TEFL TEFL Certification
Is a TEFL certificate really necessary? What time of year is the best for doing a course? What is a TEFL certification course all about? Find out here.
Bad News For The British Council In Russia
Russia and the British Council are at odds as Russia is asking the British Council to close its offices and the British Council initially refused. The British Council then reported that its British and Russian staff were harassed by Russian authorities.
The word is that this is connected to the spat between the two countries over the extradition of the Russian citizen accused of poisoning former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.
From what I’ve heard, I’d certainly leave a wide berth around the Russian government these days and avoid getting on its collective bad side.
One connection I find interesting - and applicable more widely in EFL - is that while the British Council is here referred to as “the cultural arm of the British embassy” I have also seen it referred to as an NGO (which stands for non-governmental organization) and a charitable organization.
VSO – the organization which places volunteers, including volunteer English teachers, in developing countries, and maintains that it is not part of any government (in contrast to the Peace Corps which is a part of the US government) – does in fact cooperate with the british council to do a shorter term volunteer placement program.
I certainly don’t think the blurry line dividing charitable, government, non-profit, and for-profit is only connected to the British Council. There are, for example, organizations which offer TEFL certificates - and also language schools – billing themselves as officially non-profit.
Date: January 16th, 2008 |
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TEFL Course Teaching Practice: What's It Like?
Like most teachers with a TEFL certificate, I have the experience of one type of course – the one I took, the CELTA – as opposed to several. What follows is my experience, as reading the experiences of a TEFL trainee would have been useful to me when making decisions about a course. Obviously different courses will not be exactly the same, and while the CELTA is fairly similar wherever you go, different individuals as trainees and trainers mean different experiences. If you have had a different experience, or have written about your experience, let me know in a comment.
Preparation
Preparing lessons was very time-consuming. This was partly just because teaching was new to me: I had to think about what to do, the best way to do it, the instructions I would give, materials I would use and so on. I also made an effort to make sure that if my 30-minute lesson was a skills lesson with a reading exercise, I incorporated what had been covered in the instruction part of the course. The other reason it took time was the requirement of making a detailed lesson plan.
Some people really hate this.
I did find it tedious, but also useful because it trained me to think about things like – is the interaction during my lesson always just between the teacher and one student, or is it between students themselves too? Why am I doing this activity? How long will this activity take? When I finished, I could judge whether my estimation was close or far off. I don’t believe these detailed lesson plans were required to imply that you should always make such a detailed plan as you go on teaching. Being pressed to focus on these things in a detailed lesson plan, though, gets new teachers in the habit of thinking about them.
I sometimes prepared for a couple of hours for a 30 minute lesson (other teachers too, not just me), not because that is the right amount of time to spend, but because things take longer when you have no experience with them. There is also more pressure when you know that, in addition to the students, your classmates and trainer will be watching you and then commenting on – and the trainer, grading - your performance. For me, it was high stress enough that I’d be doing the lesson in front of 10 students, and it didn’t add on that much more worry that five classmates and a trainer would watch too. However, I think this was harder for the teachers who already had experience.
The lesson
Date: January 8th, 2008 |
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Is A TEFL Certificate Worth It?
Is a TEFL certificate worth its weight in gold…or maybe scrap metal?
Pain in Spain’s posts on whether getting a TEFL certificate pays off in the long run are well worth a read. Pain in Spain (sorry, Pain in Spain, no idea of your gender, so for now, you’re “he”) has a TEFL certificate himself and gives reasons for his views – he doesn’t just dismiss all TEFL training with a wave of the hand because the questions on the entrance exam are “stupid” or something.
Read the post for the examples and line of reasoning. I agree that it makes sense to consider where you want to work; there are many jobs in Asia (and some in other places) which don’t require a TEFL certificate and are structured in a way which would probably not allow you to capitalize on what you gain in a course anyway. While I would really not want to teach a class with next to no training, I will concede that there are positions in which a TEFL certificate would not help you get or do better in.
I can’t say I disagree exactly with the examples he uses, because I trust that they are accurate for Spain. But…
Date: November 20th, 2007 |
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Can You Trust Online Reviews?
In this day and age where a person is “searchable” verbally and – the author of this article on food critics asserts – visually, a food critic may not be able to remain anonymous long enough to give a fair evaluation. The restaurant will recognize him/her and alter its service.
Putting aside what I think are a number of pitfalls with this food critic argument, it’s interesting to consider how blogs and online forums and the like can impact TEFL in a similarly murky way.
Certainly they open up the possibility for average people to share their experience of particular employers or schools; you don’t have to be a guidebook writer (or whatever the TEFL equivalent of that is) to have your say. Obviously, though, those with a certain platform are likely to be given more credibility than others.
The Internet also leaves open the possibility of concealing your identity. And when the Internet is known as such a powerful tool in TEFL – and it is – I personally would put very very little stock in online reviews (or at least not rely on them as a main source of information) because you have no idea where they are coming from.
Date: October 1st, 2007 |
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What Obligations Do TEFL Course Providers Have?
Aside from presenting the certificate they offer honestly – how much do they have a responsibility to tell potential applicants about the job market?
Specifically – if they are advertising their certificate as a means to teach English anywhere in the world to a wide audience, including people without degrees, do they have a responsibility to mention that, above and beyond their certificate, a degree is usually required to work legally in most countries? Or for courses in the EU open to candidates outside the EU – that it will be exceedingly difficult for those from outside the EU to work legally there?
Date: August 17th, 2007 |
10 comments
Surviving The Feedback On Your Teaching Practice: My Experience
The feedback portion of the CELTA, in my opinion, can be the part that does people in. By that I mean – the part that they cannot stand. I found the feedback difficult at times, especially because of the pressure of an intensive course, but ultimately incredibly helpful.
The feedback usually went to go around the group of six , focusing one one trainee. The others would follow some loose general format, like comment first one one good thing about the lesson, and then question or a comment on something that could be improved. It was rare for a trainee to say something “mean” to another – everyone had their turn coming! A “to be improved” comment might be: “It looked like that activity took longer than you expected, and you seemed rushed at the end. Maybe it would have been okay, though, to just skip something else, but let them finish, because they seemed to be enjoying it and using the language.” The trainers had a little more to say, but also framed their comments as questions for the group: “I thought the clarification of the vocab words was good, and it was clear you had planned concept check questions. How could it have been more student-centered?”
Most of us as human beings find it hard to take critical feedback – even when it is constructive – on our performance, especially in front of a group. I think it is worse when you have already started working as a teacher, because in that case it may feel like the “to be improved” feedback speaks not just to the teaching practice in the course, but your past experience as well.
I saw the CELTA as an introductory training course, and even when I didn’t agree with something a trainer said, I tended to take it up with my roommate on the walk home (i.e., discuss it and commiserate) rather than in a confrontation with a trainer during the feedback session itself. I can appreciate how hard it would be to get feedback on a job I’ve done for some years. My feeling is that, as it is an introductory training course, it is key to passing the course to take into account what the trainers advise you to do and show that you can incorporate it into your lessons. In my book this is also a good reason for taking that course at the beginning of your teaching stint rather than after a year or two.
Date: January 10th, 2008 |
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Student-Centered Activities
Brigh-eyed and bushy-tailed … or something like that … in the early stages of my TEFL course I came across a bunch of new concepts. It occurs to me now that when people ask “what is a CELTA (or other certificate course) like?”, explaining some of these – and how we would “practice” them in the course might be a better answer than listing activities.
So what does “student-centered” mean?
Imagine the task is for half the students to pretend they are elderly former celebrities, and the other half to pose as journalists interviewing them. Maybe you’ve just dealt with present perfect and one of the aims is to give students a chance to use that tense in their speech.
One approach might be:
The teacher comes up with questions herself and writes them on the whiteboard, the students do the activity, and then one by one she asks students what their answers were or what their partner said. She then asks some follow-up questions about the content of the answers. If students make mistakes, she gives them the correct answer and they repeat it after her.
(Kind of a caricature, of course, for the sake of the example)
Another approach:
The teacher comes up with a few questions herself as examples, and then ask students in pairs to come up with a few more each; while they are working she writes hers on the board, and then students come to the board to write up theirs.
Date: December 31st, 2007 |
2 comments
Getting Certified At Home (In The US Or UK)
Someone recently contacted me to ask if it was possible to get certified online at home in the US and then go, certificate in hand, to Europe to find work.
In theory it is possible to get certified at home, and of course completely online courses can be done from anywhere you have an internet connection. See one teacher’s take on his online course here, and see what another teacher had to say about getting certified at home in the UK.
It’s important to realize though that an online certificate will usually not make the cut for employers requesting a TEFL certificate. Generally if they specify that, or if it is a requirement in the country to get work permit, it needs to be an internationally recognized course/certificate, which generally includes at least 100 hours of classroom instruction and 6 of real teaching practice.
As I mentioned here, doing a course at home is an advantage because you are in the comfort of your own environment; you know where to find things and don’t waste time searching for your perfect style of notebook to write in (hey, it makes a difference!). Maybe more significantly, you haven’t had to make the investment of going all the way to another country – what if it turns out you don’t like it?
However, if you plan on working abroad, you’re going to turn up somewhere at some point – and I’d think it’s better with the cushion of a one-month intensive course: better to decide at the end of your course that you want to go somewhere else than at the end of the first month of a job.
I personally think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of training at home, especially if home is the US.
Date: October 3rd, 2007 |
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CELTA Survival Tips
I recently came across a post with some useful tips designed for those about to embark on the CELTA or other TEFL course. I’m no CELTA trainer, so take my advice with a grain of salt (perhaps a larger grain of salt because I have taken the course at least) but I’d add this:
Really be willing to try and take into account the feedback and instruction you get during the course; even if it seems somewhat counter-intuitive, don’t be resistant because it’s not what your language teacher did in high school …
Date: August 29th, 2007 |
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English - Even As A Second Language - Still "Not Enough" Sometimes
In most countries in the world, people pass through years and years of English classes, devoting much time and energy to learning this foreign language. Many countries would be thrilled to have English spoken widely, and often more as a second language than a foreign language. But in a country where this has already been achieved to a large extent, some sources are reporting that knowing English is not enough.
This news come from India, which has 18 official languages (more according to a reader comment) and 52 dialects.
Although many speak and work in English, media statistics demonstrate that people tend to prefer their own language for other things. So when foreign companies want to market their products to India’s “newly affluent consumers… a mastery of Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil is essential to reach them.” Nokia, for example, developed 10 language interfaces on its mobile phones for India; the Google toolbar appears in five Indian languages, and you can “google” in at least eight.
Date: August 3rd, 2007 |
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