TIPS I HAVE GIVEN MYSELF AFTER MY COMPLETING MY TEFL
Making my move from Texas to Spain I always had an idea that being an English teacher would be a great idea since I like talking with others, especially if I feel it benefits them. Once I moved from what I would call the outskirts of Barcelona into closer to the inner city I had already started my TEFL course with Oxinity, a company whom I was interviewed by that helped me gain my skills in teaching, and in marketing myself I as an English teacher in Barcelona. The first big lesson of getting used to freelance work life was the time management inside a new country, system, and schedule I have never had. This is key with a work-life that is meant for you to organize yourself; making it a more stress-free ordeal.
-
Time management is my first tip, make sure while staying busy with class preparations, and with all the movement it takes getting to your student’s classes that you can stay conscious of your time. I learned that this is a more relaxing way of working to put freelance work simply, nothing like the 9-5 life in where you are stress-prone because I realized I had time to follow and achieve more goals of mine with the newly found control I had over my future. I got my practice for time management learning the bus/train routes in Barcelona while on my way to do the practice classes for my TEFL course, then after my TEFL course learning how to use my time to market myself by attending workshops with Oxinity, bettering my teaching skills. One of the main things to do through your day with your classes is the preparation that goes into the activities that your students will work through, and punctuality to getting on your students time is imperative to your time management. Once you have a pretty good idea of locating and moving inside the city, you have organized your life into the more relaxing lifestyle of a freelance English teacher, take time to be prepared and punctual to your teaching sessions, then you can start managing the way you want to fill up the rest of your days to

2. Continuing to improve my teaching skills is my second tip in my life as a 2nd language teacher in Barcelona. Aside from this being the first actual blog that I have ever written in my whole life I enjoy reading other teachers blogs, so much inspiration comes from reading other English teachers. Using LinkedIn to connect with other professionals or in my case more English teachers within my community, plus the other teachers that work within Oxinity to find the blogs videos, and links to teaching related topics is a great way to find other peoples fountain of knowledge. I am a more visual learner so I enjoy watching videos or things be done in front of me, I have also seen that usually visual learners will also be kinesthetic learners as well and must remain engaged when learning. These blogs have helped me enjoy reading to gain ideas on how to go about teaching activities having to do with pronunciation, grammar, syntax, etc. The more you build a professional network, continue to
find inspiration for your lessons, the more you will be able to teach Asking my students if something that particularly piques their interest, then reading through articles for some conversation,

3. Building a network would be another vital tip, to get ahead in this world beyond just having talent, skills, and abilities it takes knowing the right people who you share interests or ideas with. We already mentioned LinkedIn is my choice in connecting with professionals, there is also other forms of social media but more important is the word to mouth method of marketing. The life of an English teacher consists of meeting a bunch of interesting people who for whatever work-related, their educational purposes, or just extra time they have in their life they would like to learn English.

4. How to market oneself is my final tip. I use a list of sites to market myself like tusclasesparticulares.com, milanuncios.com, superprof.es, etc. that are for students to find a teacher for whatever skill they want to acquire or for you I will post a few more links that are also used as marketing tools for you to get involved in to increase the number of students who view you online. Like I had said in a previous tip that word to mouth will probably be your best tool, but blogging will also help you create a message of what you are working on as an English teacher