General Description of
an ESL Teacher

Top 10 Qualities and Characterstics

Any description of an ESL teacher is going to be subjective. The duties of an ESL teacher will depend upon the type of setting in which the teacher teaches. The essential duties of an ESL teacher are to prepare and deliver lessons to students who desire to learn English language skills.

But a general description of an ESL teacher and the qualities and characteristics of a good teacher will usually be the same. I stress "usually" here because the setting for the teacher may sometimes require additional characteristics (like patience with bureaucracies!).

I'm going to provide a list of the qualities and characteristics of a good ESL teacher or ESL tutor. In my experience, I've come across some teachers that I would not recommend to students for various reasons, but mostly because they lacked one or more of the essential characteristics of a good ESL teacher.

If you're considering becoming an ESL teacher, ask yourself if the following characteristics apply to you. If they do, you are well on your way to becoming a good ESL teacher or tutor.

1) Patient

These are the top 10 qualities I feel a good ESL teacher or ESL tutor must possess.

You'll notice that I didn't include anything specifically about education in this description of an ESL teacher. While education and teacher certification in ESL are essential for some specific jobs, they are not essential to teach English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). For example, if you really want to become an ESL teacher and you don't have any training, you can volunteer at local organizations that provide tutors to people in the community who want/need to practice their English language skills.

Of course, ESL teacher training will help you to become a better teacher (and to get a paying position), but it isn't always necessary in order to teach English to speakers of other languages.

Do you think there are other essential qualities or characteristics that an ESL teacher should possess? If so, you can use the contact link on the navigation bar to add to this page.

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