TEFL Mina Nevada

Personally I have gained a great deal from this course and wish I had taken it far earlier in my life, as I not only feel it has benefits in becoming a teacher but it also has benefits in being a better student. I say this because currently I am learning chinese and what I have learned from, what makes a good student, has helped me and taught me to take a more active role in my own learning. It also has explained some of the difficulties I have faced in my continued learning of the chinese language and by better understanding these problems, such as pronunciation and grammar, I am sure I can overcome them. Another point I have gained from this course is a deeper understanding in the psychology of teaching people, and how to get the best out of them in doing so. My personal education was very much a sit down and teacher focused affair, as I suspect was the case for many others, but this course shows that this is not always the best course of action to learn. It might be a challenge then to get students to be responsive to interactive activities. Therefore engage activities to encourage this interaction will be something I would feel might be difficult but a necessary action. A lesson plan is invaluable I feel to teaching, and this is something I don't think I could initially teach without. I do not have the experience to call upon to ‘wing it' therefore the more prepared I can be the better. I can't help but feel if some of my previous chinese teachers had such prepared lesson plans then perhaps my lessons would have not been so formulaic and my learning progression at lot quicker than it has been. Again this goes to emphasize the fact that a good lesson plan is a vital component to a good lesson. Having now gained a deeper understanding of the english grammatical system, it is far more complex than I had ever imagined, I can fully understand the difficulties for students in trying to learn it. However having gained the knowledge of it myself as well as understanding what errors students are prone to make it, I can fully plan in coming up with interesting ways in order for them to comprehend each grammatical point. Hopefully this will not make the task of trying to learn it so daunting and complex. Overall the course is truly rewarding experience and all aspects, in one way or another, can be put to good use when teaching students who want to learn english. However ultimately I think that the adapted quote below taken from Unit 1 can summarize what the entire course is about and this philosophy is what I hope to put into action when teaching: ‘A good teacher is someone who cares about their teaching but cares even more about the learning of the students.'