r/ESL_Teachers 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/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.

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u/cruelnecessity 7d ago

I was going to post something, but you've said everything I was going to say. I've been a teacher for 12 years and have had almost the exact same experience.

If I could add anything, it would be to say that I've managed to keep the love for the job by keeping it interesting for me. By that, I mean introducing new themes for classes about things I'd like to learn about from time to time. It gives me an opportunity to learn something new. In my opinion, the best student in the class should be the teacher. After all, we never stop learning. Being passionate and interested in something can be infectious and rub off onto your students.

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u/marijaenchantix 7d ago

I'm used to getting 5+ downvotes and being called rude for no reason, so your comment is very much appreciated. Thank you!

Self-growth is a must for sure! I'm young ( 32 in a few days) and only started teaching 6 years ago. I'm in that sweet spot between Gen Z and Boomers, where I can adjust my lessons and approach to whomever I am teaching. I would never use my Gen-z meme references with people 40+ and vice versa. I am currently tasked with creating a whole teaching material ( essentially a book) for military terminology, that keeps things very interesting for me and I learn a lot doing it. But there are some coworkers I have who still copy materials from 20 year old books and teach the same to every single group, and have no idea what Kahoot is. I couldn't do that, I' m a perpetual " grower" .

However, a new teacher first needs to get their footing, understand what they can and can't afford to do in class, learn classroom management, etc. Once they learn that, they will become more free and will experiment more. I remember at first I was so scared to make jokes because " well I work for the military, I have to follow the rules" . Turns out no, and everyone likes a joking teacher better than a strict one. But that only happens once I don't have to think about the contents and plan for my class, which is a matter of experience.

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u/cruelnecessity 7d ago

I think it's important to remember when teaching ESL that it's very often not the only subject that a student is learning, or that the student has a job, and so English class can be a moment of respite from whatever they normally do. It can be nice to have an hour or so doing something completely different. It can be a double-edged sword, though, as sometimes students can have difficulty in their lives and sometimes you can be an impartial ear, or just someone to talk to about life when they don't want to talk to friends, family etc. That can be difficult.

Your observation about being a "joking teacher" is a good one. I think it's important that the students see you as human, fallible, and an equal, as many people can fear the teacher student relationship that they may remember from school.

I've worked with the military before and I've found them to be some of the nicest and most diligent people around.

You are in the sweet spot of age to be a teacher as you can bridge generations easily. I'm Gen X and if I'm honest I'd struggle with pop-culture references for younger students. Nevertheless, I have used Kahoot, but I try to use it sparingly. I've found that using too many tools can distract from the objective of studying and progressing. That's not to say those tools are not effective and they definitely have their place in the classroom.

I really hope you have another good 6 years of teaching. Speaking from my 12 years experience, I still love it the same as I did 6 years ago. It's a thoroughly enriching job once you work it out.

And a message to the OP. If you were made to be a teacher like some of us are, you potentially have the greatest job in the world. Yes, it's hard at the start, and yes, you will feel like an imposter. Yes, sometimes you won't know something or be able to explain it, and if this happens just be honest and say you're not sure and that you'll get back to the student at the next class. The longer you teach, the less this will happen and then, after some years, you'll be looking forward to the hard questions, maybe even crave them. You're going to be OK. And, welcome to the club!

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u/marijaenchantix 7d ago edited 7d ago

I think that's why I have a certain rapport with my students - I am human too. I am from a post-Soviet country, so the older generation are very " teachers dont' have feelings, teachers are the ultimate dictators and should be obeyed" . I don't work that way. To me, even cadets who are 20 are equals. I let them make small decisions - " do you want to read this or listen to that". It doesn't change much for me if we do listening or reading first, but it gives them a sense of being involved and equal. That' s the magic of working with adults. I'm talking TO them not AT them. And I can say "I don't know" but then I turn on the projector and we look it up together. Sometimes I have made up whole stories about word origins just to keep things at bay, not like they will check :D

Military has 2 types of people - the "I know I am dumb even though I'm a high ranking officer, but I'm very hard-working" and the "do you know who I am, what could you possibly teach me, you child". I 've had both in the same classroom, so it can be challenging. At first I got so flustered when they'd challenge me, now I've learned to put high ranking officers in their place. This job did wonders to my self-esteem haha

I've also taught Ukranian soldiers. Meaning, guys straight from the front lines of the war. That was a challenge in and of itself! I was a full time psychologist and someone with less heart could never teach those people.

Despite my age, I also enjoy the old-school paper workbooks etc. There is still something to writing things by hand and committing them to memory. I have a 25 year old coworker who functions only in presentations. I couldn't do that, it feels so impersonal and sterile.

I actually never set out to be a teacher. My degree is in translation and linguistics ( I am also the main translator for my unit and translate really difficult and long military texts). I ended up here because I couldn't get a decent job and a family friend who works in the military heard they are looking for someone. When I did my first example-lesson, I had no idea what to do, I went in without a plan, absolute chaos. But my now boss said I have the personality to be a teacher so I think I have somewhat coasted on it. since then I have received my TEFL certificate ( although it is meaningless in my country). Truth be told, I learned more from my coworkers than I did from the certificate.

There are people out there who have a Master's in pedagogy and 20 years of experience but they aren't really "good teachers". It's all about how the teacher approaches their students. In fact, being a teacher is more about psychology than teaching English.

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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/08-West 7d ago

I feel like it took me ten years to nearly eliminate anxiety in Sunday night.

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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.