Teaching ESL: The Three Mistakes Every New ESL Teacher Makes

My first ESL teaching experience was terrifying and humiliating. He was 23 years old, newly certified and hired at a language school in New York City. I was so nervous before my first hour-long lesson that I had prepared for eight hours; writing and rewriting my lesson plan, writing clever jokes, games, and even an art activity. But as I stood in front of the class sweating in my new suit, I was horrified to realize that despite all my preparation, my lesson was bombing, big time. 30 adults, most of them twice my age, sat deathly silent as I fumbled with an explanation of the past progressive. Worse yet, they stubbornly refused to participate and then questioned the way I pronounced the word ‘Elemental’, insisting that I was saying it incorrectly. Somehow, in the first 20 minutes of the lesson, I managed to lose all respect and authority as a teacher, to the point where even my American accent was called into question. The next day, I was taken to the principal’s office and told that the students had written a letter of complaint and that I would be assigned to a different class, effective immediately.

I was mortified. And while he dried my tears with a handkerchief, he asked me in dismay: Where had I gone so wrong?

It would be nine months before he finally knew the answer to that question. And below is a description of the three mistakes I made and what you can do to avoid making them.

Mistake number one: reinventing the wheel

Before that fateful first day, I was warned that the class would be hard to win. The previous teacher had been incredibly popular and I was advised to model his teaching style if he wanted to be successful. But I found his ‘repeat after me’ approach boring. He taught primarily from the grammar book and rarely incorporated games or group activities. And even though he was a new teacher, he believed that the lessons should be creative and fun. I also felt that he had a lot to prove and therefore needed to be innovative; different.

It was actually very arrogant of me to think that I knew more about teaching than a school that had been running for over 20 years. While grammar exercises and dictations were not my preferred method of learning, they were obviously what the students liked the most because otherwise their old teacher would never have become so popular.

Advice: Being a new teacher is stressful enough. Don’t add to your stress by trying to be different. Master the tried and true method first, gain the trust of the students, and then you can experiment with new techniques. Remember that the only way you can develop your own unique teaching style is through years of experience and modeling the experts. First take the time to ask the students’ previous teacher and their supervisors for advice, comments and ideas.

Mistake Number Two: Not Considering the Needs of Students

During those first few months of teaching, I chose to ignore the fact that most of the students at my New York City language school were overworked, uneducated immigrants. I taught the lessons I preferred as a foreign language student and therefore incorporated a number of creative writing activities and role-play exercises. I forgot to consider that perhaps those activities were not suitable for the type of student that the language school attracted.

Many of my students were barely literate in their native language and some even had to learn to hold a pen. It was unrealistic of me to think that they could or would even enjoy writing stories or poems. They barely knew how to write their names, and yet he insisted that they write essays entitled “Why I want to study English.” What I couldn’t see was that these particular students didn’t want to study English, they I had to. They were studying English to survive; either because of their jobs or because of their children or so that they didn’t have difficulty understanding street signs or labels on shampoo bottles.

I remember the day I finally realized that maybe I needed to change my approach. It was the beginning of the class and I asked each student in turn to answer the question “What time did you go to bed last night?” One of my students, a 16-year-old from Mexico who lied about his age in order to enroll in an ‘adults only’ English class, replied, “I didn’t go to sleep.” Confused by his answer and thinking that he might have misunderstood, I repeated the question. “No, Professor,” he insisted. “I worked. I don’t sleep.” Apparently he had worked all afternoon at his janitor job and then gone straight to class. He had often fallen asleep in the middle of the lesson and until then, he had thought it was because he didn’t want to be there. As it turned out, he was exhausted.

After that, I stopped wasting students’ time with bingo, word search puzzles, and vocabulary basketball toss. I realized how condescending these games had been, even insulting. I stopped worrying about whether or not the lesson would be fun for me and instead started thinking from the student’s perspective. I focused on helping them develop the skills they would need to survive and prosper in the United States. Together we work on deciphering slang, practice the phrases needed to order takeout, and review vocabulary they might use at the post office, subway, or school. Perhaps my new teaching style was less entertaining, but it was certainly better suited to the needs of the students.

Advice: Take the time to ask students their reasons for studying English. Depending on where you are in the world and the age of your students, the reasons will be different. Perhaps your students are five-year-old Japanese kindergartners, in which case the focus of your lesson would be less on English proficiency and more on English exposure. Therefore, you will fill your lessons with games, songs and chants because your main goal will be to get your students excited about learning English. However, if you are teaching business English to a group of white businessmen in Germany, for example, a game may not be appropriate. Remember that the lessons you love to teach are rarely the lessons your students need.

Mistake number three: rushing through the lesson

The first year I taught English, I always made sure to over-plan every class because that way, I would never end up with 20 minutes left on the clock and nothing to do. The rhythm was a big problem of mine. But instead of relaxing and slowing down, I would spend four hours planning lessons for every hour I taught. Soon my part-time job turned into a full-time 60-hour-a-week nightmare. Part of the reason I sped up my lessons was because I was nervous. In my anxiety about wanting to be liked by my students, I found myself cutting activities short or omitting all together at the slightest look of disinterest on my students’ faces.

They are bored! He thought in a panic every time he saw a student’s eyes start to wander. And then I would timidly rush to finish the homework correction or stop reading with a brief “Okay, we can finish that next time… Let’s move on to…” I was so afraid of being boring that I would overload the students with too much information, too fast. My poor students would be so overwhelmed that they would end up quitting. And not because it was boring, but because the class was moving so fast that they couldn’t keep up and therefore got discouraged.

I think half the time I misinterpreted their glassy stares as my lesson being too easy or uninteresting. When they were on the news, they just needed time to think; to fully process what he had said. And the times they were falling asleep or not paying attention most likely had nothing to do with my skills as a teacher. The level of concentration required to listen, process and respond in a foreign language is enormous. If a student’s mind wanders for a few minutes, it’s probably because their brain is tired and needs a break.

Advice: Rhythm is a common struggle with new teachers and something that is usually only resolved through practice. But one thing that helps is an organized lesson plan. Bullet each activity in your plan and write a realistic estimate of how long each activity will take. Incorporate 30-second breaks into your lesson to give students a break and let what was just covered sink in. You can use this time to clear the board or organize your supplies. It will also help you catch your breath and clear your thoughts in preparation for the next activity.