Attributes Of A Great EFL Teacher

Great EFL teachers are patient at explaining things. Being comfortable with explaining content and context to students is an essential skill for teachers. Do you like to explain how things work, or how events occurred?   They have a sense of humor and use humor as part of their teaching methods. Humor, used properly, can be a powerful addition to any lesson. Can you integrate humor into lessons, explanations and stories to help your students learn? 

Great teachers like people. EFL student's age ranges from elementary, special education, secondary education, higher education to adults and retirees. Great EFL teachers have a temperament for students in all age ranges. 

Great teachers are inherently fair-minded. They assess students on the basis of performance, not on the students' personal qualities, background or culture. Can you measure students’ performance based on an evaluation criteria equally applied? 

Great teachers have common sense. They can size up a situation quickly and make an appropriate decision. There is no substitute for common sense. Can you be fair and communicate your decisions clearly?

Great teachers have a complete understanding of the EFL content they teach in sufficient depth to convey the information in meaningful ways to the students. Are you able to re-present information from several perspectives to help students grasp concepts? 

Great teachers set high expectations for their students and hold the students to those expectations. If you are thinking about becoming a teacher, can you set high expectations for yourself, and demand excellence not only of yourself, but your students as well? 

Great teachers are detail oriented. Teachers must be organized in their professional and teaching duties. EFL teachers cannot take things for granted. This applies to all organizational and instructional duties. 

Great teachers are good managers of time. Time is one of the most precious resources a teacher has. Good teachers have learned to use this resource wisely. Can you monitor your time and allocate to priorities and deadlines? 

Great teachers can lead or follow. EFL teachers have to shift from "sage on the stage to guide by the side". Sometimes, teachers must be members of teaching teams, committees, groups, councils, and task forces. It is important to have the temperament to function in these capacities. Are you comfortable being a leader or a follower as circumstances require? Can you be constructive with co-workers, team teachers, administrators, and parents? 

Great teachers learn to improve their teaching by teaching, by making mistakes, learning from them and improving. Can you be a fair critic of yourself? 

Great teachers know that they teach as much from their own actions and behavior as with the content they teach. Do a personal inventory of your own values, personality, preferences and goals. How has your past experience/education prepared you for teaching?

If you complete your TEFL course with TEFL Zorritos, you will be given all the guidance and confidence to be a great EFL teacher!  Also you will have our job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete our course.  

What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today! 

Want To Teach Abroad?

While teaching abroad is exciting, challenging and well just pretty awesome, moving to a new job, house and country all at once can be a bit overwhelming. So, if you’re feeling a little nervous about the whole thing, try doing some of these – they’ll help to put your mind at rest:

Do a TEFL course

While doing a TEFL course won’t prepare you for every classroom eventuality, it will prepare you for the realities of life in the classroom, including how to plan lessons and how to prevent all out rebellion against you! Do a TEFL course and, not only will your employment prospects rocket, but it will also help you to feel much more confident about stepping into the classroom for the very first time.

Do your research

There’s nothing more frightening than heading into the unknown, so it’s a great idea to do your research before you accept any job offers.  Once you get that all important job offer don’t be tempted to accept in straight away without doing any research. It is a good idea to Google the name of the school you’re thinking of working at and ‘review’ – you may soon find out that there’s a reason why they’re offering such a ‘good’ salary. In addition to this get to know the area you’ll be working – read some guidebooks or simply get on Google Earth for a bird’s eye view. It’ll all help to put your mind at rest.

Have some resources tucked up your sleeve

Any experienced teacher will tell you that, no matter how well thought out your lesson plans, there will always be times when you have to resort to plan B, C or even D! So, before you step foot in the classroom for the first time, make sure you have some tried and tested activities to fall back on if and when things start getting a little hectic.

Network

If you’re feeling nervous about moving to a new country, the best people to talk to are those who are currently living and working there. And with the wonders of the internet it’s now easier than ever to do just that.

Learn a bit of the local language before you go

While you don’t need to know the local language in order to teach overseas, it’s handy to know a few words of the local language so you’re not totally overwhelmed when you touch down.

Keep an open mind

Most major TEFL destinations have cultures that can feel very alien to most westerners: you may be confronted with things that seem frustrating, strange or just plain wrong. The only remedy for this is keeping an open mind and remembering that you decided to go overseas to experience another culture, not make everyone behave in a way that’s acceptable to your own.

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  And a job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!

TEFL Jobs For Non-Native English Speakers

Over the years English has become the international language of business, communications, technology and travel. This global reach means that most people using English around the world are non-native speakers speaking to other non-native speakers (Polish businesspeople speaking to German businesspeople, for example). So sounding like a native speaker is irrelevant to them: they need International English and they want a teacher with good levels of English and teaching skills.

You’ve already learned English, so you can teach English

Another plus is that because you have learned the English language from scratch, you probably understand English grammar on an intellectual level to a much higher level than most of your native counterparts who understand it on a subconscious level having soaked up the language from birth.

And one final part on the back for our non-native speaking friends: being taught by a non-native TEFL teacher can really motivate and inspire your students – if you can learn to speak, write and teach English to such a high level, they can too!

What Are The Challenges of Being a Non-Native TEFLer?

The main challenge that you’ll have is your own worry about being a non-native speaker! But your students know you’re not a native speaker and don’t expect you to be one. You’ve worked hard to learn the language to such a high level, so be confident. All that hard work you’ve put in will help you teach English as a foreign language to your students just as well as a native speaker would.

You may encounter old attitudes from some employers who feel that the native speaker is still the ideal. Don’t worry – there is so much demand for TEFL teachers, you can just choose a different employer. These attitudes are changing rapidly – any good school now is looking for skills, not just someone who is a ‘native-speaker’.

Some countries generally require proof of nationality from an English-speaking country to get a work permit (e.g. Korea). There’s not much you can do about that unfortunately, but these prejudices about what makes a good teacher are changing, and we expect them to disappear in the near future.

Do I Need Specific TEFL Training?

Whatever anyone says, you don’t need any extra TEFL training. You are the equal of the native speakers, and should not put yourself in a separate category.

Obviously, if you’re going to teach English, your English level has to be very high. If you’re not confident about your English, you’ll need to work on it in a targeted way. Get a detailed diagnosis of your speaking and writing from an expert and work on the areas you need to improve: whether that’s fluency, pronunciation, sentence stress and rhythm, use of articles or tenses – a few more hours effort will open up a world of opportunities.

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  And a job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!

TEFL Job Tips For Success

Finding EFL work abroad can seem overwhelming with so many different countries, visas, contracts and cultural differences.  Below are a few ideas to increase your chances for success.

Customize your resume for the TEFL job you are applying for
Employers are only interested in your education and experience that directly relates to teaching.   Make sure your resume is concise and precise.  Only cover what the job advertisement asks for in simple, direct language. Focus on skills that schools will value, like leadership, organizational and communication skills and how you have demonstrated that you have them.

Take your TEFL course with a school that provides guaranteed job assistance
Get your TEFL course provider to do the leg work for you! The best TEFL schools have job placement services which will match you with relevant suitable contracts on completion of your course.  If the TEFL school you are researching doesn't have guaranteed job assistance, then look somewhere else.

Always correspond with a real person by name - not a Sir or Madam
Want to know where most of those applications addressed to ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ end up? That’s right, the trash can! One of the best routes to job success is to build up personal relationships with recruiters to make sure your application ends up in the right person’s hands, rather than the trash can. 

Use the internet
The internet’s a marvelous thing so make sure you use it– where before you might have had to traipse around a city handing out your resume, you can now get access to tens of thousands of TEFL jobs by just a click of your mouse. TEFL internet sites list positions from all over the world, which are just waiting for enthusiastic EFL teachers to fill them!

Keep your language simple
Very often the person who will be reading your job application won’t have English as their first language. They won’t want to tackle an application full of academic or arcane language – they will want one that’s simple to read and direct. If they can’t immediately see that you have the skills for the job your application will probably end up in the trash can.

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  And a guaranteed job waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!

TEFL - The Scoop!

English is the international language of business, politics, science and communications.  It is estimated that over a billion people are learning English worldwide.  About three-quarters of these people live in non-English speaking countries.  In other words every country needs English teachers  every country needs English teachers (there are even foreign TEFL teachers in North Korea).

Most language schools advertise on the internet and many like to arrange a contract in advance. There are hundreds of websites dedicated to TEFL jobs. It’s estimated that there are over 20,000 new TEFL jobs listed each month.  The demand for TEFL is so huge that many schools will employ teachers with no teaching qualification or degree. This does depend on the country – you may need to be qualified to get a work visa in some countries. 

Also, the question of whether you want to teach without some training needs serious consideration.  In addition the better teaching jobs will require at the least an accredited TEFL certificate, with some observed teaching practice.

Most English language schools are English language environments. You will use English for all interactions at work. However, knowing some basic phrases in the local language shows respect for people and will add considerably to your cultural experience.

You could actually be teaching in one of many countries tomorrow. You will need to decide whether you want to simply arrive in a country and approach schools or arrange a job before you go. This may or may not work out for you and of course it is always best to do your research first, complete an accredited TEFL course and get job guidance from your TEFL provider.

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost! And a job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!

TEFL - A Recession Proof Job

Despite the current economic crisis sweeping much of the world, there is still one job where the demand continues to increase, with no foreseeable end.  That job is TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language.  In fact there are so many opportunities, that once you have completed an accredited TEFL certification course you can pretty much have your choice of where in the world you want to live and work as an EFL teacher.

If you choose the right TEFL provider, they can even do the legwork for you in regards to finding a teaching job for you when you complete your training.  In fact, the better schools can probably guarantee you employment upon graduation from their course.

In addition to your TEFL certification you will need a resume appropriate for the job you are seeking.  Again, the best TEFL schools will assist you with preparing your resume so it matches the country specific requirements where you want to teach.

Interviewing can be as simple as a brief discussion on Skype or could involve several meetings with different school management over a period of weeks, depending on where you want to work and the type of school where you will be interviewing.  Again, the best TEFL schools will help you prepare for your interview based on the school location where you are applying for a job.

Visa and work permit information about the country where you want to work is also important and can be tedious and complicated if you don't know the procedures.  Again, if you have chosen the right TEFL school they will be able to assist you with all aspects of visa, work permit and other documents to legally work in your chosen country.

Finally, but perhaps most important will be negotiating your contract with your new employer.  If you are not aware of the different cultural aspects of how this process you could end up on the short end of the salary/benefits stick, so to speak.  Again, if you have chosen your TEFL school wisely, they can review your contracts and help you negotiate a deal that is favorable for you.

So, if you are ready for a change, now is the time - get enrolled in a great TEFL school and start your new career as an EFL Teacher.

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  And a job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!

TEFL - A Practical Approach

Teaching English as a foreign language is a job that encompasses a wide array of people and personalities; from the serious educator to the adventurous backpacker just looking to make a little money so they can continue their travels.  Regardless of your reasons for wanting to become an English teacher there are certain fundamental attributes which you will need to hone in order to be effective in your chosen career.  Realistically, if you can always strive to approach all of your classes with the utmost patience and ensure that your students are having fun while learning you can be a great success as a teacher, while enjoying a wonderful lifestyle.

A TEFL course can give you all the fundamentals that you need to succeed as an English teacher, but unfortunately it cannot give you patience or personality.  If you are the type of person easily frustrated, with little patience or tolerance you will find that teaching English will not be the job for you.  Both you and your students will be extremely unhappy and you will quickly find yourself on a plane back to your home country, wondering what you could possibly have been thinking of to even consider the idea of teaching English.

On the other hand, if you are a person of great patience and tolerance loves to experience new cultures and embraces the concept that both teaching and learning should be fun, then this will be a job that you will love and you will accumulate wonderful experiences and memories.

A TEFL course with a practical approach should prepare you for a real teaching job in the real world and not just bury you in an avalanche of facts, grammar rules and strict procedures. 

The TEFL course should develop not only your teaching skills, but also resume writing, interviewing and practical living advice for your chosen teaching destination.  This will ensure you enjoy all the aspects of your new home and work environment.  Your TEFL course should rely heavily on observed teaching practices and giving you the positive feedback and encouragement to ensure that you are confident for all aspects of the teaching experience.

A primary focus of a TEFL course is also to ensure that you have a good job and a job that you want and are interested in by the time you complete your course.  Training and learning can be fun, but the end goal is to make sure you have profitable employment in the city where you desire to live and work.

A TEFL course with a practical approach is very relaxed and personalized to ensure that each student gets exactly what they need to be successful.  

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TEFL Zorritos: What could be better?  Study in a beautiful Peruvian beach town at our beach-front outdoor training centre with great accommodations available, including delicious local food.  Fully accredited 120 Hour TEFL course with a practical approach that provides you with 10 advanced certifications at absolutely no extra cost!  And a job placement program in Peru and guaranteed lifetime job assistance waiting for you when you complete the course.

Class sizes are limited, so don't wait, make your reservation today!