Love is all they need. Tutor’s enthusiasm is a critical point

Probably, every teacher can easily recollect the time when he himself was a student. And not always, unfortunately, the memories are inspiring. My colleague, for example, is sure that his English university educator has helped him to successfully forget all the irregular verbs he knew as a schoolboy. Students tend to absorb like sponges the manners, words and even intonation of their mentors. And the insufficient professional preparedness of the tutors leads to gross mistakes when instead of creating a comfortable classroom atmosphere, they try to manage the group creating for themselves the image of someone who needs to be obeyed unconditionally and unquestioningly.

A successful classroom atmosphere requires questions as well as clear rules and techniques to be used by the teacher from lesson to lesson. First of all, love your students. Smile and be positive towards them, regardless of the day of the week and the weather. I think you would not argue with me that the mood of the whole group or class depends on the mood of the teacher. So, keep calm and always control yourself. Breathe deeply and concentrate on the words you hear from your students. If you are full of emotions use a creative approach! Give an additional group or individual original task for 5-10 minutes (during this time you can collect your thoughts, think over the course of action, count to 100, drink a glass of water and return to normal). Or put on soothing background music, watch a funny video with students as a pause (for example, about how to stay calm), tell them a joke or praise someone. Create clear rules for working with your students at the beginning of the series of classes. Prepare for class and stay close to plan. Speak calmly. Try to control your voice, intonation and tone during the lesson. It helps to attract attention to what you are talking about.

Space and style. Pay attention to the structure of the lesson

Pay attention to the comfort and coziness of the classroom, the lighting and the motivating materials for students. You can use posters or tables, dictionaries or maps. Obviously, these items contribute to the psychological climate in the educational setting.

Be consistent. It is wise to accustom students to the system and structure of work. Let it be a mini-test at the beginning or end of each lesson, or a song for the last 5 minutes of the lesson. With an interesting constantly repeating task you can make everyone wait for it and get ready. This is a brilliant set up for focusing everyone on the work. Diversify, literally, everything! The color of printout paper, handouts, books, types of tests and assignments, and even your clothes and voice tone. Neurolinguists claim that the surprise effect improves brain function during learning. Do not forget to improvise. Do physical exercises, sing songs, play grammar games, tell funny stories, watch and discuss comedies. All this will enable students to open up and switch from typical tasks. Plus, it's great for teachers too! Praise your students. Use a variety of non-verbal communication techniques during class.

Give them a new world. It won't go unnoticed

Entering the classroom, the student might find himself in another world. It is the world of the English language and culture, where everything should look unusual, not like in any other rooms at an educational establishment. Warning signs can be hung on the walls. For example, we speak English here. As well as flags or small photographs of the sights the students have visited while traveling.

The atmosphere of communication is the leading feature and an urgent need of the modern foreign language lesson. To create it means to introduce conversations into the topic, to arouse speech interest among the students, as well as to ensure speech partnership. To do this, the teacher needs to pay special attention when preparing a lesson for speech exercises, speech training, setting for the lesson, setting during the lesson. While training communication skills, speech contact is most important. It would be wonderful if the teacher and students become real speech partners. This will not happen if the teacher interrupts the students, is indignant at their ignorance of something, gets irritated for any reason, does not recognize jokes and does not smile.

Be a true friend. It is priceless

A teacher is always ready to listen. The idea is not to interrupt the conversation between pupils. At the same time, it is essential to quickly correct the mistakes made by students. Do not try to dominate the conversation! Try to teach the students to speak as much as possible. Together with the group the teacher should play the most active role to keep the conversation going on. Give your students the possibility to enjoy the communication. It is a good habit.

If the student is passive during the conversation, the teacher can focus his attention on the conversation by asking him a question. He could also ask the student to repeat what has been said or ask him to make a small interview with another student. Speak naturally. There is a tendency on the part of some teachers that in order for the students to understand what the teacher is talking about, one should speak more slowly and focus on some words so that the student understands, if not the entire speech of the teacher, then at least the most important part of it. The teacher should speak as naturally as possible to the class. The teacher should discourage the use of the student's native language and should limit his remarks on the student's speech, even if the student's speech is completely incomprehensive and poor. It is important to remember that a teacher is also an excellent psychologist, a wonderful poet and great actor. But the main goal for a teacher is to become a student’s trustworthy assistant and a true friend.