TEFL program.
Wish you all the best on choosing to become an ESL teacherand contribute to the field. Good luck!