If you can answer yes to all of these three questions, you should consider a career in Teaching English (ESL).

ESL is a fantastic career that allows you many choices, experiences, and opportunities that aren’t available otherwise. Check through some of the resources and articles on this site, see what you can earn, learn, and so on.

• 1. Learn your ESL students names
• 2. Relax, Smile, Speak
• 3. Don’t be too ambitious
• 4. Set the rules, tone and atmosphere
• 5. Assert your authority as the teacher

To read the entire article, just check the article directory for 5 Tips for your first class.

Worth reading the comments.

For great tips, advice and products on being a great TESOL Teacher, visit TESOL Teachers, sign up for the newsletter and browse the site.

(c)2009 TESOLTeachers.com

If you choose to become a TESOL Teacher, this is a sample of what you will NOT be doing!

While the video is in Chinese, you will get to see some great gadgets in the video: first up, of course, is the EBox. There isn’t the same level of interest in this device, but I believe it has a number of advantages that will see this become an extremely popular choice for all sorts of un (and under-) served markets: kids computing, older folks, family computing, simpler networking, classrooms, etc..

The price, the size, and the low power consumption make this a VERY attractive computer for the next generation of household computers. You could put one in EVERY classroom for a relatively inexpensive solution if you need a small language classroom with five or six of these machines; networked together, they’d be quite a cool and effective computer-skills teaching classroom.

Also, running Linux would make many aspects of maintenance relatively simple. Replacement would be the option in cases where the hard drive died, though! But at its current price, that might quite affordable! Have you considered using an EBOX for your classroom?

So create your wordlist. Then you can go to the Puzzlemaker Website and paste your list.

The instructions are pretty clear on the page itself. But what I typically do with the results is paste them into a table in Word and create a complete worksheet itself. Once you make up the standard block in Word, it’s pretty easy to copy and paste the results into it.

You can pretty much choose any vocabulary set you need: animals, machines, jobs, colors, whatever… and then program them into the table. I made a sample one for children’s class, but you can do this for adult learners, too. Check to see the sample Word Search created with this tool as a PDF.http://www.tesolteachers.com/wp-content/uploads/wordsearchfoodsweeat.pdf

I only have two regrets with the newsletter: that we’re not able to source more Chinese Language content, and that the newsletter we hand out isn’t in color (it’s made on our photocopier!). Other than that, I think it’s exciting and acts as a good way to reach out and showcase your students work.

Teachers should really give OpenOffice.org a look: Office XP compatible, lots of extra features, Mac/Win/Linux variants, and PDF export functions. It is also multi-lingual, multi-system, and uses openly accepted formats. It’s also available in a form that can be installed on a USB key.

It is a highly suitable tool for Teachers everywhere and well worth the download from OpenOffice. Its website says: “Ooo is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.”

It’s flexible, baby!

In other words, if you are travelling abroad, you will be able to open documents in the local language on either Linux, Microsoft or Apple systems easily. While the actual program will have to be installed on its respective platform, it should open documents made in any version of OpenOffice. So if your school likes to use Microsoft products, then install Openoffice on your school system (and/or on your USB key); and you can still prepare your reports, homework, worksheets, and assignments for your students on your Mac at home.

Not your father’s OfficeSuite!

We’ve been using it on and off since version 1.1 and our school is now solely using Ooo as our shared platform. It takes a little while to get used to it, but reports from Office 11 is that their interface takes even longer to adjust to. There are one or two problems that we noticed: the Word Table Drawing Tool isn’t there, and I find it very useful for drawing regular grammar tables! Oh, well. But a couple of features attracted us: including the ability to post direct to our blog from within OpenOffice courtesy of one the plugins now available for OpenOffice.

If you’re just starting out and don’t have much money, then why not use OpenOffice? The licensing is the part I like best: no activation needed, no problem on installing the same copy on my home machines, my school machines or on my USB Key. Even better, you can give a copy to each of your students if you need to.

As of writing the suite is at version 3.0.1.

I finally reached the terminus, headed to the connecting train’s platform, and promptly got on the WRONG train going the wrong way, and stopping at all the wrong stations! Nightmare!

So if you want to find out how to avoid all these troubles, why not read my six tips on how to get there successfully!

1. Why consider teaching English as a second language?
2. Making Choices: Country, Age Group and Experience
3. Categories of ESL Students (by age)
4. Basic Duties of an ESL Teacher
5. Finding Employment
6. Checking Employment Laws
7. That’s what the Internet’s for!

To read the article, visit the article location – Should you be a TESOL Teacher?