Immigrant students are usually under the ESL or English as a Second Language Program so that they may have better futures compared to their older generation. They may have arrived by alien or legal means with their parents. The challenge of learning English may be parallel to the problems they face being brought up in a culturally different background.

To the teachers, teaching English as a second language is not merely giving instructions to students. When you ask a student to write a story, you might as well ask a pig to sing. Both ways, there will only be time and energy going down the drain. It does not mean that your students cannot write a story. It is just more difficult doing so because you are asking them to write in a foreign language. This may not be a challenge for others, but there will be some students who have grown up in a culture where free speech and imagination are limited.

Most teachers will agree that their job requires a lot of patience and precise planning. For starters, what is a person to do when she is in a room with students who cannot speak her language? How will the instructor be able to differentiate "ice cream" from "I scream"? How will the English teacher know when she is spoon-feeding or lacking information? This language business is tricky indeed.

There are several solutions to common problems English teachers encounter along the way. There are occasions, though, that trying to be the solution may backfire:

SST (Student Talking Time) must be more than TTT (Teacher Talking Time). Not to say that you need to zip that lip, but teachers often need to reduce unnecessary anecdotes when giving instructions. If you must give specific instructions, your students will appreciate that but they do not need to hear side commentaries about your lesson plan.

Fill in the blanks. When a student is having trouble completing a sentence, do not suddenly venture in to fill in for them, no matter how noble your intentions are. The student must learn how to do it, and in some cases, the hard way is the only way.

Try to look at the lesson plan from the point of view of your audience. This is very much like the English teacher putting on the shoes of her students.

The rewards being gained from teaching English jobs are always in two forms. The more obvious one is the income. The other one is being able to impart the teacher's knowledge which translates into a student learning to use English in all aspects of communicating. The latter reward is priceless.

Jayson Pino Guevarra is currently the Chief Research and Development Officer of Executive English, an international company which assists global communication through the efficient use of technology. Executive English brings together people who want to learn English online http://www.learnonlineenglish.com/, professionals who are qualified to handle English teaching jobs, and expert providers of online learning support http://www.onlinelearningsupport.com.au for distance education.