Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified in Pennsylvania? Are you interested in teaching English in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania? Check out our opportunities in Catasauqua, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English in your community or abroad! Teflonline.net offers a wide variety of Online TESOL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Here Below you can check out the feedback (for one of our units) of one of the 16.000 students that last year took an online course with ITTT!
Unit Three has been a fascinating lesson on current and past/obsolete Theories, Methods, and Techniques in teaching TEFL effectively and dynamically. It states unequivocally that Jeremy Harmer's ESA technique is optimal and must be used in all lesson planning and training modules in this TEFL certification process. A good teacher engages her students first by introducing a language concept and sparking students' interest. Visual prompts with a clear examples gives the students a clear goal for which to aim. Music, games, stories, etc. engage the class and begin an exciting day of learning. Then comes the second stage, Study. Here is where the construction and rules and exceptions of the language concept are laid out and studied by the students, with teacher closely monitoring. The students are first prompted by the teacher in order to elicit responses from each student -- always 3x3, chorally as a group and then by three separate individuals. The focus during the Study stage is on the construction of language. Finally, Activation happens, where the students are free to practice their usage and application of the key language concept. It's okay at this stage if their accuracy is lacking slightly. The focus here is fluency. Gentle corrections of mistakes made can come from the teacher after group activities are done, beginning with praise for effort and attention to correct usage, then asking the student first and then if they can't answer, asking their peers what needed to be done differently, and why. The activate stage encourages creativity with exciting activities that foster student communication, where they combine their knew knowledge in the language with what they know from past lessons. (like the heart of Sven Birkerts' argument in "The Gutenberg Elegies" about learning at the edges of what we already know). There are many techniques that are outdated and ineffective. Harmer gets it right. Use lots of positive feedback and talk AT our students as little as possible so they develop and grow in their L2. If students' work is in writing, use codes to correct mistakes, in the margins for more experienced learners so that they can locate the mistake, themselves, and right near the incorrect word or usage for more elementary learners. In summary, lots of robust games and role-playing around clear concepts, achievable goals, and honest/kind assessment brings great results!
