Once you have a Bachelor’s degree, you may need additional certification or schooling.  But the type you need depends on where you want to take your career.  Here are a few paths ESL teachers commonly take.

ESL teacher in a public school

In these positions, you will most likely find a job in a community with a large immigrant population, and it could be in either an urban or a rural school district.  Spanish is the most common first language of immigrant students, but you may be teaching students who speak African languages, Albanian, French, or a mix of languages.  Depending on the needs of the community, ESL teachers can be found in all levels of public schools, from elementary to high school.

ESL teacher in a foreign country

There’s a large demand throughout the world for English language lessons—and as an ESL teacher, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to travel.  Most traveling ESL teachers work for American or British firms that run private English classes overseas, rather than working in the country’s public education system.  You may or may not need to know the language of the country you’ll be traveling to, and depending on your skill and experience you may teach adults or kids.

Professor at a U.S. or foreign college

With an advanced degree, you can qualify for a teaching job at a community or private college in the U.S.  You may wind up teaching other aspiring ESL teachers or teaching English to an adult student base.  With an advanced degree, you may also qualify for more prestigious appointments in overseas firms as ESL department lead, head teacher or lecturer at foreign colleges.

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Interested in teaching English as a Second Language? There are many possible routes you can take. Many people want the excitement of teaching overseas, while others prefer to build a career in the States.  No matter your career goals, here are a few tips for getting started as an ESL teacher.

First: Get Your Degree

It’s tough to find an ESL job that doesn’t require both a high school and a college degree.  Some programs look for candidates with a degree related to English or teaching English, but not all employers care what you majored in as long as you have a Bachelor’s degree. There are many Bachelor’s degrees that will complement a later career in teaching English as a second language.

A degree in a foreign language is often a good choice.  If you are fluent in your students’ language, it will be easier for you to reach them.  Of course, you may find yourself teaching students who speak many different languages, and you never know where your career will take you.  Many ESL teachers have an interest in language and will try to learn their students’ language in their free time.

A online degree in education is another good choice for ESL teachers, and with some employers it’s required.  An education degree program will teach you education theory and practical techniques that will help you in any classroom. Some education degrees also lead to certification, which is necessary if you want to work in a U.S. public school. Other degrees that can complement a career in ESL education include English Writting, Anthropology, and International Studies.

What are Learning Strategies?

As students shift from the skills emphasis of elementary grades to the content emphasis of secondary grades, they face greater demands to read information from textbooks, take notes from lectures, work independently, and express understanding in written compositions and on paper and pencil tests.
More specifically, a learning strategy is an individual’s way of organizing and using a particular set of skills in order to learn content or accomplish other tasks more effectively and efficiently in school as well as in nonacademic settings. Therefore, teachers who teach learning strategies teach students how to learn, rather than teaching them specific curriculum content or specific skills.

In general, their research suggests that use of learning strategies can improve student performance in inclusive settings or on grade appropriate tasks. In reading, for example, results from a study of the use of the Word Identification Strategy indicated that the number of oral reading errors decreased while reading comprehension scores increased for all students on ability level and grade level materials

Most teachers know a little bit about the Pygmalion effect, or the idea that one’s expectations about a person can eventually lead that person to behave and achieve in ways that confirm those expectations.

Generally, what descriptors might you use to characterize:

• A teenager from a family that has strong and vocal Democratic (or Republican) Party ties.
• A significantly overweight teenage girl.
• A primary school student from an affluent family who is an only child.
• A middle school student whose two older siblings you had in class several years ago–each of whom was often a troublemaker.
• An Asian boy who is the son of a respected university math professor.
• A teenage boy who is thin, almost frail, and very uncoordinated for his age.

Teaching style categories that may be useful in examining our instructional practices have been developed. Fischer and Fischer (1979) have defined six categories for teaching styles. They are:

• Task Oriented
• Cooperative Planner
• Child-Centered
• Subject-Centered
• Learning-Centered
• Emotionally Exciting and its Counterpart

Teaching styles are distinct from methods of instruction such as lecturing or cooperative learning. Teaching styles are supposed to define the behaviors that teachers exhibit as they interact with learners. In applying teaching style categories to their practice, teachers should strive to identify the categories that best characterize them regardless of the methods that they use.

Cultural learning styles are those learning styles of an individual that are the product of his or her cultural background and upbringing. In this digest, we review the theory on learning styles, the role culture plays within the theory, and the advantages and disadvantages of using culture as a means of understanding learning styles and their impact on the education of minority students.

Learning styles theory states that students prefer one way or style of learning over another. The theory suggests that designing educational experiences, curriculum, and instruction that match student learning styles may improve academic achievement. The cultural learning styles concept goes a step further by stating that cultural upbringing plays a decisive role in determining a student’s learning style.

Increasingly, the inclusion of indigenous models of education (methods and content) as an alternative within the scope of formal and non-formal education systems, has come to represent a significant factor contributing to the success of those members of indigenous communities who choose to access these systems, both as students/learners and as teachers/instructors.

As an educational method, the inclusion of indigenous ways of knowing, learning, instructing, teaching and training, has been viewed by many critical and postmodern scholars as important for ensuring that students/learners and teachers/instructors (whether indigenous or non-indigenous) are able to benefit from education in a culturally sensitive manner that draws upon, utilizes, promotes and enhances awareness of indigenous traditions.

The inclusion of these methods often enhances educational effectiveness, success and learning outcomes by providing education that adheres to their own inherent perspectives, experiences and worldview. For non-indigenous students and teachers, education using such methods often has the effect of raising awareness of the individual traditions and collective experience of surrounding indigenous communities and peoples.

In terms of educational content, the inclusion of indigenous knowledge, traditions, perspectives, worldviews and conceptions within curricula, instructional materials and textbooks and coursebooks have largely the same effects as the inclusion of indigenous methods in education. Indigenous students and teachers benefit from enhanced academic effectiveness, success and learning .