17 June 2015 / by Rob Wylie

Teaching English in Bars. Love learning with a cup of coffee!

Teaching English in a bar? Throughout your whole life you may have spent your class time in a classroom, meeting room or office. But do you always need to learn in these types of places? Are there other environments which can provide perfect study locations? Why not teaching English in Bars?

 



Whether you live in a large city or small villages there are always many great places to teach apart from in a normal classroom.

Bars are always a good option with the possibility of having a drink as well as work.

Parks are also another great place. They provide an open space with quiet areas to sit down and study as well as fresh air to create a more relaxed atmosphere.

Museums, galleries and community halls are locations which can provide fantastic work areas if chosen carefully.

 



There are many possible advantages when it comes to teaching English in bars or public spaces. One of the major things is that it helps to create a realistic environment and atmosphere. When you travel to a foreign country (such as the UK) you do not speak with the local people in a quiet classroom environment. Therefore the noises from other conversations, background music or passing traffic are all factors which students will be confident dealing with if they have had prior practice.

As well as this, teaching in an informal situation will help the students to feel a lot more relaxed. They may all feel that they are able to express themselves more confidently than if in a more serious environment. This will help with progress and therefore allow the students to feel and realize they are improving. One of our jobs as a teacher is to enable students to feel as relaxed as possible, and what better place than teaching English in a bar or park which they are familiar with?

 



The fact that some people may be very shy could be a problem if you choose teaching English in bars. Some people (especially when they start to learn a language) may be very timid and not very confident. With people around some students may find themselves closed and unwilling to open up at the beginning.

You also need to be very careful about the bars or locations that you choose. Somewhere that is willing to allow you to work and that is also not overly crowded or busy is preferable.

 

Baring all this in mind, why not consider teaching in a bar next time? Take a look at some options HERE.

10

April 2015
Be brainy: Multiple intelligences theory
by Vincent Chieppa
...

07

April 2015
It's never too late to learn how to teach
by Elena Riches
As we grow older it’s all very easy to sit and wonder why we didn't do certain things before it became ‘too late’.  And whenever I hear people say, ‘I wish I’d done this’ my response is always, “What’s stopping you from doing it now?”, a question that usually stops a person in their tracks and makes them think. ...

03

April 2015
How to... set up audio-visual discussion topics
by Vincent Chieppa
...

30

March 2015
What is intonation and why teach it?
by Elena Riches
What is intonation? The term 'intonation' refers to the linguistic use of pitch to convey meaning of a sentence and/or word and during your life as a TEFL teacher you will come across students who will have difficulty using intonation and stress in the correct manner - this means they may not...

27

March 2015
Task-based language teaching: 6 tools for task force teachers
by Vincent Chieppa
...

24

March 2015
'Schwa' - unstressed syllables
by Elena Riches
Before I was taught how to teach English, by Oxbridge TEFL, I had no idea that the word "schwa" existed. Today, I'm writing about the 'schwa', which isn't (incidentally) about the pronunciation of words such as 'Schwartz' and 'Schwarzkopf'...it's about ...

20

March 2015
New teaching techniques: Sparking inspiration
by Vincent Chieppa
The era of “chalk and talk” is over.  We as teachers know that we need to incorporate new teaching techniques seeing that nowadays simply presenting information to our students is just not enough.  Students have to engross themselves in what they are being taught, they need to discover the worth of what we teach them and it is our job to igni...

17

March 2015
ESL - Common Mistakes Students Make
by Elena Riches
In my last blog post I listed a few 'false friends' - English words that students confuse with words from their own language - in this one, I'm going to talk about common mistakes. Every single day, at least one student ...

12

March 2015
Games people play: No-prep ESL games for all ages
by Vincent Chieppa
...

10

March 2015
False Friend
by Elena Riches
For anyone who's never taught English or taken an advanced English course, you could be forgiven for assuming that a 'false friend' is someone who pretends to like you when they don't. However, a false friend is in fact a word or phrase in two languages or dialects (or letters in two alphabets) that look...