Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified in Texas? Are you interested in teaching English in Malone, Texas? Check out our opportunities in Malone, 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!
I have learned necessary things about teaching students how to productively, in speaking and writing, use new vocabulary and grammar structures to express their own ideas in English, with a fair degree of fluency and accuracy.
Communication generally involves giving and sharing information. Students are often keen to share information about themselves or know things that interest them. An effective teacher should be able to establish a good, relaxing learning atmosphere and provide communicative activities that will make students want to communicate. It is important to know which topics students may find enjoyable and give them more time and opportunities to practice the target language in a lifelike exchange.
When I was teaching English to Koreans, I had difficulties dealing with shy, uninterested students. I was challenged to encourage my students to interact in class, which I failed in most cases. I have learned a lot from this TEFL course. I have learned about important considerations in managing a class, planning and preparing a lesson, materials, lesson ideas, and so on. These things have a total effect on how the students respond and interact in the class. In speaking, sometimes students don’t want to communicate because they lack interest in the topic or lack confidence. Some students are afraid of making mistakes or they feel intimidated from their peers. A good teacher should be sensitive enough to understand how students would feel about an activity. In this unit, I have learned techniques to encourage interaction in the class. For a class speaking activity, it is good to allow students to work in pairs or smalls groups as often as possible. This is more student centered and allows more students to practice at the same time. Physical closeness in a group also provides a comfortable learning environment. This could encourage reluctant students to make attempts at speaking. It is good to provide plenty of controlled and guided activities to help students produce the correct language and give them the confidence to try to speak during the free practice. During the creative speaking activity, it is important to encourage more fluency rather than stressing on accuracy. This will make the students to be comfortable in expressing their thoughts and ideas freely. I have understood also that it is important to give time and allow students time to think about what they are going to say. Correcting errors frequently during the activity is not useful because it disrupts the communication and discourages students. Corrections should be after the activity. I am really delighted to learn about what to evaluate and how to provide feedback after the activity.
Writing, in the form of letters, emails, stories and articles, presentations and so on, gives the students to visualize and practice the language on paper. Writing emphasizes more on accuracy, producing the correct language. In this unit lesson, I have learned about the factors to consider and include in the lesson such as encouraging students to improve poor writing to convey messages or ideas clearly, providing controlled exercises to practice spelling, right vocabulary, or tense formation, exposing the students to practice business letters or emails, differentiating formal and informal letters. Some students find writing boring, but we could make the lesson more productive and enjoyable. I have found interesting creative writing ideas on the internet such as creating a project work like developing a class magazine which also encourages student interaction, story writing or writing a postcard, making a letter to a pen pal, studying newspaper headlines, and such.
It is also effective to incorporate games in the classroom. Competitive and Co-operative games are fun, stress free and creates excitement that promotes a comfortable learning environment for communication. It encourages our students, even shy students to build confidence to participate in the classroom. I am grateful that I could find a lot of teaching resources with games on certain topics. I hope to apply everything that I learned and create a fun and effective lesson for my students in the future.
