I was ready to start class. Unlike previous days when I left my door open, I slowly closed it because I didn’t want any administrators walking down the halls to see what I was doing with my students. I was afraid that I might get fired.

This happened early in my teaching career when I was basing my approach to teaching on what I thought a teacher “should” be doing in class—standing in front and conducting a lesson. In other words, it was a teacher-centered class. And that is what the administrators at this school expected to see as they walked down the halls.

However, a couple weeks earlier, I realized that instead of me reading a prompt and calling on students, I could divide the prompts up, put students in pairs, let each of them have half the prompts and let them “drill” each other. In other words, it would be a student-centered class.

And it was a game-changer for the rest of my career in two major ways. First, I found students’ engagement greatly increased and their skills improve. Second, my new role out of the spotlight felt so natural for me.

Before continuing, although the focus of this posting is about introverted ESL teachers, I should mention that I know many good, extroverted ones. A problem arises when introverts try to do what they think teachers are supposed to do– stand in front of a class and talk.

We can easily transition from a teacher-centered mentality to a student-centered one if we focus on the idea that we are teaching a skill, not content. When students are learning a skill– e.g., driving a car or playing tennis–teacher-talk will have its limitations; instead, students need guided practice. It’s the same with learning ESL. Students need a teacher who is more like a coach than a purveyor of information. And this role tends to resonate with introverts.

Even though a supervisor “caught” me using a student-centered class, I didn’t get fired. In fact, after getting positive feedback from my students and their greatly improved performance, I was asked to introduce this approach to the other faculty members. After one of my presentations, some “introverted” instructors told me how relieved they were to discover an approach that was not only effective but also fit their personalities and comfort level.

For more about a student-centered teaching and what research has found when compared to teacher-fronted, see Introduction to Teaching ESL: Student-Centered Approach

And ESL Conversation Class: What If They Make Mistakes In Pairs? Myths About Pair Work.

For more about the teacher’s role in a student-centered Conversation class …

see this video  The Teacher’s Role During Student-Centered Conversation Activities

And The Eyes Have It: Keeping Students Focused During Group Work

Also,  For Large-Class Conversation Instructors, You Can “See” if Students are Using Techniques

For more about organizing student-centered Writing and Reading classes, see …

The Writing Workshop: Countless Benefits for ESL Students and Teachers

The Most Effective Classroom Organization for Reading Skills Development (Student-Centered)

David Kehe
Faculty Emeritus