If you were to give one key piece of advice to novice English teachers, what would it be?

Treat lesson time as practice time, not “explanation time.”

As a novice, it’s tempting to prove you know your stuff by explaining grammar, vocabulary, and rules in detail. But students don’t learn much from hearing you talk; they learn from using the language themselves.

So when you plan:

• Ask: “What will students be doing with English for most of this lesson?” not “What will I explain?”
• Keep explanations short, simple, and timed (1–3 minutes).
• Build in lots of guided practice and communicative tasks where learners:
• listen/read for real purposes
• speak/write to solve a problem, share opinions, or complete a task
• get quick feedback so they can try again, a bit better.

If you consistently design lessons where students are the ones doing the thinking, speaking, and writing, your techniques, classroom management, and confidence will grow naturally—and their English will, too.