Once you have gone through this exercise with them, you’ll want to work with them on what to do once they are on the ground. Show them how to roll onto their hands so that they are able to crawl to a telephone to call for help. This can be accomplished by having them use a solid piece of furniture to raise themselves up for support. Not only will this help your elder in understanding how to get to the phone, but it will help them understand how to help themselves as opposed to panicking when they fall.

Regardless if they think they are fine after a fall, they should call for help – either by calling a caregiver, neighbor or 911. Anytime an elderly person falls, they absolutely need to be checked out by a doctor. Falls can sometimes be due to illnesses that have gone undetected, stroke, medication issues or potential infections.

If your elder falls when you are present, you will want to check for any severe pain they may be in, along with any difficulty they may have while trying to move. If they are in significant pain, or can’t move, keep them calm and call 911 for additional assistance. If they don’t appear to be in significant pain and are able to move, offer them support by bending your legs and keeping your own body straight. Another option would be to bring a small table or strong chair to them so they can lift themselves up on it with your help. Don’t risk injury to yourself or further injury to your elder – if you don’t think you will be able to help your elder without injuring yourself or causing further injury to your elder.

1 MAKE THE FULLEST USE OF YOUR MP3 PLAYER.

If you have one and you’re not using it for language acquisition, you’re losing an opportunity for gaining in fluency. You can record snippets of vocabulary or grammar instruction whenever you have a few moments of free time, or pages and pages worth when you’re at your leisure. Then, during times that would otherwise be wasted – washing up, lying dozing in bed, going for a walk – you can play it back and simultaneously be improving your language skills.

2 DUAL TEXT BOOKS

What a wonderful thing dual text books are. Often novels or short stories, these books have one facing page in, say, Spanish, and the other in English. This speeds progress through the book and aids idiomatic comprehension enormously. Sadly the stock of dual texts is limited. However the same effect can be achieved by obtaining two copies of the same book, one in your chosen language and the other in English. It takes a little more juggling this way, but can still have a very beneficial effect on reading comprehension.

3 GET YOURSELF A NATIVE SPEAKER PENPAL

In the age of the internet this is something that’s increasingly easy to do. Check out Livemocha.com or one of numerous alternatives currently available. Your French/German/etc. improves, your penpal’s English improves, everybody wins.

4 SIMULATE LANGUAGE IMMERSION AS CLOSELY AS POSSIBLE

‘Immersion’ is the catchphrase, the most popular concept amongst language course providers and teachers at the moment. And it’s a good one: the trouble is we don’t all have the money, time or resources to dump everything and go live in our country of choice for six or eighteen months.

5 USE YOUR HOLIDAYS TO THE MAX

This is another point related to the ideal of immersion. Often when learning a language we will book a holiday in the relevant country, and think hopefully of all we will achieve in terms of language acquisition as a result. As you may know, this does not always pan out!

1. Write down your strengths and weaknesses. The key here is to BE HONEST. What do you honestly love about teaching? Many teachers quickly forget their passions and what they love to do BEFORE they lock themselves in a specific teaching approach. Then, they are miserable because they don’t enjoy the teaching approach as they manage a class. But more often, they become easily stressed by the classroom management piece and which also takes away the FUN of teaching.

2. Match your teaching approach to the ages of the students you teach. This will make a significant impact on the children you’ll teach. Remember, the lower the grade level, the more interaction you will need to provide. So choose wisely! If you aren’t sure, read other teacher blogs, websites and articles to get a feel of teaching for this particular age group in terms of combining classroom management with effective instruction.

If you can’t find any experienced teachers to follow online – then look for workshops or in-service courses in your school district(s) who can show you sample approaches of the age groups you are interested in teaching. For example, don’t simply gather information if you want to become a successful and confident teacher. Find out what it takes to also teach successfully.

3. Keep an open mind. Finding your own teaching approach is largely a process of experimentation as you adjust and readjust your instruction. But most importantly, you need to adjust your instruction to suit the needs and abilities of your students. For example, if your students are digital learners, find ways to incorporate technology in the classroom even if it is on a smaller scale.

4. Add additional ways of engaging your students that suit your personality and style. This will help you cater to different learning styles and appeal to different levels of instruction. (differentiated instruction)

5. Consistently, evaluate the effectiveness of your teaching approach. If you are not successfully engaging students, chances are, you need to be more flexible in terms of suiting the needs of your students and be more intuitive to your own teaching style as well. Some new teachers, become particularly frustrated and burnt out by many unsuccessful lessons and many more, decide to leave teaching altogether. Way before this starts to happen, a teacher trainer can provide guidance and direction as to how new teachers can maximize their (limited) resources to benefit their teaching and students. Consider this option before you experience any signs/symptoms of early burn-out.

6. Don’t give up! A few unsuccessful teaching experiences are NOT reasons for failure. If anything, they are only setbacks which occur to ALL teachers. What’s more important, is to recognize those setbacks learn and grow from these experiences. Constantly think BIGGER all the time as you learn how to adjust and readjust your instruction to suit the needs of your students. Experiment with new activities and ideas. Keep your teaching fun and education for you and your students!