TEFL Salvador

Studying english doesn’t mean we are able to teach to other people what we know, basically because we give many things connected to the language for granted. That is the first think I have learnt by taking this online course. At the beginning I decided to attend the curse because it was a requirement where I was working... I was not that confident in the outcome, but I have to say I’m now very satisfy with that. As a matter of fact I got a lot more awareness about the fact that it is not necessary to be native speaker, because that doesn’t mean you are a perfect teacher. Being a good teacher requires skills other than simply having a perfect knowledge of the language structures and grammar. it means first of all being motivated to teach and being able to motivating students, understanding their needs and being ready to adapt your knowledge to their learning process. What I liked the most is learning how to plan a lesson. It has been like a new world opening to me... I remember the first lessons before taking the course. They were not bad... but I usually felt bad organized... and my class where kinda confusing. What I have learnt is to be flexible and organized how important is timing each activity and the division in phases. I think the tefl gives you the chance to be a better teacher not only in the professional side of the word but also seeing it from a personal perspective. After starting the course I became more confident in my skills, I started appreciating my efforts in creating very interesting lessons, and I got the student’s satisfaction as a reward for myself. using visual aids, real items and especially games, helped me to enjoy always more the lesson myself, which meant also my students were enjoying it. I found it very rewarding when students were improving their speaking skills and increasing their confidence. I learned that course books are not the only resource available for teacher, that more we use our creativity and more we put ourselves in the student’s shoes more we are able to understand what is suitable for them. I liked Peter’s suggestion, about teaching kids, to go in a toys store, and pretend to be a kid... I found it very useful and I gained from that experience a lot of ideas to use in class. Thanks to the course I also did a revision of some grammar parts: futures and modal verbs... I have always found it difficult to explain to others when to use for example will or going to or present continuos, but after the UNIT related to future tenses, the future grammar part has became my favorite grammar part to teach. I found it amazing to discover how simple can it be to teach to others what we know if we have scheme in our mind, like a sort of draft copy to enlarge and improve every time with something new. I have also learned how to teach pronunciation and even if I have always thought it was something students can learn only when living abroad, I discovered students are concerned with it and when giving them tips and hints they enjoy learning pronunciation a lot. The best that I have learnt is that I could be a very good teacher. That is why I will try to find a job for qualified tefl teacher maybe abroad, here in italy the market is full of foreign teacher and italian people prefer native speaker so it is very difficult to find a position at the moment. I will keep trying and looking around. What I would love to do is to teach kids, because I believe it is extremely rewarding.