Full disclosure: I am more than a little disappointed, even after 30 years of teaching ESL, to see fresh-faced and well-meaning young 'teachers' from England, New Zealand, Australia or America, land overseas with their newly-minted "Diploma" from this or that college, and start teaching ESL when E is the ONLY L that THEY have!
In other words, they are native speakers of English, and may indeed have gone through a 'prescribed course of study' allowing them to earn their certificate or diploma, but knowing ONLY English means they have NEVER in their lives sweated blood trying to learn ANOTHER way of speaking, THEIR way of speaking with THEIR intonation, rhythm, vocabulary and syntax! They have never sat through classes of babel-babble trying to grasp even the gist of what the teacher is saying!
And that ignorance serves these 'teachers' very poorly, in my experience. They may THINK they have compassion for the student ESL learners, but it can only be an imagined compassion, never having been anywhere NEAR walking a mile in those linguistic shoes!
That said, I do indeed acknowledge that SOME of those teachers were rather good, and had a good handle on the requirements for teaching ESL, even without the personal authentic experience of struggling to learn another language. But they've been rare, and it is my firm belief that they'd be even BETTER were they to acquire that experience, and I believe they'd have been GOOD at pretty much anything they attempted, such was their mindset!
If you are a teacher, keep in mind some of the real difficulties in navigating an English-language society WITHOUT English, as your student(s) are trying to do, or conversely, the difficulties of learning English in a non-English-speaking milieu abroad. Both offer significant challenges to even determined students of English as their second language.
If you want to be a teacher of the beautiful, complex English language, it behooves you to prepare yourself, emotionally and intellectually EVERY time you are nearing a class. English is easy for YOU, you grew up in it, absorbed it and had thousands of hours of English in primary school. Your students did NOT have these advantages, so it is up to you to be CLEAR on what you're teaching this hour, HOW it fits with what was taught previously, WHY this is important and WHETHER or not your students are GETTING what you're striving to send.
Today there are many fine websites to help you with your planning, your study games and your work-sheets for English as a second language students. I only mention some of them at the end of this article, because I have personal experience with their quality of information, but check out as many as you have time for, and bookmark the ones you want for idioms, for gerund studies, for verb tenses and the other snakes-and-ladders of English study. It has been my experience that few (if any) websites have ALL the study materials you could want in the style you like (or your students like), hence my reliance on several different websites.
And finally, please understand that you may be THE best-remembered person in that student's new life in America, someone she'll curse vehemently at every opportunity in the future, OR bless whenever your name arises, with the student making chances for YOUR name to arise! Show your students true American hospitality and courtesy, and praise them for their efforts to assimilate English as part of their newfound life!
Websites worth investigating: Dave's ESL Cafe, ESL Galaxy and ESL Resources