Global TESOL

Things I wish I'd known before starting the courseThroughout my course, there were multiple things that I wish I'd known before starting. The most poignant that I can think of are the following: ? When the school year starts for my ideal location ? That I could still practice/apply for a job without an actual certificate ? How time consuming it really ends up being All of these I feel could have helped me a lot more in the planning of my course work and my understanding of the course. Luckily, I still feel that I will be well-prepared to begin teaching when I finally get an offer. Here is a further breakdown as to why I think that these are the 3 most notable things that I wish I had known before beginning this course. I wish I had researched when the school year would start for the countries that I would ideally like to teach in. Ideally, I would like to teach in the Democratic Republic of Congo, preferably near Lubumbashi and I would like to teach in a school to children in 2nd grade or above. If that can not work out, then I would like to teach in the french West Indies (St Lucia, St Barts, Martinique, etc.). When I was already 75% through my course, I contacted a former coworker who had taught in Thailand for a year. He then told me, that I should check when the school year starts. That made me realize that I had not planned my classes well and that I should have completed my in-person coursework before July, at the least. Now, I have created a new plan as a result of this, I am planning to move to New York City and hopefully find employment with any ESL location, this time it will most likely not be in a classroom. If I had known earlier, I may already be on my way to teaching somewhere that I wish to be. It would have been beneficial to know that I could still apply for a job and possibly get hired for a job without even having my certificate. Unfortunately and also thankfully, I am an extra planner, so I wanted to be as best prepared as possible to ensure that I would be best equipped to find employment in this field. It would have helped for me to have a job or even a volunteer assignment in this field, because it would help me to put my learning in context with what I was doing in the classroom. I never realized how time consuming 20 units of an online course would be! I went in thinking that I could complete my course in 2 weeks by getting 2 assignments daily and finishing them both in one night. It was really quite difficult to do 2 on the same night because to better understand the course, one really needs at least 2 hours for the coursework. I recall after the first lesson speaking to my sister about how the book said it should take an average of 4 hours per unit and I thought, “yeah right” I just breezed through that unit, I can get this completed in no time. I was quite wrong in that assumption! Now with my schedule and not having time to finish my units in the 1 month I had allotted for myself, I had to finish 2 units at a time for the last few units in order to be completed on time for my in class studies on August 26th. I had never had so little sleep as the past few nights since I needed to get these units completed. I was wishing that each day even had 36 hours so that I could get all that I needed to get done, completed in one day. Now I know for my additional 50 hours course that I will be taking, on Teaching Young Learners, that the 50 hours is really 50 hours! In conclusion, I know that this has been a great learning experience in many ways, I have no regrets, and I truly look forward to how this career change will impact my life and all the adventures that may come from it.