Teach English in Jingji KAifAqu - Anqing Shi

How teachers can increase their confidence in the classroomGaining confidence in the teaching profession is not just a problem that new teachers can face, but also experienced educators who meet new challenges such as changes in their long term teaching practices. In my opinion, building your classroom confidence starts even before entering the classroom. There are two major qualities which relate to one another, then improve teacher?s self-esteem: teaching ability, and knowledge. They strongly influence confidence, and by working on one another, the confidence is being increased automatically. The more teachers develop their teaching ability, the more confident they will become in the classroom environment. In the same way, the more time teachers spend on developing their knowledge of the subject, the bigger opportunity they will have in putting the knowledge into practice and gaining more confidence. Organizational skills are very important. Everything should be planned ahead of time, for example creating a course outline, lesson plan, preparing appropriate games and activities will result in success of the course. Trying new ideas in the classroom has a great benefit on making teaching more interesting and fun. In addition, teachers should not allow personal problems to affect their teaching. They should really enjoy teaching and sharing their knowledge with students. Self-esteem in the schools improves when students have teachers who are confident and who care. Appropriate greeting, doing high-fives, handshakes can better the rapport between teachers and students. What is more, making eye contact, applauding students when they perform well, or praising them will create a welcoming atmosphere and give students security. Successful class, confident students will lead you to boost your confidence as a teacher, and open doors to more creative ideas on language teaching. Teaching will be more effective when teachers know their students, learn their names quickly, and try to find out students? interests. Students should be given an opportunity to talk about themselves, encouraged to give teachers feedback on everything that is happening in the classroom. Changing the dynamics by mixing up the students, having them involved in pair work, group work, or role-plays, will improve everybody?s performance, and teachers will feel more respected. During the process of building confidence teachers may use audio recording of their lessons, analyze them and do improvements. They can also invite a colleague to sit and watch, and then ask for feedback. However, it is very crucial not to compare yourself to other teachers because everybody has a different teaching style, and one is better, one worse, anybody can be better than you. That is why, do not discourage yourself, but you may observe them and choose things that you like and incorporate them in your lessons. In conclusion, I would like to restate that improving confidence relates to making classes successful. The more confident teachers are, the more rewarding their teaching is. Classroom confidence has to do with teacher?s performance, but also with the general atmosphere of the lessons, the teacher/student rapport, the organization of the lessons, and the effectiveness of learning. These and many other characteristics can have an impact on the teacher?s confidence.