You likely love teaching English, it’s fun, dynamic – almost chaotic at times – and provides the kind of autonomy necessary to be creative and driven.
Some lessons are far less enjoyable than others - case in point: exam courses. Who gets excited about taking, not to mention preparing for, an English exam?
Nevertheless, it’s all part of the job and requires finding ways to make exam courses effective for students and enjoyable for teachers.
Job satisfaction is heavily dependent on our effectiveness as teachers and feeling like we actually accomplish something in the classroom - and is a key factor in avoiding burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2016).
While passing an exam is a concrete, achievable goal - a task we are able to accomplish - it also serves as a stressor, a general source of tension and anxiety. So how can we turn this around and enjoy teaching exam courses?
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There’s no magical way to stop students from feeling stressed about an upcoming English exam, so the best strategy in the classroom is to prepare them as best as possible.
As well as using exam preparation course books, you should show them videos of the speaking exams or direct them to online resources such as .
Outside the classroom, encourage language students to take a break and not leave everything until the last minute. They could even try the to help them focus.
All language teachers have a few tricks up their sleeves: a bank of activities we use on a regular basis that we know are effective and enjoyable.
This also applies to exam courses - just because your students are studying for an exam, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun in class!
Try games like ‘ to review vocabulary, or do a to make reading papers more interactive.
Whatever your favorite classroom activities are, try them out. Just remember to give them an exam twist.
It's important to always be finding ways for students to take part in teaching activities. Asking students to create their own exam tasks is a great way for them to exercise autonomy, and learn more about the format of the test.
Allow students to find their own texts and create comprehension questions to go with it. Alternatively, they could turn it into a Use of English exercise by removing words from the text and having their partners try and complete the gaps.
If you’re struggling to find interesting or relevant photos for the speaking paper, get students to bring in their own pictures - or use the ones they have on their phones. Once they know how the exam works, they can even try creating their own questions to go with them.
Tutorials are a great tool, where students feel comfortable sharing their feelings with the teacher about how they are progressing.
Get them to write down three things they like about the course and one thing they think could be better.
You can use this in your 1-to-1 tutorials or use it to spark a group discussion. There’s a good chance they’ll all say similar things, and it will allow you to do more of what they love and also to address any doubts they have.
Don’t overload language students with exam tasks, especially at the start of the school year. Many students won’t, in the beginning stages of the course, be prepared for these tasks. Failing or getting bad scores early on can be demotivating and can impact their confidence long term.
Like taking sips of hot coffee, exam practice should be dished out in small doses, with frequency increasing as the exam approaches.
Instead of marking each mistake on every piece of writing, identify common and repeated errors, and focus on those as a whole class. Not only will this lead to better results for students, but it significantly reduces marking time too.
Along with this strategy, having a clear system that our students understand is also highly effective for saving time and reducing stress. Create a checklist they can use to assess their own work before submitting it, or create a code you can use so they can easily identify what your feedback relates to (grammar, vocabulary, register, etc.).
Remember to also give feedback on things they do well, and always give them the opportunity to submit a final draft with your feedback taken into account.
The energy you bring to these lessons is often shared by the students. On days when you feel lethargic or don’t exactly love your job, students may express similar emotions or behavior. This also applies to the days when you love your job and feel energetic. Enjoyment is contagious, like a yawn or laughter. The more we, as English teachers, can enjoy our work, the more our students will enjoy their lessons.
Maslach, C., Leiter, M.P. (2016). World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103-111.
It's incredible to know that there are thousands of languages spoken across the world, each with its unique set of challenges for learners. A question that often pops up is: "Which language is the hardest to learn?". Today we take a closer look at this question and consider different factors that make learning a language challenging.
Preparing students for the modern world of work can be challenging; it's constantly adapting and changing which can be hard to keep track of. Today's post is a Q&A on the teaching of employability skills and the essential skills and qualities students need to thrive in the 21st century. offers insights to answer common questions and help you improve your language teaching skills.
My advice is to push the issue back to the students by putting them in groups and asking each group to identify a different job/career that involves people working with others. Then ask "What would happen if this job was competitiveinstead of collaborative?" You may have to re-explain the concepts, but let students write a little story about a situation in which the workers suddenly all turn competitive.
For example, It was chaos in the women's soccer/football game. All the members of the blue team suddenly became competitive. Each one still wanted to win, but each decided that she would shoot a ball into the other team's net. This included the goalie, who ran up to the front of the field and purposely shoved and tripped members of her team ….
Or for more traditional jobs, In the middle of the operation the nurse pushed the doctor out of the way and picked up the instrument. The patient also wasn’t completely asleep, and he tried to do the operation himself, then …
It's all absurd, of course, but it can lead into other tasks asking students why collaboration is so important in each job. Then, turning it back to language, what kinds of language does each profession require to collaborate? For soccer/football players, this includes shouted requests and commands:Pass the ball to me! Shoot!as well as hand and body gestures. Similarly, doctors require professional jargon:Pass me the scalpel, please.Rather thanGive me the pointy knife thing!
One hundred years ago, in 1923, Thomas Edison predicted that motion pictures would replace teachers and books. Since then, similar predictions have been made for radio, TV and computers. It hasn't happened, and one of the reasons is that we crave the human touch in our teaching and learning. I recently read. "When it comes to getting knowledge to stick, there may be no substitute for human relationships. … I've been to former students' weddings and baby showers and funerals of their parents," says Millard, the high school English teacher in Michigan. "I've hugged my students. I've high-fived my students. I've cried with my students. A computer will never do that. Ever, ever.”(Waxman, 2023, para. 21-22)
But, that doesn’t mean teachers should stop learning about new technologies. We need to keep finding ways for them to help us and our language learners in the classroom. It can seem overwhelming, though, which is why I recommend shifting responsibility to students: “Do any of you know about ChatGPT? Yes? How do you think you could use it to help you learn?”
Although the world is in many ways competitive, there are countless examples of how students will do better by collaborating. Most of our students today won't be working in environments where they are competing against their co-workers. Instead, they'll be in teams and need critical thinking and negotiation skills to help them do so.
One way forward is to ensure that your classroom features more collaborative activities. Get students working in pairs and groups on all their assignments, but also create a buddy system so students always have someone else to ask for help. For example, if they're having to read a text and come across difficulties, it's often easier for them to text or call a friend than to wait until the next class. After a few collaborative activities, discuss collaboration versus competition with students and ask them which they prefer. Also, ask them for examples of what their friends and family members do regarding collaborating and competing.
As always, it's better to lead students to understand a new idea than to tell them.
If you want to learn more, make sure to check out Ken's webinar here. If you'd like to learn more about teaching future skills to students check out21st-century skills and the English language classroom.
Ehsan Gorji is an Iranian teacher, teacher trainer and teacher educator. He also designs strategic plans, devises study syllabuses, runs quality-check observations, and develops materials and tests for different language institutes and schools in the country. Ehsan has been a GSE Thought Leader and Expert Rater since 2016.
Reflective teaching, despite it sounding modern and sophisticated, has not yet become a common practice among English language teachers. However, the experientialproposed byoffers a practical approach for teachers. The cycle involves teaching a lesson, reflecting on "what we did" and "how we did them," and then using that reflection to improve future English classes. By using this approach, teachers can prepare for better teaching in the long term.
