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This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned:
Though I have had a few years of experience as an english teacher before taking this course, I believe the course has helped me in numerous ways. Apart from providing me with basic grammar explanations (that I think every teacher tends to mix up from time to time), the course has also benefited me in sharpening my classroom organization skills. It has also helped me practice and perfect writing out lesson plans, and has given me a good insight into the various types of students, skill levels, teaching situations, and styles that all encompass the vast world of teaching english as a foreign language.
The course has aided me in being able to properly identify and explain specific grammar points of the english language. Though I wrote many essays while in university, I have forgotten many of the names of the tenses and how to fully explain their formation. Units 2, 4, 6, 8, 16 and 18 helped to clarify these tenses, their use, and how to clearly explain them to different levels of students. Though I had come across these ideas while teaching at my past job, the majority of my students were young beginners, who did not need to have the grammar functions fully explained. Instead, I merely focused on their use in language and how to form them. Therefore, my own knowledge of the english language suffered, and I knew if I wanted to pursue a career in teaching english, I would have to become reacquainted with these ideas. The course has aided me in remembering all of them, and has provided examples and ideas on how to explain and present them. I will use this knowledge (along with lesson plans I wrote for the course) to plan future classes around the grammar tenses if necessary. If I teach a more advanced class in the future, I will now be able to address basic student questions on grammar and its usage.
The course has also helped me greatly in organizing and preparing for classes and individual lessons. At my past job, I greatly relied on the course book and curriculum I was given by my employer. I was not expected to come up with my own lesson plans, or even activities. Because of this, many times I felt like I was not growing as an educator, and it seemed that I was not developing my own teaching methods. I mainly took the course to fine tune my organizing and planning skills. Units 3, 5, 9, 11, 12 and 15 all really helped me in learning how to present and manage classes and materials. I really appreciated the assignments that had me write out lesson plans on the templates too, for I had never really written out a plan before, even though I had been teaching for almost two years! I will definitely use the information gathered in the course to prepare plans in the future. I will look back on specific units in the course and re-read them, and I will keep many of the lesson templates I wrote up and activities I planned.
Lastly, the course has really helped me gain a working knowledge of the varying student levels, classroom situations and teaching styles that go along with being an english teacher. I was so used to only teaching young beginners, that I completely forgot that teaching students of different skill levels and ages requires different teaching approaches. Unit 3, which focused on the different methods and theories behind teaching english to non-native speakers, really opened my eyes and made me rethink my own approaches. I also began to think much more about classroom atmosphere, seating arrangements, pair and group placement, and noticing individual student’s needs. I believe I entered this course thinking that teaching was a simple matter of teacher and student rapport, but it involves much more planning and preparation on the teacher’s part than I expected. I will definitely keep in mind the different teaching styles I learned about in the course, and their accompanying classroom arrangements, related activities and organization. These may aid me greatly down the road in my career when I am dealing with classes that vary in skill level, age and size.
I am grateful for this course, and I believe the information and skills I have obtained from it will help me develop my own professional teaching career. I took the course in order to feel better versed in the world of teaching english as a foreign language, and I will apply (and have been applying) what I learned to current and future teaching situations.
