TEFL Modena Pennsylvania

During this course I have learnt a lot. While progressing through the units I realized that I may have had a lot of knowledge, but yet I did not really understand it. For example, before, I could easily list the best teachers I have had as well as the worst – but the list of reasons to why that is would have been rather short. Today I would be able to actually put down on paper a lot of reasons – that seemed to be obvious but that I as a matter of fact had not really thought of. While it clearly is important that a good teacher has a great personality, loves his or her job and knows how to reach and motivate the students, I have learnt about the small things such as where the teacher places him- or herself in the classroom during the different stages of the lesson, that monitoring working students will be more efficient with a pen and paper in my hand, or how eye contact or the voice and tone can be used for managing a class. Thus, I have learnt to actually put down on paper what constitutes a good teacher – and this enables me to a much greater extent to know what to aim for in the future. But how to be a good teacher is merely one example. I feel more confident when it comes to grammar knowledge as well. Even though I would be able to produce correct language before, I do not think that I actually knew how and why always, which really makes it impossible to explain it to someone else. However, I can honestly say that some time ahead my knowledge and understanding of english grammar for example, will have ceased quite a bit – but I believe it now to be knowledge easily revised and freshened up. Although it has been quite clear to me that establishing rapport in the classroom is of vital importance, again, pinpointing how to actually do this would have been hard – now I know about concrete ways of how to do this, which enables me to aim for rapport in the classroom, now knowing what means to use. Likewise, learning about the ESA method has and will help me to structure my idea of a good lesson, that I believe may already have been there – but not in a way allowing for organized and efficient teaching. To know that a lesson should probably include motivating and fun exercises, warmers, some introductions and presentations of new things as well as study exercises is of no real use if one does not know how to include these efficiently during the lesson. Basically, while I may have known before that the little things matter, I now know how they make a difference. I believe this course has provided me with a scaffold, on which I may now further build on. Clearly, it is one thing to read about managing classes, how to use course materials and different ways of teaching, yet another one to put this into practice. I believe experience is the only way to make the most out of what I have gained through this course, to actually teach on my own – small as well as large groups, individuals, young learners and adults, as well as english for specific purposes. I believe this is how one will come to acquire the feeling for what to do, and how to do it, at the right time in different situations. I certainly feel much more confident now, as a future teacher as well as with my own knowledge in the english language.