Top 12 English Teacher Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a standout resume as an English teacher means blending pedagogy with language expertise and showing it clearly. Put your strongest skills up front, the ones that prove you can plan meaningful instruction, guide a lively room, and grow readers and writers who think hard and speak well.
English Teacher Skills
- Curriculum Development
- Classroom Management
- ESL Instruction
- Literacy Coaching
- Educational Technology
- Zoom Proficiency
- Google Classroom
- Microsoft Office
- Assessment Design
- Differentiated Instruction
- Interactive Whiteboards
- Canvas LMS
1. Curriculum Development
Curriculum development for English means shaping a sequence of texts, tasks, and assessments that build reading, writing, speaking, and listening in purposeful ways. You plan arcs, choose rich literature and informational texts, scaffold skills, and check progress without losing the joy of language.
Why It's Important
A thoughtful curriculum keeps instruction coherent and fair. It aligns to state ELA standards or district frameworks, supports diverse learners, and nourishes critical thinking, communication, and cultural awareness.
How to Improve Curriculum Development Skills
Keep it living, not static. A few high‑impact moves:
Know the standards landscape: Map units and assessments to your state ELA standards or national frameworks. Backward design from clear outcomes.
Broaden the bookshelf: Include contemporary voices, global perspectives, varied genres, and text types. Representation matters—so does rigor.
Blend tech with purpose: Use platforms like Google Classroom, Schoology, or Microsoft Teams to organize materials and spark collaboration. Writing tools such as Grammarly or built‑in editors help students self‑revise.
Design for thinking: Build tasks that push analysis, comparison, argument, and synthesis. Make space for student choice and inquiry.
Check for learning early and often: Quick formative checks, exit tickets, and low‑stakes quizzes keep instruction responsive. Celebrate growth.
Invest in your craft: Take short courses, join professional learning communities, and co‑plan with colleagues. Share, remix, refine.
Use data humanely: Look at trends, not just scores. Adjust pacing, texts, or scaffolds when the story the data tells changes.
How to Display Curriculum Development Skills on Your Resume
2. Classroom Management
Classroom management is the art and structure behind learning—routines, expectations, relationships, and engaging instruction that keep the English classroom humming without dampening curiosity.
Why It's Important
Time stays on learning. Students feel safe to speak, write, and take risks. You move from firefighting to teaching.
How to Improve Classroom Management Skills
Small shifts compound:
Set norms together: Co‑create expectations and revisit them. Be explicit, consistent, and brief.
Teach the routines: Entry, materials, discussion protocols, turn‑and‑talk, peer review—practice them like skills, because they are.
Relationships first: Greet at the door, learn names quickly, use interests to hook texts and tasks.
Plan for engagement: Short bursts of input, frequent checks, movement, and choice. Variety beats drift.
Positive reinforcement: Catch what you want to see. Narrate the good. Offer authentic praise and tangible acknowledgments.
Respond, don’t react: Address misbehavior privately, reteach expectations, and apply consequences proportionally.
Reflect and iterate: After class, note what worked. Tweak the routine, the timing, the grouping.
How to Display Classroom Management Skills on Your Resume
3. ESL Instruction
ESL instruction supports multilingual learners in building English proficiency across listening, speaking, reading, and writing—while valuing and leveraging their first languages and cultural knowledge.
Why It's Important
Language opens doors. Effective ESL teaching supports academic success, social belonging, and access to future study and work.
How to Improve ESL Instruction Skills
Make language visible and learning active:
Use sheltered strategies: SIOP‑style techniques—clear objectives, background building, modeling, and structured interaction—lift comprehension.
Differentiate by proficiency: Adapt texts, scaffold vocabulary, and tier tasks. Provide sentence frames and visuals without watering down thinking.
Lean on authentic materials: Short news pieces, podcasts, video clips, everyday documents. Real language sticks.
Prioritize talk: Structured speaking routines, conversation roles, and frequent partner work grow fluency.
Leverage learning apps: Vocabulary practice, spaced repetition, and quick games keep momentum between lessons.
Teach culture explicitly: Norms, idioms, pragmatics. Make the hidden curriculum visible and kind.
Assess formatively: Quick checks, mini‑conferences, audio responses. Feedback that’s timely and specific.
How to Display ESL Instruction Skills on Your Resume
4. Literacy Coaching
Literacy coaching pairs a coach with teachers to refine practice: planning, observing, co‑teaching, analyzing student work, and building capacity school‑wide.
Why It's Important
Coaching personalizes professional learning and turns isolated wins into shared growth. Students benefit when consistent, evidence‑based literacy practices take root across classrooms.
How to Improve Literacy Coaching Skills
Make support practical and data‑wise:
Keep learning: Read current research, attend workshops, and model strategies during visits.
Collaborate deeply: Co‑plan units, debrief lessons, and build resource banks in your LMS or shared drive.
Use evidence: Anchor recommendations in student work, progress monitoring, and rubrics.
Personalize the arc: Co‑set goals with each teacher and check progress in short cycles.
Promote reading culture: Launch choice reading, book talks, and library partnerships. Visibility changes habits.
Integrate tech: Digital annotation, discussion boards, and writing tools can amplify strategy use.
How to Display Literacy Coaching Skills on Your Resume
5. Educational Technology
Educational technology in English classrooms blends devices, apps, and media with pedagogy to deepen reading, writing, and discussion—never tech for tech’s sake.
Why It's Important
It personalizes practice, widens access to texts and audiences, and brings interactive feedback to the page and the conversation.
How to Improve Educational Technology Skills
Anchor tools to outcomes:
Interactive checks: Quick polls, games, and quizzes for vocabulary and comprehension keep pace brisk and visible.
E‑reading variety: Pair print with e‑books and leveled articles to meet students where they read best.
Multimedia moments: Short, high‑interest video clips and audio segments can kickstart analysis and context.
Writing support: Use grammar and style feedback tools, version history, and comment threads to coach revision.
Real‑time collaboration: Shared documents and folders power peer review and group projects.
Mind accessibility: Captions, alt text, readable fonts, and device‑light options keep learning equitable.
How to Display Educational Technology Skills on Your Resume
6. Zoom Proficiency
Zoom proficiency means running smooth, human online lessons—breakout rooms that buzz, whiteboards that capture thinking, and clear protocols that keep the class connected.
Why It's Important
When distance is a factor, polished virtual teaching preserves interaction, clarity, and safety.
How to Improve Zoom Proficiency Skills
Think flow and presence:
Master the basics: Scheduling, screen sharing, managing participants, and using the waiting room and security options.
Design for engagement: Breakout rooms with roles, time limits, and deliverables. Polls and reactions to check understanding.
Use the whiteboard: Model annotation, capture brainstorms, and save boards for later reference.
Protect the space: Lock meetings when appropriate, control chat, and set norms for cameras and mics.
Blend media: Short videos, shared docs, and slide decks—keep transitions crisp.
Seek feedback: Ask students what helps online and adjust. A quick pulse check goes far.
Have a backup plan: When bandwidth dips, pivot to audio, chat, or offline tasks seamlessly.
How to Display Zoom Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
7. Google Classroom
Google Classroom centralizes assignments, resources, feedback, and communication using Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drive—clean and streamlined.
Why It's Important
It saves time, organizes the chaos, and opens easy pathways for feedback and revision.
How to Improve Google Classroom Skills
Make it navigable and feedback‑rich:
Structure by topics: Units, weeks, or genres—consistent naming helps students find what they need fast.
Connect helpful tools: Grammar checkers, vocabulary apps, and citation helpers can be embedded into class routines.
Comment well: Use Docs’ suggesting mode, reusable comments, and targeted rubrics to speed high‑quality feedback.
Interactive checks: Short Forms quizzes or posted prompts keep reading comprehension and discussion lively.
Flip the learning: Short teacher‑made videos or slide decks free up class time for workshops and seminars.
How to Display Google Classroom Skills on Your Resume
8. Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office brings Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Forms, and OneNote to lesson planning, communication, grading, and presentation.
Why It's Important
It’s a familiar toolkit that speeds prep, clarifies instruction, and tracks student progress without fuss.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Work smarter, then faster:
Use built‑in Dictate: Now native in Word and Outlook—draft lessons, notes, or comments by voice.
Start from templates: Lesson plans, rubrics, newsletters, and slide themes keep materials polished and consistent.
Gather quick data: Create quizzes and surveys in Forms and visualize results instantly.
Lean on Microsoft Editor: Strengthen clarity and correctness in your writing and model revision for students.
Organize with OneNote Class Notebook: House resources, distribute pages, and give private feedback in student sections.
Present with PowerPoint Live: Interactive presentations and accessible viewer controls raise engagement.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
9. Assessment Design
Assessment design is crafting tasks and tools that actually measure what you taught—essays, discussions, performance tasks, quick checks—and aligning them to your objectives.
Why It's Important
Good assessment clarifies the goalposts, guides next steps, and gives students actionable feedback. Instruction improves when evidence is trustworthy.
How to Improve Assessment Design Skills
Design with purpose and balance:
Start with outcomes: Identify the skills and knowledge first, then build tasks that surface them.
Mix formats: Pair formative checks with summative products—quizzes, annotations, conferences, presentations, and writing.
Clarify with rubrics: Short, specific criteria make expectations visible. Build rubrics into your LMS for speed and consistency.
Make feedback do work: Target one or two growth areas at a time. Use comment banks and examples.
Use tech thoughtfully: Quiz tools for retrieval practice, plagiarism checks when needed, and audio/video feedback for nuance.
Include self and peer review: Reflection and structured peer feedback deepen metacognition and audience awareness.
Keep it authentic: Real audiences, real purposes—letters, podcasts, editorials—raise relevance and effort.
How to Display Assessment Design Skills on Your Resume
10. Differentiated Instruction
Differentiated instruction tailors content, process, product, and learning environment so every student can grow from where they are to where they need to be.
Why It's Important
Classes brim with variance—readiness, interest, language, pace. Differentiation respects that reality and turns it into opportunity.
How to Improve Differentiated Instruction Skills
Plan for flexibility, not one‑size‑fits‑all:
Know your learners: Pre‑assess, survey interests, and watch how students approach tasks.
Vary the path: Mini‑lessons, workshops, stations, and independent projects keep access open.
Flexible grouping: Shift between heterogeneous and skill‑based groups. Regroup often.
Tiered tasks and choice: Offer complexity options and product formats—essays, speeches, visuals, podcasts.
Lean on UDL: Multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression build equity into design.
Formative all the way: Use quick data to adjust scaffolds, pacing, and groupings in real time.
Grow your toolkit: Keep collecting strategies and exemplars through PD and peer observation.
How to Display Differentiated Instruction Skills on Your Resume
11. Interactive Whiteboards
Interactive whiteboards turn a display into a shared workspace—annotate texts, sort evidence, drag and drop elements, and make thinking visible.
Why It's Important
Visual, hands‑on interaction energizes lessons, supports multiple modalities, and invites collaboration at the board and from student devices.
How to Improve Interactive Whiteboards Skills
Keep it tactile and purposeful:
Mix media: Short video clips, audio snippets, and images tied to the text or skill at hand.
Gamify lightly: Vocabulary games and quick quizzes on the board to reinforce concepts without dragging.
Write together: Model drafting, annotate mentor texts, and invite students to add revisions in real time.
Try digital storytelling: Storyboarding, image sequencing, and narration build narrative craft.
Instant feedback: On‑the‑spot checks where students respond from their seats and results display immediately.
Interactive presentations: Polls, draggable activities, and embedded questions keep attention active.
Virtual field trips: Explore settings, author hometowns, or historical moments that frame your texts.
How to Display Interactive Whiteboards Skills on Your Resume
12. Canvas LMS
Canvas LMS organizes courses, content, assignments, grading, and communication in one place—clean modules, robust discussions, and transparent feedback.
Why It's Important
It centralizes learning, reduces confusion, and supports consistent instructional practices across classes.
How to Improve Canvas LMS Skills
Lean into the features that save time and lift learning:
SpeedGrader: Deliver rich, efficient feedback with rubrics, comments, and media notes.
Rich Content Editor: Embed videos, audio, and images to prime background knowledge and scaffold tasks.
Quizzes and Discussions: Use auto‑graded checks for quick data and craft prompts that drive analysis and peer response.
External tools: Connect plagiarism checkers, cloud docs, and other LTI tools to streamline workflow.
Modules and mastery paths: Sequence content clearly and, when available, personalize progression for varied proficiency levels.
How to Display Canvas LMS Skills on Your Resume
