teaching secondary classes for the first time

[haia khalife]

hey
i have taught ESl for pre-school student the last year, but this year am attempting to teach older student, secondary classes am not sure about it, and am afraid of not being competent enough' thou am competent in the subject matter that am willing to teach, but the issue here is that i lack the experience in dealing with such an age..i don't know what to do!!!

[language_lover]

Hello.
The first I'll say is this. I have been teaching for a year and have had classes of children, teenagers and adults. Although I was VERY nervous about teaching teenagers to start with, they ended up being my favourite classes! Teenagers can be really fun to teach. They make me laugh a lot because they make a lot of jokes in class.

Some tips from me are:
Show them from the beginning that you will not accept any nonsense from them. Don't appear to be too soft and friendly on the first day. You need to gain their respect.
Pick the right activities. They need to be short, fun and a little bit silly. I've always found great stuff to use with teenagers on this website - www.maryglasgowmagazines.com/teachers
Remember that teenagers get embarrassed easily so try not to put them on the spot or have the class laughing at someone!

I really think you'll be fine once you get started!

[IdaTomines]

Hey there!
I'm taking up Bachelor in Secondary Education in the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines, and I'm in my 3rd year now. Just last week we were tasked to be substitutes of the pre-service teachers and it was also my first time teaching a secondary class. It was really a new but fun experience for us and may I add that we all just felt so tired after. We also felt so nervous days before the teaching since we're really trying to know what else can we do and how we can still improve about the lesson plans. It was good though that we were able to coordinate with the pre-service teachers who are in charge of the sections we're suppose to teach. They were able to give us some tips since they already know how their students behave. Language_lover was right about gaining their respect first once you meet them the first time. It's not to be so stiff and somewhat scary but just to show them that you're there to help them learn and that you're really serious about it. Besides, there will be a time for jokes and excessive laughter but that's after they're able to grasp and learn the rules in your class. The pre-service teachers were also kind to tell us that the teenagers were prone to complaining whenever you present an activity or teaching tool. They'd often moan about it and tell you that they're not in the mood to do it. The teachers told us that we should just continue and be confident with what we do since they'll just act worse when they see that you're giving in. Another thing is that you should have REALLY GOOD visual aids. They most of the time keep silent when they have to get their eyes and other senses working. Anything that grabs their attention would be a surefire way to keep them focused. It helps too if the aid is really something cool since teenagers are just really hard to please most of the time.
I hope some of the lessons I've learned from the teaching experience would help you in the future. Good luck with the teaching!

[eigosekai]

First, you should prepare activities that you think suit their level of English. You can pick activities from ESL/EFL books if you want to have a good idea of what to do. Second, I strongly recommend you to keep the first class to introduce yourself and evaluate your students on the speaking, listening and writing level. Then will have a more general idea of what you have to do with them, how you should teach and how you should teach.
I think you will enjoy teaching to the secondary level. Students interact in a different way and topics discussed in class are more interesting. Good luck!