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This course as well as the TEFL certification course are there to give me the skills I need to teach English as a foreign language. That said I also think there are certain things that cant be taught in an online class and potentially cant even be taught in an in-class learning session. For my summative task I would like to talk about things that are not necessarily learned in a TEFL class. These things are learned as a student in a classroom and as a teacher when you are getting down to the actual teaching. Despite everything I can learn from this TEFL course and how valuable it has been to me I think that there is still going to be a lot of learning and acclimation that goes with getting down to the nitty gritty of teaching. I can read about tendencies of children or adults in certain countries but I will not really understand until I experience it. I would even go as far as saying that in an in class lesson you still have a bit of a safety net that leaves a bit more to be learned or experienced. Furthermore, arguably even more vital to being a teacher is understanding your students and what it is like to be a student. For me part of the reason I want to be a teacher is because of the teachers Ive had in the past. As a student there were things I enjoyed and things I didn't enjoy that teachers did. Both of these things have influenced my desire to teach. I think trying to understand what I enjoyed as as student and what my classmates enjoyed is enormous in successfully getting through to students and increasing the effectiveness of a lesson. Its the difference between the types of activities you use between learners in the 5-9 group or learners in the 9-13 age group. This is a more obvious example but these differences and tendencies between different age groups, cultures, or groups of learners can get much more subtle and nuanced. Trying to understand ones own experience as a student is invaluable in understanding these subtle nuances in learners and how to act accordingly. That said this varies hugely between cultures. I may have a better understanding of American students and may have much to learn when it comes to students of other cultures. While I do agree with this there is also something to be said about kids around the world having similar tendencies despite their cultural differences. To conclude what I was saying, I don't want to imply that these courses are lacking. On the contrary their are things the classes contain that are absolutely necessary to understand before stepping foot in a classroom. What I want to claim is first that you well never fully understand something until you experience it first hand. And second, the most important thing to being a teacher, at least in my own philosophy, is understanding ones own experience as a student and really in general the perspective of students as a whole.
