To be a teacher of any sort, one has to enjoy working with people. Most teachers are excited by the eager faces of their students on their first day in class. If this never happens to you, then maybe teaching is not exactly your cup of tea. Especially teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is not a job cut for everyone.

EFL teaching jobs have an advantage over other jobs since the students are already eager to learn and do not need any form of motivation to work hard in class. Your job as a teacher is to help the students to communicate. To achieve this, you have to encourage chatting in and even out of class. To be a good teacher, you therefore have to be approachable and friendly. To help the students learn the new language faster, the teacher should use activities like creating time during the lesson where the students are allowed to converse with each other in English.

The students are already aware of the fact that you are the teacher and they are the students. It does not benefit them as students when you keep 'putting them in their place' by making them feel that they do not know much. Instead of putting them down whenever they get an answer wrong, try to applaud and encourage them more when they give a correct answer. Refrain from playing expert.

Since most of the students are foreign, they may find their mother tongues (L1) as one of the greatest hindrance as far as understanding English as a language is concerned. In such cases, the teacher should try to use visual aids. For example, if the students do not understand the meaning of degree/extent of something, the teacher can use something they can relate to like light or darkness to explain two extremes. Using mimes, pictures and gestures can pass meaning more easily, faster and clearly than verbal explanation.

A good EFL teacher encourages the students to make learning the language their own initiative. Whenever they ask a question, the teacher should pose back to the whole class. If they do not have an answer, the teacher should encourage them to refer to the dictionary. Since the teacher cannot know everything, he/she should inquire from colleagues when they do not have an answer.

Each lesson should always have a clearly laid out aim. All the activities that take place in the class, be it to make the lesson more fun or interesting, should meet sub-aims that all boil down to the main aim. With this arrangement, the teacher is sure that the students are always learning a new thing and all topics are given the required attention.