Contemporary teaching methods focus a lot on the techniques which will hone students’ academic progress. The achieved progress in its turn increases learners’ confidence. However, for  complete success in studies students need to feel confident in their own teacher as well. This factor directly influences the way students learn. There are some important details which will help to build confidence in teachers. 

  1. Qualifications and experience are a solid basis for a good reputation. Students take into account the academic background of the teacher to be sure that they will get the relevant knowledge. Qualifications can be TEFL Degree, Cambridge CELTA, DELTA, etc. As for the experience, it can be the variety of levels and courses taught, participation in different professional seminars, conferences, working abroad, teaching exam preparation courses. Don’t hesitate to show your achievements, let your students know that you are a qualified teacher. Teachers can put certificates on the wall so that students see them when they enter the classroom. They might even move around, get to know them and choose the certificate which has impressed them the most, ask a question about one certificate whose aim they didn’t get or they were curious to learn more about the background of the certificate. 

The most common way for the teacher to show his/her knowledge is with the game where the teacher writes true short answers such as “ten years” and “seven countries” on the board. Students must try to get those answers from the teacher by asking questions like “How long have you been teaching?” and “How many places have you lived?”. If the teacher has published any teaching materials, he/she may use them with the copyright and the teacher’s name on it. 

backtshirt page 0001 Skyteach2. Knowledge

Knowing the answer to all students’ questions (well, at least most of them) can impress students a lot. These aspects may be the ability to explain the origin of words and their roots, answer student questions about English-speaking countries etc. In order to be in tune, teachers need to participate in teacher training sessions, take online courses (e.g. Coursera), read a lot of professional materials, follow linguists/ELT experts in social media (can you spend one minute a day watching great one-minute English videos of @lexicallab by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley on Instagram*? Easy and helps to stay tuned!)  

3. Affirm the students by referring to listening to them, respecting them, and accepting them as they are in terms of their individual traits and interests. Listening to students involves the ability to be all ears during class discussions and encouraging the rest to do the same. This also refers to the teacher’s ritual to speak with students between classes so that they feel like they matter as individuals when they interact with the teacher.

4. Give your students jobs

When the students feel how important they are for the achievement of a work assigned to the whole class, they get more motivated. Besides knowing they’ve met your expectations, more importantly, they know they’ve been successful in completing the task they’ve been entrusted with.

Meanwhile, their confidence in the teacher increases abundantly. Very simple tasks can boost students’ confidence and self-value. Some examples of class roles can be distributing and collecting paper and supplies, taking notes during discussions, running a game, competition, hand out texts or collect texts, etc. 

  1. Being  consistent in terms of your attitudes, the quality of teaching materials and the ability to keep promises. If the teacher has promised one of the students to find extra reading/listening materials, they must keep the word. Personally, I write my lesson plan notes in a copy-book and at the end of the copybook I have a section «Promises». At the end of each week, I check whether I have kept my promises or not. If you are a Skyeng teacher, on the our platform there is a section in the lesson  for all your notes. 

When the learners see that they deal with a trustworthy and reliable person, their confidence in the teacher increases.

  1. Offer the necessary resources

When the students get enrolled in the course they pursue specific learning goals which may partly differ from the rest of the class. While conducting needs analysis the teacher must be responsive to each student’s individual needs. Some of them may wish to get extra vocabulary on this or that topic, some are eager to watch authentic videos, some want to hone their grammar. When the teacher tries to meet their needs by providing them with the necessary material the students get more attached to the teacher.

As it is very difficult to get confidence back, teachers should try to achieve as much confidence-boosting they can in the first couple of lessons. They may even have brainstorming sessions where students come up with reasons why the students might lack confidence and things that are likely to make that worse, including culturally-specific factors. Getting students to talk about their previous good and bad educational experiences, e.g. as part of needs analysis, can be quite helpful for eh teacher.

*Instagram belongs to Meta Platforms Inc., whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation.

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