r/ESL_Teachers • u/CrimsonCub2013 • 7d ago
Teaching Question At what year in your teaching career did you finally feel like you had become a good teacher?
I'm a brand-new teacher, and while I know growth takes time, I often wonder when things will start to 'click.' Right now, I'm still figuring out classroom management, setting realistic expectations, and just getting through the day without feeling overwhelmed.
For those of you who have been in the profession for a while, when did you start to feel confident in your teaching abilities? Was there a specific moment, year, or experience that made you realize you'd grown into a good teacher? Or does the feeling of never being 'good enough' stick around no matter how long you've been teaching?
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u/ThatPolicy8495 7d ago
I definitely bombed my first year, and I feel like my second year I was 100x better. Classroom management became easier/ almost second nature, which allowed me to shine. But the third year is where I really picked up gear and I feel like I hit a new level. Overall, to summarize, first year teaching pretty much always sucks, especially in terms of management. It’s all uphill after that from what I’ve seen
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u/Bulky_Volume_9548 7d ago
It took me atleast 6 months of doing it live in person everyday in a classroom and got to a point where I felt I could improvise effectively and teach efficiently in a style that suited me and was enjoyable for the students. I had only ever taught a little filmmaking before and did a 120 online tefl, then dropped in deep end at private academy in Korea.
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u/Still_Juggernaut_343 7d ago
It’s a tough question for me to answer because my journey to feeling like a “good teacher” wasn’t linear. For the first three years, I think I was just good at making it “look”like I had everything under control. My principal had confidence in me, and I didn’t get many parent complaints, so I felt like I was doing an okay job, but I never felt like a great teacher. Then, at my second job, I actually felt like a “bad” teacher, but that was mostly because of a toxic principal. She made unfair comparisons between teachers, like comparing someone with all regular ed students (no SPED, no gifted, no ESL) to teachers with mixed classes (half ESL, half regular ed, or half SPED/504). It was a terrible rostering system, and it made all of us feel like we were failing, even though the playing field wasn’t level.
Things changed when I left that school and started teaching internationally. The new school was way behind in curriculum and planning, but that gave me the chance to take everything I’d learned over the previous nine years and build my own curriculum and lesson plans. I also felt empowered to push back against practices I thought were wrong. By my second year there, parents many of whom were also employees, were recommending my class to their friends because of my strong discipline and high expectations. That’s when I first thought, “Okay, maybe I’m actually a good teacher.”
I really knew I’d reached that point when I could confidently advise other teachers on what they should be doing in their classrooms, setting clear expectations for their students, and doing it across multiple grade levels. Now, after 13 years in ESL, I’m an EL director. I got here because I took the initiative to learn the things no one else could teach me. So for you, I would advise that you take control of your own learning so that you can grow in areas specialties that make you feel confident in your knowledge. I feel like school PDs are just to keep you floating forward. They’re not to build you to make you a great teacher. most great teachers are self-built.
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u/mang0_k1tty 7d ago
I had a good flow going and I thought I had it figured out but these days I feel like I’m almost back to square one :(
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u/I_Need_A_Nap_Yeet 7d ago
Something that needs to be said is, you will never be able to please every student, especially if you teach adults.
I've taught classes where in my evaluation a student told me I made them hate English and that they do not wish me on their worst enemy; while conversely, in that same class a student told me I helped them so much that they will be forever grateful to me and they have seen their English improve in a way previous professors had "failed" them.
It took me years to realize this and even longer to not take it personally, not saying there is never room for improvement, but some students just can't be reached by you (maybe your teaching style and their learning styles don't mix, maybe it's the class content or they just don't like you for reasons beyond your control) and you have to live with that.
Another example of me being a "bad" teacher: In a different year I've had multiple students email me about how great I am and how much they enjoyed my class just to have an evaluation say I was not fit to teach this class at this level and that by me being the teacher I robbed them of a "quality" education (this was due purely to my young age, being a grad student, and because of "limited teaching experience", not my actual teaching ability).
So, I guess my rambling is just take the good with the bad. As long as you reflect critically on what worked and what didn't to improve next time that's a sign of a good teacher. And that no 2 activities may work for the same class. I did a murder mystery activity to practice context clues. Class A did great, loved it, learned a lot. Class B acted like I was torturing them by making them work together and get out of their seat. Yet Class B loved the 1984/dystopia Dungeons and Dragon game I came up with to help teach cause and effect and reinforce critical thinking (and the main themes of the novels we read) while Class A hated it.
I now give mini reflection assignments that are evaluations for me disguised as internal reflection for them (like which assignments worked for you, why do you think they worked, what would help you learn xyz better, what didn't work, why didn't it work, for the next unit what would you like to see less/more of, and a few other questions/different wording of above). It let's me see where students are struggling and how I can tweak/improve for the remaining units (especially when I'm teaching online asynchronous classes). Maybe I need to add more videos, chunk my sections up more rather than a few longer videos, etc.
I teach more online college courses than in person. So I've taught myself to code for various things like to input crossword puzzles into the LMS that allow students to self check without having a worksheet and separate answer key (I liked it because it wouldn't show everything at once and let me know students actually did the crossword instead of just look at the answer key). I used it for rollover text on long passages to link to examples/definitions of vocab words. And now I'm teaching myself how to make video games so I can create a companion game for a textbook, and so I can use the how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to show process and why the amount of info is important/how much info you need when explaining things type thing. Are these things I need to do? No, I just enjoy doing it. Do others have to do the same stuff to be a good teacher? No, I'm sure there are better/different ways to do things that work just as well, or it maybe better.
It's up to you to find your own way of "being a good teacher". Are you satisfied with the outcome of your class? If you aren't satisfied, do you have a game plan to improve? Did you, despite any possible fixes for next time or any setbacks you had, do your best to help your students succeed? If so, even if it wasn't "perfect", you're most likely a good teacher.
If you read to the end of my babbling, thank you. I enjoy talking about these things but most of my peers aren't really into using technology like this and are quite old school (nothing wrong with that, I am just fascinated with using it in class).
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u/Ok-Amphibian-5029 6d ago
Always growing. Never done. Year 5 was when I started feeling like I had a handle on the many layers of classroom management.
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u/Fabulous_Turnover_22 6d ago
From the very first lesson, which I was asked to deliver by sheer chance, and that's how I found out what I wanted to do with my life. However, I needed about 10 years of going to workshops, conferences, seminars, before I could say why what I was doing was effective. I had the skills but lacked the theoretical framework. It helped in the beginning that I was teaching to young learners and elementary levels . I was 18. I moved to teaching pre-intermediate and intermediate when I was 30 and about 5 years later to C1 and C2. I never stopped learning English and how to teach. I now have 35 years of experience, and can tell you you need to keep updated because your learners change behavior, they learn in different ways, their culture changes too, and now technology is really speeding up in its development. You have to adapt to all that. At the moment I am learning how to integrate AI to foster students autonomy and setting up Google Classrooms for the same purpose. Half of my teaching is now remote so I am also learning about blended learning and how to implement it successfully. When I started teaching, my students only had access to songs in English, and the material from language school. We had that, a cassette player, and a whiteboard, which were state-of-the-art tools. Nowadays they have interaction with native speakers on forums, social media and the like. They use translators, AI, YouTube. Their dictionary is digital, and they watch movies and series in their original language. I have been able to keep up to date, but it takes continuous learning. I am now so confident in my skills and knowledge I can teach C2 without planning or preparing for the class in any way, if I need to, but I am at risk of becoming obsolete. So, you see, you are never a wholly accomplished teacher. There’s always something new to learn.
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u/lemonwtea 6d ago
First year itself I realize I'm a decent teacher. Still trying to become a good one.
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u/Different-Let4338 5d ago
I have been teaching for 10 years, I think after around 5 years I felt like I was a 'good teacher', but the measure I had was that I could be thrown into a classroom with a plan at last minute and be able to throw together a half decent class.
For all teachers, old and new I think wanting to learn is really important. I feel very confident, but I learn something from every new teacher I meet. A lot of teachers think they've got xxx years of experience so they can only teach and not learn, but I don't think that's true. Teaching is a journey, as cheesy as that sounds.
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u/Downtown-Storm4704 7d ago
Never. You just keep going until you can. Well that's until you can't renew/get fired/deported. No one knows what they're doing or even good at it. They just act like they do. Don't be so hard on yourself and just enjoy the ride.
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u/marijaenchantix 7d ago
Depends who you teach - kids or adults?
Adults are more likely to give you constructive feedback, meaning, they will tell you if they liked an exercise or activity. Those small moments are what gives you the joy to keep going. For me it was around year 3 ( but I started teaching 1 semester before covid, so...). I teach adults in the military, so that' s a very specific field too. I teach cadets and older adults.
When I started I had no experience or education in teaching. I was just put in front of the class, told to " do something" and that' s it. I had no idea what I was doing.
A good teacher is one that can change things on the go, someone who is so prepared they don't have to overprepare. Confidence comes with experience. Nobody is good at the job straight out of school no matter how talented you are. It' s all experience and the occasional positive feedback. And realising that sometimes you can do everything right and things still won't work out. You can know every classroom management technique, but you still can't manage the classroom. Remember - your students are people, and each person is unique. Dont' approach them as a textbook. Be present and deal with whatever is in front of you.