TEFL Boyds

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Travel had benefits for all of us. Particularly for our children. Our twin baby boys are mixed-race and mixed-cultured and equal importance will be placed on both sides of their heritage while maintaining a truly international worldview. We plan to raise them as true world citizens. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mingke R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. We plan to focus on a few areas to strengthen their cultural connections: language, exposure to different cultures, exposure to people from those cultures, and cultural holidays. We will achieve this by continuing to travel slowly. We plan to live in different cities and...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences As a kindergarten teacher working in China I have a lot of experience dealing with students, fellow teachers; Chinese and foreign, management and parents. A few years ago I came to China to learn Chinese. To pay for my living expenses I started teaching young learners. Pretty soon I got a full-time job in a kindergarten and I fell in love with the work and I decided to stay in China and keep teaching. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Paul E. One of the first problems I faced was of course the language barrier. In the schools I’ve worked at so far not many people speak English; especially the schools’ management. It’s always quite a task to find out what is expected of you. In China don’t...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences My teaching experience started back in 1988 where I was working for a company called Bryco Windows. They are a UPVC window and door manufacturer where my position was Sales Trainer. My job was to teach new staff and train them to understand the sales process and how to close the sale. This was a hard job to do as a salesman as the sales people got a lot of knock backs (no sale). Part of my job as sales trainer was to keep them motivated. Sometimes this got very hard with some sales people and many people left. The employee turnover was very high as not many people actually could master it. I worked there for four years in this position and met some really good people who did very well. This post was written by our TEFL...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Teaching classes containing a wide variety of ages can be a great challenge. I have recently experienced such challenge. Below I am going to share my teaching experience and how I managed to overcome the difficulties. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yan Z. In Spring this year, I was asked to teach an English Drama class in a children’s training center. Before the class started, the students were recruited and assigned by the center, which was not in my control. There were 12 elementary-school students in the class. Students were age-mixed, ranging from 7 years to 12 years old. Two thirds of the students were from Grades 1-3 and one third were from Grade 4-6. In order for the younger students...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas For this essay, I have learned that teaching a second language can be challenging especially when teaching a younger group of students. Before taking the TEFL course I have had numerous experiences in tutoring and mentoring, which is quite different from actually being an English Language teacher. In the past, I have taught small groups that focus on one subject as well as one summer teaching an art class at my local Boys and Girls Club. Most of my personal teaching experience has been limited to small groups of four to eight students, who all speak the same language and are around the same level and skill of reading, writing, and math skills. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Bryan S....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Everyone and everything that exists in this world have what it is called or known by, and that automatically is the name of that person or that thing. We can then define a noun as a name given to persons, places, animals, objects, substances, qualities, actions, and measures. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate NICODEMUS U. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. This is a name given to each member of a group of persons or things that share some common characteristics. Examples: car, television, girl, boy, house, man, book, cup, student, home, watch, leg, hand, clothes, cap, goat, pen, chair, bulb, pencil, door, window, fan, marker,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Sometimes, it can be challenging for most of us to focus on specific tasks. It's normal to find your mind wandering when you should be focused on a particular thing. According to a 2010 study 1 by Harvard psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, we spend nearly 47 percent of our waking hours thinking about something other than what we are doing. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate MANEL R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It's even more challenging for kids to stay focused on one task even if they are interested in it, especially...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas One of the things I have learned in this course is the importance of motivation. Both teachers and students have to be motivated so that the teaching and learning environment in the classroom can be a fun and enjoyable experience. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Carol T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There are many ways a teacher can motivate the student to learn, and one of the tools is the use of playing games in the classroom. Games are effective because aside from keeping the students interested, they are a great teaching tool. For example, for a beginning student, I would have them play “I spy with my little eye...  [Read more]

Dan Sloat Destinations Alumni Experiences Volunteer teaching in Nepal is thoroughly rewarding! The need for engaging and enthusiastic teachers is so great and the positive impact you can make, even in a short period, is significant. Personally, I had a modest classroom of 16 students comprising a broad range of ages and competency. Those kiddos were quite a handful, but being their teacher was an incredible privilege. Their maturity was striking and yet, at the end of the day, they are still growing boys. They would get rowdy at times and often pulled pranks on each other. I loved their curiosity, their excitement for learning, and their playful spirits. Between lessons they would often draw pictures for me. I suppose I’m the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas We live in a community where we can have everything we desire with one click, with one single device, on one single screen, we can see the infinitive things the whole world has to offer, and we do not even need to stand up from our sofa to get whatever we want. We live in a world that makes us believe that what we have is never enough; we are always seeking what is not in our house, what is not in our bag, what is not in our garden; human beings are so overwhelmed with a constant creation of any imaginable thing, there is such an overproduction that not even in a thousand years we would be able to benefit and make a true usage of everything...  [Read more]