Our World Travel Blog

Hi, it's Rachel here, welcome to my first post. As you can see Jimmy likes to talk! As I was sitting at my computer trying to finish the 80 hours TEFL course I became slightly distracted. It occurred to me that many people may be in the position we were in some months ago when trying to decide which TEFL course to go with. I thought that by giving you an outline of the course we chose it could help you make a more informed decision. The vast array of TEFL/ESL courses out there almost had our heads spinning with confusion. Do we do the weekend course, four week course or go abroad? In the end, we decided on the least time consuming and cheaper option. This suited us as we work full time and didn’t really want to spend the extra money. Although this will only be an outline of one course I hope it will be of some assistance to your dilemma. Fortunately, to further enhance the wisdom of your decision, I found a good article on the Guardian website which gives details of some of the four week TEFL courses available as well.

We have been on an intensive weekend course which was 20 hours and are currently working towards an 80 hours distance learning course. This is with Intensive TEFL Courses (ITC). The weekend course certainly was intensive – 9am until 7pm on the first day and 9am until 5pm on the second! It was worth it though and involved teaching practise, albeit teaching English to people who already know English but practise nonetheless. The tutor was excellent and there was a good mix of theory and practical exercises to keep us all alive and kicking. If nothing else, attending this course you are provided with details of numerous contacts around the world that are looking for TEFL teachers. It was on this course that we heard about ESLstarter that recruit people for the EPIK program in Korea, which will be our first port of call for teaching English.

Now for more detail of the weekend activities…

There were about twenty people on the course which was a good number – we felt like we knew everyone quite well at the end of the two days. First thing on the Saturday morning we took part in ‘getting to know you’ exercises in pairs and as a whole group. These activities will be useful to use when we are actually teaching. This also broke the ice and relaxed everyone before learning a bit of theory about how to effectively teach language in the classroom. The importance of communication and visual aids in the classroom was discussed and we were taught the four essential skills that should be included in every TEFL lesson; Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. There was an introduction to teaching grammar using a group activity called ‘Find Someone who…?’ In the afternoon it was on to lesson planning. We were given a structure to follow for planning lessons and how much Presentation, Practice and Production should be included in each lesson. After a quick break it was time for the exciting, if not slightly nerve-wracking, teaching practice.

We were split into two groups and then paired with one person from the other group. Each pair was given a topic to teach and they could work together to come up with a lesson plan but would teach to their assigned group on their own. The lesson had to last about ten minutes. The objective of my lesson was for students to be able to describe a room in a house. My lesson went better than I thought it would, and although everyone could already speak English something strange happened…they all reverted back to childhood when they couldn’t understand everything! Apart from being very amusing this created a more realistic view of what teaching would be like. Although I have to say I was worried by how easily Jimmy regressed! Of course Jimmy the smarty pants didn’t need this extra help for his lesson - he taught in Spanish, so most of us didn’t understand what he was saying anyway. I must admit I thought this was quite impressive, and I hadn’t realised how good Jimmy had become with Spanish until this point. So first day over we went home exhausted and ready for food and bed.

Sunday morning was more theory based than Saturday, although it was still very interactive with the tutor using activities to teach us. We learnt a lot more of the grammar side of teaching English. We were also told about suggested books and websites to read and where we could find great resources to help us when teaching. The tutor gave us each verbal feedback on how he thought we’d performed in our teaching practice on Saturday. This was very useful, especially as we would be given the opportunity to make any improvements he suggested in our second lesson that afternoon. Over lunch we had time to prepare for our second teaching practice. There was a grammatical objective for this and it had to be 15 minutes long. I had thought I wouldn’t be nervous after teaching the previous day but I still felt apprehensive beforehand. However as on Saturday I thought my lesson was really well received. Jimmy taught his in Spanish again, which was even more impressive than the day before because we were teaching grammar and not just vocabulary. We all received written feedback on our performance and certificates for passing the course and went to the pub for a celebratory pint!

The 80 hours distance learning course is obviously quite theory based. There are two assignments to complete and be sent to a tutor assigned to you to be assessed. In preparation for answering the questions on this course we have been given a textbook: How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer (Longman). This comes with a DVD showing different aspects of teaching. An example of one of the assignment questions is ‘Describe the main practical features of an effective lesson’. You are expected to use the textbook to help answer the questions. Quite a few questions focus on grammar, testing your understanding of this and how you would teach it to others. There are also a number of lesson plans to complete which will no doubt be very useful in the real world of TEFL.

I’m glad we chose this course. I very much doubt we would be going to South Korea if we hadn’t. Nor would we have had jobs set up before we’ve even stepped on a plane out of here. By completing the full 100 hours we will get paid more in South Korea – can’t be bad. The weekend course has greatly increased my confidence in my ability to teach. Before the course, as much as I tried I couldn’t see myself standing in front of a classroom full of students and teaching. Now I know I’ll be able to do it. My advice? If you are flexible about where you teach this course is more than enough to help you on your way. Now I had better get back to it otherwise I won’t be getting that extra pay. I’ll let you know what I really think of it when I’ve taught my first lesson in Korea!

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