English Teacher Classroom Dress Codes

Unless you are working with very young children and will be basically playing and running after them all day, you should always try to follow an acceptable teacher dress code.

The cultural customs and climate conditions will differ, but aside from that, wear an outfit that is respectable and acceptable among the people in your working environment. Ties and collared shirts (long or short sleeve) for men; and dresses, medium to long skirts, or dress slacks for women with a modest top. If you are dressing provocatively or shabbily, you send very distracting signals to your students and also make your employer look bad. What often happens in the case of ESL teachers abroad (especially the new ones) is that he or she comes home at 4 a.m. after a night of partying and drinking, only to teach at 8 a.m., and the result is a haggardly appearance and an unfocused, ineffective, unenergetic lesson. Make up your own teacher dress code if necessary.

First Impressions

Aside from LOOKING prepared, you should actually try to BE prepared. A great idea for collecting and organizing your lesson plans is to keep a binder. Fill the binder with plastic folders that have holes on the side, and slip your worksheets into them. You can even create a binder for each class you have, or for each student if you do mostly private lessons. Then when you walk into an interview or a classroom, everyone will see that you have your act together, that you have had experience in teaching and that you have the lessons and materials to prove it.