How to Develop As a Language Teacher
To continue developing as a language teacher, enhance your lessons with fun activities to engage your students in new ways. For example, try having your students present on celebrity gossip in the language they're studying or have them work in groups to record dramatic skits. Additionally, as your career progresses, don't stop your own learning process! Challenge yourself by teaching students of different ages and skill level. Alternatively, try sitting in on another class and take note of the teacher's classroom techniques.
Review your language lessons and curriculum. Determine how to reevaluate your curriculum with your department head regularly. Add group presentations, individual oral activities, competitive games, field trips, or cultural activities to your lesson plans if they have been largely textbook driven in the past. Challenge yourself to change what you've done previously, and try new things with your language learners. Look for nonverbal comprehension. Be aware of nonverbal signs that express understanding, including facial expression, overall body language or eye contact with the teacher. Shape your lessons or your timeline according to the pace your students comprehend your material. Brush up on conflict resolution. Master strategies for keeping the peace in your classroom, while still in your target language. Use simple code words or warnings in the language to help students understand if they're breaking any rules. Teach beginners how to ask for help, to avoid conflicts that stem from frustration. Address conflict at the end of class in the native language, if the conflict is particularly complex. Teach different kinds of students. Become a more flexible and knowledgeable language instructor by expanding the student types you normally work with. Switch up your own comfort zone and you will grow your skills across the spectrum of your language. Teach children if you normally work with adults. Work with advanced students if you normally work with beginners, or in small class sizes if you typically have many students at once. Consider going back to class. Find degree programs, workshops or certifications for language teachers near you, or consider online options. Look at universities, nonprofits or language teaching associations. Additional education will increase your skill sets, your teaching capacity, and in some cases, your salary in your current position. Stay current with language teaching theories. Become an expert in historical language learning theories as well as the newest research. Historical perspectives and current methodologies in the classroom will keep you innovative and creative in your approach. Remember there are more than 15 popular language teaching theories, and that each may offer you different tools to draw upon. Master the differences between Structural Methods, Interactive Methods, Functional Methods, and Proprietary Methods. Find a mentor. Consider how a mentorship would develop your language teaching skills and abilities. A mentor will aim to help you achieve your goals, through a formal or informal relationship. Find a mentor that can offer you perspectives on working with new kinds of students, encouragement on working with different language levels, goals to expand your teaching methodologies or lesson plans, or perspectives on conflict resolution. Shadow your peers. Find other language teachers with skills or experience you're interested in. Ask if you can compare lesson plans and language learning activities, or talk through common challenges over coffee. Sit in on the class of a native speaking peer, if you are not a native speaker yourself. Reach out to colleagues that specialize or teach different dialects of the language. Accumulate handouts and resources. Build a supply of handouts or teaching resources. These may be resources you've used in the past, resources that other language teachers have used, or resources you come across that you've always wanted to use in class. Keep them in an accessible location for the future. Use the template as a jumping boarding for something new, instead of starting from scratch. Evaluate textbook quality. Document the best (and worst) of the language textbooks available. Determine how these resources will best serve the specific needs of your students or your lesson plan. Use textbooks as reference material, instead of as a guide for your entire timetable, if much of your lesson will be oral. Immerse students in the language and culture. Speak only in your language subject throughout class, even if the students are beginners. Immersion helps your students comprehend the material. Create projects for students that focus on the countries of origin. Have them learn more about the history of the countries, or the politics and religion of the countries. Have students work together on as many projects as possible, particularly where they can explore current events in the countries your language is spoken. Inspire your students. Maintain a positive and encouraging environment where students feel comfortable to make mistakes. Learning a new language is very hard, and speaking the language out loud in front of others can make students self-conscious. Be sure to always support the efforts of your students, and do not place a strong focus on minor errors students make in the flow of the lesson. Give all students the opportunity to read or speak within activities. Make sure they know they did a great job giving the material a try. Always thank and support students that are engaged in class, particularly if they are asking questions. Encourage the behavior to continue and make them feel appreciated. Bring new media and technology into class. Provide students new ways of engaging with traditional material. These modern alternatives to textbooks may help students with comprehension of native speakers, and with learning colloquial phrases. Common resources are magazines, social media, popular movies, television shows, or newspapers. Assign students a celebrity or popular Twitter feed to monitor. Have them give reports to the class on the “Highlight of the Week”. Require students to bring something interesting (an article, social media post, or popular video) to class each week. Have them spend 5 minutes explaining it to the class. Add interactive elements to your lessons. Engage your students through hands-on and interactive activities. Provide consistent opportunities for students to engage or work with others. Have your students read through gossip magazines, and give dramatic presentations to the class about their favorite celebrities. Assign students to work in groups to create a “cooking show” they record by video. 
Review your language lessons and curriculum. Look for nonverbal comprehension. Brush up on conflict resolution. Teach different kinds of students. Consider going back to class. Stay current with language teaching theories. Find a mentor. Shadow your peers. Accumulate handouts and resources. Evaluate textbook quality. Immerse students in the language and culture. Inspire your students. Bring new media and technology into class. Add interactive elements to your lessons. 