Know the top 7 TEFL Teaching methods that most teachers are adapting to

TEFL methodology is a practice where ESL teachers use certain proven methods in the classroom or online. In other words, they are general approaches to teaching English as a foreign language. These methodologies evolve and change with time as they adapt to the outside world and ever-changing lifestyles and technology. 

Keeping up with the times can be tough and that’s why we always suggest that everyone do some bit of CPD (continuous professional development) training throughout their career. There are lots of specialist courses available to help you along the way and the courses themselves evolve and get updated. If you have done a teaching English online course a few years ago, you might consider doing another one as technology has advanced so much. 

The 7 teaching methods are explained in the blog above. These are methods that we feel work the best with the ESL industry and can be adapted for any type of learning, from vocabulary expansion to grammar skills. 

There is no best method for teaching English as a foreign language. This depends on you and your teaching styles. You’ll also need to take into account the age of your students, the level of English being taught, and the size of the classroom. The most common one you’ll hear about is the PPP method. However, here are a few things to avoid when finding out which style best suits you. 

We define a TEFL teaching method as a process, procedure, or way something is done or implementing a plan. While on the other hand, we would say that a teaching strategy is a goal, set of actions, or plans to achieve one aim or something.

Your teaching strategy will be different for each class. To find the best one, you’ll need to first outline the level of English, the age of the students, and the size of the classroom. Some teaching strategies include: 

• Classroom management: This is number one and has its own strategies and methods within it. Establish class rules on day one of your new classroom. 
• Flexible seating: Making your students comfortable in the classroom is vital to their learning. Flexible seating will help them with this and ultimately create an effective learning environment.  
• Active learning: A discussion break in between classes will help keep the students engaged throughout the lesson and create an interactive learning environment. 
• Response to intervention (RTI): This should be done on day one of the academic year with a new class. Knowing the learning and behavior needs of the students early on will help you decide which teaching methods will work best for the entire class. 

Primary students or young learners need a unique approach to learning. Normally, they soak up the language a lot faster than your typical adult student. But, they don’t have as good an attention span as adults. Factor this in when choosing your teaching method.

To find out more about how to teach young learners, read this blog that will go into this in detail. 

The literature component in English is aimed at enhancing students’ language proficiency. It is also geared for the purpose of generating the flowery part of the language that is a personal response from students. Some methodologies for this include: 

• Information-Based Approach: For example, explaining the content of the literature to the class. 
• Personal-Response Approach: For example, encouraging students to express their feelings about the text. 
• Language-Based Approach: For example, setting language activities in a literature lesson. 
• Paraphrastic Approach: For example, rephrase the piece of text in simpler language to help the students understand. 
• Moral-Philosophical Approach: For example, ask students about the values they’ve learned from the text.
• Stylistics Approach: For example, getting students to mark any significant linguistic features in the text.