Home | About TEFL | Teacher training | TEFL jobs | Resource centre | Advice | Language schools | Forum | Grammar | Travel
Teacher training > TEFL diaries > Kate Sutcliffe
About Kate...
I'm Kate. I'm 22, and I'm doing a four-week intensive TESOL course with Universal Language Training at Woking College. Previously I studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at university (great fun!) and did an office job for a while. I want to teach English because I love languages myself, and because I think it must be so hard to arrive in a strange country and not be able to communicate with the people around you.
Looking for work
March 22nd, 2007
It’s been quite a while since I finished the course now - and it’s about time that I started to use my new English teaching skills! Now is, as everybody’s telling me, the best time to look for work in England. It’s just coming up to the summer, which is the time of year when the majority of people who come here to learn English will arrive. There are various residential summer schools (residential for teachers too), which seem like a good way to get experience. (Because most jobs are part time, and therefore the pay is minimal, it’s nice to have a job that provides your food and accommodation).
However, many of the residential summer schools seem to have lessons on Sundays, and I’d rather not have to choose between having a job and going to church. So I decided to begin by doing an internet search for Christian English language schools. I found five or six, and emailed all of them to ask whether they needed any new teachers. At the moment I’m just waiting (and praying!) to see if anything comes from that - otherwise I’ll start applying for the jobs I’ve seen advertised on eslbase and elsewhere.
Moderation
February 23rd, 2007
And that was the last day.
Moderation was nothing to worry about really. The moderator was a lovely lady with a slightly Scottish accent and a manner that put you very much at ease. We had group discussions about the course and how we’d found it, and individual discussions about our materials assignments (yep, that game again…) - then we all went to the pub whilst the moderator talked with our tutors. We came back, collected our work, and that was it, really. I guess that makes us qualified TEFL teachers.
In retrospect, I have enjoyed the course. There were times when I hated it whilst it was going on, and there certainly was a large volume of work. But everyone’s been very supportive and helpful, and I know a lot more about teaching English than I did before! If you have the time (and preferably some supportive family/friends!) then I’d definitely recommend doing an intensive course.
I’ve enjoyed having a blog, too. So much so that I intend to carry on writing (perhaps not so regularly!) at http://asnackate.blogspot.com
So, with thanks to my tutors for all their teaching, my classmates for all their help, support and sympathy when I was ill, and all of the students for suffering so many oddly-conceived lessons - that’s it! Good luck! Wes hal!
Platypus
February 22nd, 2007
I was kind of wrong about there being no more work to do… true, there’s nothing else to hand in, but now we’ve got a very long list of questions that the moderator might be going to ask us in our moderation interviews tomorrow. They’re all about one thing - the materials assignment - but there are a lot of questions…
And another thing, which really irritates me: somebody asked if we need to be smartly dressed in order to be moderated. The answer was a resounding ‘Oh, yes,’ and apparently we’re required to be attired at a suit-equivalent degree of smartness. I consistently fail to understand why people are required to don impractical, unflattering clothes which they don’t like, simply so that they don’t look out of place in a situation where others are wearing similar garments. Obviously it’s not possible to judge our effectiveness as teachers, how well we’re able to learn from our mistakes, and whether we’re actually any good at English, unless we’re wearing the kind of trousers that have fake pockets. Grr!
Reminds me of Patrick Barrington’s Diplomatic Platypus…
“I failed to pass the interview. The board, with wry grimaces,
Took exception to my boots and then objected to my braces,
And Purvis, too, was failed by an intolerant examiner
Who said he had his doubts as to his sock-suspenders’ stamina…”
No more work to do?!
February 21st, 2007
I think that I might just have finished the last piece of work… a few minutes ago I was happily cutting and sticking, making a bookcase-shaped game board and book-shaped counters for my not very effective game (hey, at least it looks pretty now!) - and all of a sudden I’ve finished it, and apart from reading through some things for the moderation interview on Friday, I think that I’ve done all the work I need to do.
It’s a very weird feeling.
It’s like an eerie silence, when a big noise suddenly stops.
Well, it’s not quite stopped yet. There’s still stuff to do - a session with our games tomorrow, and the moderation on Friday, which involves everybody taking part in a group and an individual interview with the moderator.
But still
It’s pretty quiet around here.
Pancakes!
February 20th, 2007
Mmm, pancake day… and only three days of the course left to go!
I’ve spent the whole evening trying to adapt a very far-fetched game I came up with for yesterday’s lesson - part of the course is that we have to use a game in our final lesson, and then adapt it if it didn’t work, and hand it in with a rationale. My game involved students giving reviews in the passive of English books they probably hadn’t read… a pretty difficult thing to do! (I did give them a synopsis, but most of them just read that out, instead of producing any language). I’d far rather just scrap it and invent a new game, but we have to use the one from the lesson.
Oh well. At least I no longer have five million other things I’m supposed to be doing at the same time. Although it is possible that some things will be returned to me tomorrow, to be re-done, if they’re not good enough. It’s nice really, that we get the chance to redeem ourselves if our first attempt isn’t quite right. But it would also be really rather annoying!
Right. Back to being irritated with that game…
Well, I’m tired! It took until half past one this …
February 19th, 2007
Well, I’m tired! It took until half past one this morning to finish planning today’s lesson. The very strange thing is, it’s the last one I have to teach for the course. The time really has gone fast! Can’t believe that by this time next week we’ll (all going well!) be qualified.
There’s nothing tomorrow apart from the grammar test in the afternoon. I have to confess that, as the family grammar fiend, the concept was not a particularly daunting one. Not, that is, until I learnt that it’s not really testing our grammatical knowledge, but our ability to teach grammar, and that in two hours tomorrow afternoon we’re expected to come up with the basic idea for about nine lesson plans. It normally takes me an entire day just to think of one…
Actually, we’ve been given a very comprehensive-looking ‘hints list’ for the grammar test. I wouldn’t be very surprised if it turns out to be the questions. My plan is to answer them all now and then memorise them in the morning. I’m not sure if that will make me a better teacher, but I think it’ll help me pass the test!
They weren’t wrong when they warned us that we’d h…
February 17th, 2007
They weren’t wrong when they warned us that we’d have a lot of work to do this weekend… so far I’ve been working on the profile - that is, the analysis of the language of an individual student, with suggestions for ten hours of remedial teaching. I think the worst moment was late last night when I took in for the first time the sentence saying that we had to analyse our student’s grammatical competence and explain any errors with reference to potential L1 interference. Basically that meant I had one evening to become relatively competent at Italian grammar in order to explain why my student might be making certain mistakes. In the end becoming competent was not necessary - I used an Italian grammar book and the internet, and I hope that my answers are correct!
Yesterday morning I taught a 75-minute, one-to-one lesson to my profile student. This was good fun. It’s very different from teaching an entire class. It’s good because you feel that you can be of a lot more use to the single student, concentrating on his/her needs, going at exactly the right speed for him/her. On the other hand it makes preparation much more difficult. Not only do activities take less time (so you need to think of more of them), but you also need to be really precise, making sure that your lesson is at exactly the right level for the student you’re teaching. Or at least that it’s easily adaptable whilst teaching.
Once I’ve finished the profile, I have to start work on making a communicative game for the advanced class, and planning an entire one and a half hour lesson to go with it! The task is made all the harder by the fact that no topic for the lesson is ascribed to us - we can teach whatever we like. Deciding where to begin can be the most difficult thing!
On the whole, all of this work is quite fun - I just wish that I had more time to do it. But then, it does seem to be the type of work that would expand and expand to fill whatever time was available, so maybe I should be grateful that I only have one weekend. And anyway, it was me that chose to do an intensive course…
This TEFL course thing is hard work! And not just …
February 15th, 2007
This TEFL course thing is hard work! And not just for me - I was amazed to discover that my black ink cartridge, which I installed new in my printer just before the course started, is about to run out. My paper supplies are looking distinctly low, too… poor trees.
I think I’ve finished planning tomorrow’s lesson. Hope I have, anyway! It was all going so well - until I read the bit I’d missed, saying it had to be a primarily oral lesson, and realised that I’d have to replace 25 minutes’ worth of reading and writing activities with speaking and listening. Planning out the lesson isn’t so bad - but then you end up working late into the night drawing pictures of elephants or people called Emily who like travelling, cutting out printed words and sticking them onto bits of card, and persuading harrassed members of your family that they really do want to star in the tape-recorded dialogue for your listening exercise…
I did begin to see, yesterday, how all this could be quite fun really. It’s still a lot of work. But it does seem that, with each lesson you teach, you add a little bit to your store of ideas and resources. Perhaps it may even, eventually, be possible to be a teacher and to engage in extra-curricular activities!
Procrastination and celebration
February 14th, 2007
I actually enjoyed today’s lesson! I think that was partly because I’d chosen a subject I find interesting (the story of Grace Darling), but also because the language was at the right level for the students (it could have been harder, but it wasn’t too easy), so they weren’t bored. Everyone was very grateful to have their errors corrected. The class was even pleased when they didn’t have time to finish the final task and I set it for homework! For the first time since starting the course I’m thinking that English teaching is something I might actually be able to do - that it might even be quite fun!
We went straight home after teaching today (at lunchtime), supposedly giving us plenty of time to start planning our one-to-one lessons for Friday. In fact I managed to waste most of the afternoon. I’m not quite sure how, but it got to about 4.00 and I hadn’t really done anything. Amazing how easy it is to procrastinate, even when you know that you have a lot of work and not really enough time to do it in.
Doing the intensive course
February 13th, 2007
I think that everyone on the course is finding it hard work. We’re all tired, most of us have been ill, and everybody’s finding that lesson planning takes a very long time. It’s kind of nice to know that it does affect everybody in the same way - that it’s not just me stressing all night about practice tasks, working almost every spare moment and still feeling that things aren’t done to the standard I’d like, and sometimes being rude to family and close friends who happen to be nearby when things get difficult…
But I think we’re generally enjoying it too (or at least will in retrospect!) and one of the nicest things is the group feel. We all help each other out, be it with tape recordings, lesson ideas, providing teabags, or explaining the structure of the past continuous passive. We get a lot of help from our tutors, too, who are very keen for us all to do well.
On the whole, I’m definitely glad that I chose to do an intensive course. It’s pretty hard work for these four weeks - but it’s only four weeks, and at the end of them we’ll have a qualification we can use. Apparently people doing the part time course, with jobs to do as well, find it equally stressful - but in their case the stress lasts four months. Poor part-timers! I know it depends on your situation, and a lot of people simply wouldn’t be able to do the intensive TESOL course. But I’d recommend it to anyone who had the time/money/resources. Just warn all your friends and relatives in advance that you may be somewhat preoccupied for the next month or so…
I really don’t seem to be able to get the hang of …
February 12th, 2007
I really don’t seem to be able to get the hang of pitching my target language at the right level - today, teaching the upper group, I made my lesson too easy. So I’m spending this evening trying to think of fiendishly difficult vocabulary items to introduce to them on Wednesday… imperilled, for example, and tuberculosis. Just hope I don’t over-compensate and pitch it too high! I’m also having difficulty maintaining an authoritative, teacherly air. I think it doesn’t help that most of the students are older than I am…
It seems like we’ve been taught most of the things that we’re actually going to be taught, now. We still have a few more classes - some more grammar, and a lesson on comparing the different available coursebooks - but mostly now it’s practice teaching and working on individual student profiles. A highly effective, if slightly uncomfortable, way to learn. I’m used to finding things out from books and then discussing them with my supervisors, not jumping in at the deep end and actually trying to put my new knowledge to some practical use!
I haven’t done very much work today. Instead of ru…
February 11th, 2007
I haven’t done very much work today. Instead of rushing straight home after church, Jon and I went to make a rope swing in the woods. Definitely a good decision! Everyone needs a chance to run about and get covered in mud sometimes, even in the middle of an intensive course 
In the afternoon I started thinking about Wednesday’s lesson. The subject I’ve been given is, invitingly, ‘Simple Past and Past Perfect in a story’. I like stories. The one I chose in the end was that of the Victorian lifeboat heroine Grace Darling. Jolly good fun, and plenty of scope for sentences like ‘When it got light, Grace saw the survivors from her window. The ship had sunk in the night, and most of the passengers had drowned, but some people had managed to cling on to the rocks.’ Simple past and past perfect… lovely.
Still a bit worried about tomorrow’s lesson - teaching the higher group for the first time - but I decided that a day and half was quite enough time to allocate to one hour’s teaching. And I’m pretty sure that sometime at the start of the course, someone told us that our lessons could never be perfect. Just as well, really…
I’m quite concerned that my being a teacher is goi…
February 10th, 2007
I’m quite concerned that my being a teacher is going to have a detrimental effect on the environment. Today so far I’ve used 17 sheets of A4 paper and four of card - and I still haven’t finished planning that lesson on the 3rd conditional. What with worksheets, games, flashcards, and fully-scipted lesson plans, I’m beginning to think all TEFL teachers should be required to plant at least three trees a week…
We’ve discovered that our kitchen is a good place for a trampoline. That might sound unlikely, but it’s quite a large kitchen - and rather a small trampoline. It allows one to keep company with whoever’s cooking dinner whilst simultaneously indulging the desire to bounce up and down.
I think I might go and pay a visit to the kitchen now. Perhaps a little exercise will help me think of another 10 minutes’ worth of practice on hypothetical sentences. I really hope so…
Skydreaming
February 9th, 2007
I’ve just joined the Cloud Appreciation Society. It’s amazing what things you can find to do on the internet when you’re supposed to be planning a good way of presenting the interrogative form of the third conditional. What would have happened if you’d messed around on the internet all weekend and not planned the lesson? Answer: I’d have failed the course…
Actually I like the third conditional. I like the first and second too, but the third is entirely hypothetical. It’s how we talk about things that are impossible, because the chance for them to happen was in the past, and they didn’t happen. (Let’s just hope it is appropriate for me to use the third conditional to talk about not planning my lesson by Monday…)
Today we did some grammar and talked about teaching Business English. We were reminded that actually business people do need to speak the same language as everybody else! It’s just that they have particular, extra, special requirements on which it’s necessary to focus. We were also told various stories of extremely bad and extremely good contracts with Italian companies, and warned to be very careful what we sign, wherever we go.
Why is work so deceptive? Sometimes it seems like …
February 8th, 2007
Why is work so deceptive? Sometimes it seems like there’s hardly anything to do, but it takes forever… other times you think you’re going to be working all night, but somehow it all just evaporates! Perhaps the latter is partly because I’m just concentrating on getting the work done, and not on how good my marks are. There’s so much to do, there isn’t usually time for reading things through, debating the finer points of vocabulary and sentence construction.
Today we had only one lesson! (Well, two lessons in one session, but they were both Russian, so it felt like one really) - which was nice. That’s it now - no more Russian. At least, not with ULT - the lessons were really interesting though, and I’m thinking I might like to learn a bit more Russian. When I’ve finished the course, that is. They were also very interesting from a teaching beginners point of view. Today we started to learn the alphabet, which was very pleasing. We didn’t do all the letters, but we did enough to spell the words we’d learnt so far, and our names. One of the striking things was how well all of our Russian lessons fitted together, everything building on what had been learnt already. Makes you realise how you must have to plan a whole series of lessons in one go when teaching beginners, to make sure they’re going to learn at the start what you’ll need them to know in two or three lessons’ time.
All afternoon I’ve been writing up my Foreign Language Journal - basically recounting the Russian lessons, techniques the teacher used, how the group responded, and things like that. Also thinking of differences between English and Russian, and what the experience taught us about teaching beginner students (a lot!)
Hm. I definitely have less work to do this evening…
February 7th, 2007
Hm. I definitely have less work to do this evening, but it seems to be taking me just as long to do it! Transcription takes a very long time. So does finding all the bits you need to hand in and putting them in the right folder… we were advised at the start of the course to always file things in the right place the moment we’d finished with them. This was a bit too organised for me - but now I’m wishing I’d listened!
So. Second ever lesson went better than the first - some of the students actually seemed to learn some of the language I was trying to teach them. Hooray! Next week I’ll be teaching the upper group rather than the lower group. I’ve just got used to making all my language super-simple so that the lower group understand it, and I think it’s going to be quite difficult not making next week’s lessons too easy - apparently the upper group are very good at English. I still don’t know how anyone can manage to pitch the language at the right level without having taught the group at least a couple of times first.
This afternoon we had more grammar - passives. Because I’ve studied a lot of grammar before, I’m finding it quite easy to follow the grammatical part of the course. But I think people who haven’t done much before are finding it quite difficult, because we do just have to go through it without there being much time for explanation.
We’ve got more Russian in the morning and… a free afternoon! Well, free to do our transcriptions and foreign language journals and things. Looking at the timetable, it does seem to be a little more relaxed from now on - more lessons to plan and assignments to hand in, but fewer input sessions at college. And it’s amazing how quickly the first week and a half (40%!) has gone.
It seems to have taken me a very long time indeed …
February 6th, 2007
It seems to have taken me a very long time indeed to prepare my second lesson. I’ve been working on it almost all evening, as well as yesterday evening, and some time this morning. I now have colour-coded flashcards, and lots of sheets to photocopy in the morning before it all begins. There’s so much work to do at the moment, with various assignments as well as the lesson plans, that time seems to be going past in a crazy whirl of working, working, eating (keep needing lots of energy for all that work!), working, trains being cancelled (grrr), waiting, working… I’m feeling mostly better now (hooray!) - but alas, other people on my course seem to be getting ill. I hope it’s not entirely my fault…
Today we were given lots of ideas for getting students to practise language, as well as having sessions on communicative games and teaching young learners. We were advised not to teach children younger than three, but apparently it’s normal to start teaching English to children at about that age in lots of countries. I think it would be fun (lots of toys and bright colours!) but also very tiring. And I imagine it would require more preparation than an adult lesson, or at least more thought, because each session would need to be packed with interesting activities. No gap-filling exercises for three year olds!
We were warned against gap-filling exercises, even for adults. Obviously too many people have got them wrong over the years (too easy, too hard, gaps too small…) - and I know it’s boring to go to lessons where you have to fill in gaps all the time. We were encouraged to try more active things, like running dictations, and language relays. Just hope we don’t all try the out on the same day, or the poor students will hardly get chance to sit down!
Teaching my first ever lesson
February 5th, 2007
As far as learning from my mistakes goes, I think that my first ever lesson will probably be a big success… I hope so anyway! There were some good things - apparently I was speaking clearly enough, and some of the activities were good. But the main problem was the language I used on the worksheet that was to help with presenting to the students the vocabulary I was trying to teach. The vocabulary itself was ok, but the language I used around it on the sheet was a bit too complicated for most of the people in the lesson. So they began by not really being able to understand the words, which wasn’t really a very good start! The students are quite mixed in ability, but some of them don’t have very much English at all, and it really is necessary to be very basic (using the past perfect and adjectives like ‘dented’ was a bit too much).
I was very impressed by my colleagues’ lessons this morning. They all seemed so natural and friendly in front of the class, and seemed to have complete control of what was going on in the lesson (though they assured me afterwards that actually they too were feeling somewhat nervous!)
Anyway, there’s been so much else to do today that the lesson already feels like a long time ago. I’ve been working on an individual profile, interviewing a student. It’s harder than you’d think to type up a transcription of a recorded conversation. And yes, we’ve already started planning lesson two, which will be on Wednesday. Very simple language for the lower intermediates this time!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »It’s Sunday, and I still feel like I’ve been worki…
February 4th, 2007
It’s Sunday, and I still feel like I’ve been working most of the day… I guess that’s not true, as I had time to go to church this morning, and to have a rest this afternoon. Mostly been working on the profile today - my individual assessment of a student. I’ve got an interview with said student tomorrow afternoon - after teaching my first ever lesson in the morning - quite a busy day! It begins early, with an 8.50am deadline for our phonetics assignment. I do wonder if all these early deadlines are really just there to make sure we turn up promptly on the days when we’re teaching.
I’m not as nervous as I expected to be. Nobody armed with so many different bits of coloured card could possibly be nervous! (Actually, the highly detailed lesson plan is probably helping a bit too). I’ve also roped in various family members and my boyfriend to be different voices on the listening cassettes I needed to record. Hope they didn’t mind too much, as I guess it’s a request I’m likely to be repeating.
After almost an entire day of trying to think of p…
February 3rd, 2007
After almost an entire day of trying to think of practice exercises, worrying about the right amount of vocabulary to teach to lower intermediate students, and shouting at my computer for not doing what I wanted with tables - I have finally managed to produce a complete lesson plan! Hooray! It’s 58 minutes long (instead of the prescribed 60), but the lesson itself will only be 45 minutes, so I’m hoping that will be acceptable. I’m also hoping that I’ll be completely better by Monday morning because otherwise, no matter how good the flashcards and memory game I have still to produce, I won’t be able to deliver the lesson for the spasms of coughing which seem to be afflicting me every five minutes…
Today has been something of a struggle, beginning in the morning (lovely, bright and frosty) as one brother went off ice skating, my mum and uncle went out for a walk - and I had to stay at home thinking about how to teach the topic of Retailing. I have to say, I didn’t expect to be making flashcards of ‘consumer durables’ and ‘own label goods’ at this stage (especially as it’s not business people we’re teaching). But the idea was to give us something the students were not very likely to have come across before. The hardest thing was thinking how to get enough practice of the words in, as they’re not really ones that come up very often in everyday conversation.
I get to leave the house in a minute(!) in order to go and buy more printer paper and coloured card. Then I’ll be cutting, sticking, and trying to draw pictures of guarantees and closed circuit television - which sounds quite fun really. Honest.
And after that? Finished for the day? Not quite… there’s still a profile interview to think about, also for Monday. And of course Wednesday’s lesson to start planning. I know it must get a lot quicker planning lessons, else teachers would have to spend five times longer working at home than they did at school, and I’m pretty sure life doesn’t contain sufficient time for that…
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »Real Lesson Plans
February 1st, 2007
It’s official. We’ve been told which groups we’re going to teach on Monday, and we’ve been given our topics so that we can start doing our lesson plans. Even though the reason everybody is on the course is to learn to teach, we do all seem to be rather worried about our first lessons - especially as our lovely tutors seem to think it’s best for us to learn from our mistakes, even if that means delivering 45 minutes of completely rubbish teaching to the poor students who turn up on Monday! I think the thing that’s worrying most of us is that nobody is going to check our lesson plans before we deliver them - they’re just going to assess us as we teach the lesson - so we’ve got no chance of putting it right. At least, not until we try to correct some of our mistakes in the lessons we teach on Wednesday. I guess the idea is for us to learn and improve over the six teaching practices we will do. Which is all very well for us, but I’m beginning to feel very sorry for our poor students!
Actually though, it is quite a good deal for the students too. Most of them are au pairs who live near the college, and they come in two mornings a week for free English lessons. Sometimes they’re taught by our tutors (with trainees observing and joining in), and sometimes by trainees as we progress through the course.
A lot of people seemed to find today hard. Perhaps because it’s Thursday. Perhaps because we had a very long session this morning with lots to take in and only a short break. Perhaps because our homework is starting to get a lot more serious (that is, how well we do it will affect the learning experience of real students). I’m glad it’s Friday tomorrow…
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »Lesson planning…
January 31st, 2007
This morning we got to meet some real students, and observed two classes. One was lower intermediate, the other upper intermediate. One thing I’m a bit baffled by at the moment is how to know what kind of work is appropriate for which level, and how to guess whether your students will already know certain grammatical forms or vocabulary items. This is a particularly pressing point, as today we were introduced to the students we’ll be teaching one-to-one and writing individual profiles for. The first session is an interview designed to help us assess the student’s language-learning needs, but it also has to include two each of reading, writing and listening exercises so we can assess all four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). I don’t want to give my student something too easy, because I won’t find out what she finds difficult - but I don’t want to give her something too hard in case she gets completely lost and discouraged, and I end up with nothing to analyse. Quite hard to work out what’s going to be appropriate before the analysis stage!
Our grammar lesson this afternoon contained disappointingly little grammar 
and was more like an exercise in lesson planning. In fact, most of our classes are basically exercises in lesson planning… which makes complete sense, as that’s precisely what they’re trying to teach us!
Learning Russian?
January 30th, 2007
This afternoon we had our first Russian lessons. The point, of course, is not for us to learn Russian, but for us to experience what it’s like being taught a completely new language only through the medium of that language. So our teacher (after explaining in English about the journals that we’d have to make) left the room and came back in, and spoke only Russian for the rest of the session. It was surprising how easy it was to understand, with the help of gestures, pictures, props, and lots of repetition. Quite confusing as a student though: having to take part in the Russian lesson, but also having to make extensive notes on how the teaching was carried out. I hardly wrote down any Russian in the end.
I was very relieved that we had less homework today. I’m not quite sure that I’ve done all of it properly, but it only took about two hours rather than three.
It’s hard to believe that it’s only Tuesday - feels like it should be at least Friday by now! On the other hand, I’m quite glad it’s not, as we have to give our first lessons on Monday… eek!
My best advice so far: if you’re going to do an in…
January 29th, 2007
My best advice so far: if you’re going to do an intensive TESOL course, don’t be ill! In order to pass it’s necessary to have 100% attendance, and as classes run basically 9-5 every day (with a few minor variations), there isn’t even time to go and see a doctor. I survived today on paracetamol and taking things as gradually as I could. But the problem is, the intesity of the course doesn’t leave much room for taking things gradually! Had I not been ill, I think today would have been fine. But as it is, with a half-speed brain, I’ve only just managed to finish all of my homework. One thing I had to do was to record a tape for listening exercises - something of a joke with my croaky frog voice! Perhaps I’ll have to re-record that one when I’m feeling better.
I really ought to be in bed already (having to get up fairly early to get to college on time) but there’s just time to tell you that we’re in a class of eight (six girls and two boys), with two main teachers and some other people to teach us a few other bits. Everything’s very organised (eg they tell us exactly how to file all of our notes), which is really for the best, as there isn’t much time to think about things! Today as well as having all sorts of preliminary information thrown at us, we had to start proper work too, with teaching aids, an example lesson, and introductory grammar and function sessions. (Communicative function being the reason for a particular set of speech, which can be taken as the basis for a lesson. For example apologising, or polite requests, or asking for directions). We also had quite a lot of stuff to do at home - not particularly difficult, but rather time consuming (at least if you’re not entirely feeling well!)
Feeling ill :(
January 28th, 2007
Ugh. Today is not a good day to be ill. Spending most of the day in bed doesn’t seem the ideal way to prepare for the first day of my intensive TESOL course! Just hope that I wake up tomorrow feeling competent to get to Milford station, catch the train to Woking, find my way from Woking station to the college - and then proceed to take in a day’s worth of intensive tuition, and probably do some homework when I get back!
I am excited about beginning. It’s been a year and a half since I last did any proper studying and I’m rather looking forward to packing my (multicoloured ) pens and folders, going off to college, and learning something new. I’m not sure quite what to expect really, although if lessons are anything like the pre-course open day then we’ll be sitting round in a circle without tables, discussing teaching, grammar, phonology, and whatever else we’re going to learn. Actually I think classes will be quite varied - we’ll have Russian lessons (for teaching methodology), and I think we’ll be starting to give our own lessons rather sooner than currently feels a good idea…
So I’m just praying that I’ll be well enough to take everything in tomorrow (today my ill-brain refused to remember my own email address - not a good sign!) and that the first day goes well.
by RSS
by email
eslbase © 2005-2008
Terms of use |
Disclaimer |
Privacy |
Contact |
Advertise |
Links |
Site map |
Testimonials |
Language exchange |
TEFL blog
TEFL jobs and TEFL courses, information, advice and
ESL resources for teachers - TEFL course diaries - Kate Sutcliffe, Trinity Cert TESOL, Universal Language Training, Woking, UK