Higher TESOL Program

Before I took this course, I had little training or preparation for teaching english in a monolingual classroom and did not know where to look to find resources. I now have the knowledge I need to be able to start teaching ELLs again and to do so now with confidence. This course has refreshed my knowledge of grammar rules, taught me how to prepare lessons in advance and what materials can be used, and how to know where my students are by taking a Needs Assessment on the very first day. Refreshing my knowledge of grammar rules was invaluable for me because it had been years since I learned them. I was always good with english, easily learning the rules of grammar and incorporating them into my writing so fluidly, I became fluent in such a way it made explaining them very difficult. I just knew them. It was a bit like having to give directions to my house to someone who had never been there and having to name all the streets that I turned down on such a daily basis that I had forgotten all the street names. But now I had to conjure up their names in order to give good directions. This analogy was true for me when it came to teaching others the rules of grammar. It is now not enough for me to know them; I have to teach them as well. The lessons on past (U6), perfect (U4), and future (U8) tenses, conditionals and reporting speech (U16), modal verbs and active and passive voice (U18), etc., helped me re-remember the knowledge that had been lying dormant for so long. Best of all, what I love about these lessons is that I can print them and have them always with me in a binder so that when I’m teaching grammar rules in the classroom and run into trouble (is “I may have had” present perfect or present perfect continuous? In what situation would I use the past perfect?), I will have a ready resource at my fingertips. This course has also greatly aided me in learning how to prepare lessons with confidence and I have now been given, especially in Unit 17, a myriad of resource ideas that I can turn to for lesson preparation. I used to allow the course book to provide the structure to class sessions, supplementing it with games I assigned to students to present each week along with student PowerPoint (PPT) presentations on that week’s topic. I would also supplement the course book with multimedia like music videos, movies, etc. I now realize that while this approach has some value, it can also short-change a student’s learning prospects because it allowed for less teacher-involvement and focused work on grammar, sentence structures, and pronunciation. Now that I am at the end of my TEFL lessons, I now know where to go to find resources, how to use them, and ways I can make them fit with one another to create a well-balanced lesson every time. Another thing I have greatly benefited from is learning about Needs Assessments, administering them on the first day of class and allowing them to drive the lesson planning. Finding out what students need and targeting my efforts to meet those needs is, I believe, a very effective way to teach. Conducting a Needs Assessment helps the teacher see where the majority of the class is, their language levels, past experiences in learning english, and what they use english for the most, or want to use it for. It also allows the teacher to see where those who are not in the majority fall and so s/he can plan accordingly. Once a teacher has the student’s Needs Assessments, s/he can plan the first few weeks of lessons (not more than 15-20hrs at first) to get the class underway and see what challenges are brought out. Then the teacher can use the Needs Assessment again along with the knowledge built to craft the next set of lessons. I can see where a Needs Assessment can be a very vital learning tool for any TEFL teacher to use. So those are the three main aspects of what this course has done for me: bringing back to my memory the rules of english grammar, shown me resources that are available with which to teach and how to use them, and the importance of creating a Needs Assessment test and what it is useful for. I now have more confidence to offer any TEFL classroom and I feel ready to try teaching english to ELLs again. I am very glad I took this course!