English teachers have an
important job. They teach students how to read and write well, how to
understand what they read, how to learn from their peers, and how to have
productive and challenging conversations. Being a successful English teacher
can be difficult, but there are steps you can take to improve, so that both you
and your students get more out of your time in the classroom.
Part 1
Developing Lesson Plans
1 - Choose material that will interest your students. While
classics like Moby Dick are incredibly important historically and have a lot of
literary value, they can be too long, boring, and seemingly irrelevant to hold
your students' interest for long. Instead, assign shorter or more contemporary
works, or works that you know your students will enjoy.
• Look for literary or academic merit in unlikely places: even a
zombie apocalypse novel like Colson Whitehead's Zone One deals with challenging
and important topics that perfectly complement a classic like Hemingway's In
Our Time while still remaining relevant to modern audiences.
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2 - Assign reasonable amounts of homework. While it may seem
nice to have your students read a lengthy novel in a week, this can be an
unreasonable expectation. Your students won't be able to finish the reading and
will skim it, read a summary instead, or not read it at all. Encourage your
students to complete their homework and to do it well by assigning only
reasonable amounts of work.
• Short stories are excellent ways pieces to assign as critical
reading. And just because there's less to read doesn't mean your students can't
learn key concepts. Find short stories that illustrate whatever you're
discussing with your students and use them to keep your students engaged.
3 - Give homework assignments that help students understand the
material. Ask students to write a short response to a reading assignment,
including an interpretation of or questions about the reading. These
assignments should challenge students to think critically and consider
important questions, or make connections between class topics.
• Don't assign busywork. Assignments that are boring and tedious
don't help the students understand or appreciate your lessons, and they are
annoying to do and to grade. Be careful to only assign work that will help your
students learn.
4 - Focus on the big-picture understanding. While it's important
that your students learn lots of new vocabulary words and understand the minute
details of a text, this isn't what they're going to take away from your class.
Focus on their general understanding of the topics you teach. Impress upon them
the larger significance of what they're studying and how this can help them
elsewhere in their lives. Teach them how to learn rather than simple facts.
This will help them come away from your class with a more lasting understanding
of and appreciation for the subject.
5 - Order your lessons to make them cohesive. Rather than
jumping from topic to topic at will, order your lessons chronologically or
thematically. Tie different topics together in your discussions so that your
students understand how each topic is related. Help them draw connections and
encourage them to consider their ideas in different contexts. What does
Whitman's relationship with nature have to do with Tennyson's, or Hemingway's?
How are they the same or different, and why?
• Ordering your lessons chronologically can make the progression
from one topic to the next feel natural — it makes sense to study 18th century
writers before 19th century ones. Also consider ordering topics thematically, so
that you study the progression of a theme or idea across several texts.
Part 2
Leading Discussions
1 - Know the material well. If you'll be discussing a short
story, reread it several times to make sure you pick up the smaller details
that you might not have noticed the first time. Come up with an interpretation
of the work, but remind yourself that yours is not the only possible
interpretation. Make sure you'll be able to answer any questions students might
have about the work.
2 - Bring in outside material. While the main focus of the
discussion should be based on the text itself, it can be helpful to bring in
outside material like biographical information about the author, the backstory
of the text, or famous or controversial interpretations. Do some research and
bring in the most relevant or interesting information you find.
3 - Know what you want to discuss. Pick out a few key points of
the text that you think your students will find most challenging or confusing.
Have in mind the specific topics you'll want to cover, and come up with a few
important points your students should take away from the discussion.
• Keep in mind that your students will have questions and
interests that you may not be able to anticipate. Your lesson plans should not
be set in stone. Responding to what your students want to talk about will
create a lively, engaging, productive discussion.
4 - Ask interpretive questions. You should guide your students
to interpret the text rather than discuss factual aspects. Ask "how"
and "why" questions rather than "what" or yes or no
questions. For example, "What did Ender do to Bonzo Madrid?" is a
very simple question, while "Why did Ender do it?" is much more
challenging and complex, and "How do you know?" demands close reading
and attention to the text.
5 - Ask specific questions. It can be good to start with broad
questions like "What did you like about this story?", but only if
they are quickly followed by much more specific questions. Broad questions
don't help students think critically about the text, and they encourage
generalizations and assumptions rather than text-based arguments. In contrast,
asking specific questions about specific aspects of the text will challenge
your students to focus on things they may have missed, construct arguments
based in the text, and contend with details that challenge their
interpretations.
6 - Encourage your students to respond to each other. In a
discussion, students shouldn't talk to you. Rather, they should direct their
questions and comments to each other, and you should step in only to keep the
discussion moving forward. They will learn best if they work together to build
their own ideas and interpretations — they won't get much out of the
conversation if you simply tell them what you think. Remember, you're helping
them learn, and a large part of that is teaching them how best to learn.
• If your students will listen to and respect each other,
encourage them to jump into the discussion without raising their hands and
waiting to be called on. This will create a more responsive, quickly-moving,
and engaging conversation that can sustain itself without you. If your students
talk over each other or if a few students monopolize the discussion, have the
person who just spoke choose the next person to talk, or find another way to
allocate speaking time without having to do it yourself.
7 - Challenge your students' ideas, and encourage them to do the
same. You shouldn't disagree with everything they say, but ask them to support
their claims with textual evidence, and encourage other students to come up
with different interpretations. Putting pressure on students' ideas makes them
think harder to come up with convincing arguments. It also helps them develop
the skills to speak persuasively and debate with their peers.
•
Debates and arguments help a discussion become lively,
engaging, and interesting. If these debates start to get personal, or if
students might offend each other, think about turning the conversation back to
the text. You should challenge students' interpretations of the text, not the
students themselves.
Part 3
Knowing Your Material
1 - Read regularly. Read many kinds of literature including
books, magazines, newspapers and poetry. Reading is the best way to confront
challenging topics, pick up vocabulary and writing techniques, and discover new
material to bring to the classroom. Depending on the grade you teach, you
should be familiar with the most important works in literary history. And you
should always be able to give reading suggestions to your students.
• As well as reading important literature, read for fun.
Remember why you love reading, and encourage your students to do the same.
• Be aware of current trends in reading material, and try out
the things you think your students might be reading. This will help you better
understand their interests and relate to them outside the classroom, which will
make you a more effective teacher overall.
2 - Expand your vocabulary. Make a point of looking up new words
that you come across in your reading. Study your favorite words and begin to
amass a large vocabulary. Challenge yourself to think about words you don't
know. Guess at their etymology, and use similar words to figure out their
meaning. Don't be afraid to look up words that you're unsure about, and
encourage your students to do the same.
• At the same time, teach your students that the mark of a good
writer isn't just whipping out two-dollar words and using them to sound
sophisticated. Teach your students the difference between using a word to draw
a historical comparison, or using an alliterative word, and using a word to
impress someone with your learning. There are more and less useful ways of
wielding words.
3 - Practice your handwriting. Students need to be able to read
your handwriting so that they can understand notes you take on the whiteboard
or feedback you give on an essay. Write letters or keep a journal to keep your
handwriting alive and healthy, and always focus on readability rather than the
speed of your writing.
4 - Develop your English language skills. Make sure you have a
firm grasp of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. You don't want to find
yourself teaching your students mistaken or wrong information. Use reference
books and the Internet as sources for grammar and punctuation rules, and don't
be afraid to look up topics you're not sure about.
Part 4
Developing Your Skills in the Classroom
1 - Become comfortable speaking in front of your class. Learn to
be confident, to stand in front of your students and speak well. Practice reading
aloud to get comfortable speaking loudly and clearly and to make sure you won't
stumble when you do it in front of your class. Practice good public speaking
skills so that you can perform well in the classroom.
Image titled Be a Good English Teacher Step 182
Image titled Be a Good English Teacher Step 182
2 - Encourage your students. Pay attention to your students and
give their ideas your full consideration. Treat them as intelligent and worthy
people, and respect them academically and otherwise. Encourage them to pursue
their interests and curiosities, and challenge them in and out of the
classroom. When you give them attention and respect, you'll find that they
perform well so as to be worthy of it.
3 - Be available outside of class. Encourage your students to
drop by at lunch or after school. This can make a huge difference for students
who may be struggling or who want to pursue a discussion further. Being
available for them encourages them to foster a genuine interest in the
material, and it's a display of your respect and desire to help them learn.
4 - Be strict but fair. Don't shout at the pupils every chance
you get, but on the other hand don't let them walk over you. Show discipline,
but don't go over the top, or this will make them behave worse towards you. If
a pupil has done well, tell them so and reward them. Likewise if a pupil is
struggling, tell him or her to stay behind so that you can help them to find
out what's going wrong, or ask another pupil who understands the concept to
help the struggling one.
5 - Make sure your students understand what you teach. Don't
speak and write too quickly. This will give them time to listen, understand,
and copy things down so that they don't miss essential information. Help them
absorb your lessons, and encourage them to make connections between topics and outside
of class so that they can more fully understand your lessons.
Tips
• Encourage your students to engage with the material outside of
class.
Warnings
• Being a teacher can be very hard and takes a lot of time and
patience.
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