TEFL interviews are not different from any other interview. You must start with preparation to control your performance and guarantee success. Here is an Ultimate Guide to Preparing for a Job Interview: 8 Tips That Guarantee Your Success in Any Interview
Since the start of my TEFL career, I’ve probably had a dozen interviews myself, and in recruitment roles, I have interviewed hundreds of applicants. One thing is certain: It’s impossible to predict exactly what you will be asked, so it is unrealistic to prepare exact scripted answers. However, you should think about and prepare for the kinds of questions you might be asked.
With this in mind, I’ve prepared a valuable guidebook for all EFL teachers who are about to be interviewed to get a TEFL job. This guidebook is a list of the most common TEFL interview questions with their model answers. This guide prepares you for these questions to increase your chance of success in your TEFL interview.
The main areas interviewers in TEFL job interviews want to know about are:
- Ability to prepare effective lesson plans.
- Knowledge, skills, and experience in classroom management.
- Awareness of language teaching methods.
- Teaching experience and interest in professional development.
TEFL Interview Questions about Lesson Planning.
If you are asked to give a teaching demonstration, then my advice is to use a lesson plan that you’ve successfully used in the past and are therefore confident with (adapted to the course you’re asked to teach).
If you want to wow the interviewer, you should show him/her that you know how to plan a lesson, deliver it, achieve the lesson objectives, and manage the classroom effectively at the same time.
You may still be asked to describe a recent lesson that you’ve prepared and successfully taught. In this case, you should tell them the main components – the five main ones – of any successful lesson plan and describe what to do exactly in each stage. What are the main five components of a lesson plan? This is one of the most important questions I’ve tackled within my guidebook.
TEFL Interview Questions About Classroom Management.
- What techniques do you follow to manage your classroom effectively?
- Dealing with a class of students of mixed abilities?
- How can you manage a large number of students in the classroom?
- How can you deal with an aggressive student?
These kinds of questions and their answers show the interviewers your philosophy and techniques that you follow to manage the classroom to achieve the learning objectives smoothly. The system you should follow to manage the class, deal with shy, talkative, reluctant, and hyperactive students, adapt your teaching to different learners’ styles and other questions of the same kind are dealt with in my guidebook to give you the chance to show the interviewer that you have a control on the classroom and own enough knowledge of classroom management strategies.
TEFL Interview Questions About ELT Methods.
- Teaching new vocabulary?
- How would you teach a reading text about a famous person?
- How do you teach a dialogue?
The range of possible questions of this type is of course huge. I’ve put a lot of these kinds of questions in my guidebook with their model answers.
Interviewers are asking these questions and looking for relatively brief and to-the-point answers which show your awareness of effective ways of language teaching. With the model answers I provided, you can prepare and then you can adapt your answer.
In answering these kinds of questions, prepare a series of stages and practical steps to show how you would present each item. You might also think of an example for each.
You should also be prepared for some direct grammar questions like: “What’s the difference between past simple and present perfect?”, “When do we use first conditional and second conditional?” and how can you show the difference between them to students in the classroom?
TEFL Interview Questions About Your Professional Development.
In these kinds of questions, you should focus on what kinds of classes, levels, and ages you are interested in teaching according to your experience. And most importantly, what you have done and are doing to develop your teaching. Show your eagerness to develop and learn from more experienced professionals in the field.
Other Areas in TEFL Field.
In addition to the previous areas, there are more areas which are important as well such as:
- Using teaching aids.
- Correcting students’ mistakes.
- Language teaching approaches.
- Testing and assessment.
Some questions related to these areas must be asked in most TEFL job interviews so I’ve tackled them in my guidebook to increase your opportunity to show that you are knowledgeable about your career and able to get along with any responsibility related to the ELT position you are applying for.
More TEFL Interview Tips.
If you want more tips to help you succeed in any job interview, read this post: Top 15 Interview Dos and Don’ts
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