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I believe completing a TEFL course is a better option than not completing one. Although it may be a costly and time consuming, it was an investment for better preparation and job opportunities. I can’t think of any downsides to having taken the course apart from not having taken a TEFL job right away. I believe it was a bit of a backtrack but a necessary one to be better prepared for teaching jobs in the future. Taking a TEFL course gives you an intensive review on grammar and material you have learned yourself and will be teaching to your students. It also allows you access to temporary videos and downloadable written materials that will help with the teaching process. The material covered in a TEFL course is all material I was taught in English classes in school. Although some served as a review, some material felt like I was learning it for the first time because being a fluent English speaker since childhood, they are not things you tend to break down to the detail that the course did. Things like tense, (present simple, present continuous, present perfect, etc) are all things that an experienced English speaker just happens to know. Although obviously they were once taught, learned, and practiced, there is just plenty of material that an already-established English teacher must be re-taught in order to understand things they are already saying that they don’t give much thought into. A TEFL course includes source material such as sample lessons, videos, and downloadable text that proved to be beneficial as opposed to not having them. Although they are only temporarily available, I’ve screenshotted the important bullet points that were shown in the video lessons. These bullet points highlight the more important things you’ll need to look for in the written material so being able to screenshot them will save you some unnecessary digging. I also downloaded the 20 available units so that while I am either working or between jobs, I can continue to review lessons I am still unfamiliar with and think of new ways to teach them to my students. Included in the downloadable unit texts are links to online sources that I may not have found otherwise. I just think that having downloaded the units, it will give me a basic coursebook to branch out from so that I may continue to improve my teaching skills and have material to come back to. Taking a TEFL course is another way to go into a teaching job without being blind of expectations. Prior to taking this course, I had no idea what to expect, how to even start teaching, or what teaching English even looked like. I believe now I am better prepared, at the very least, compared to someone who had never taken a TEFL course before. Having taken the course, I will have better job opportunities than someone without a certificate which will prove that taking the course is an investment rather than a waste of your time and money.
