‘TEFL Training’ 140 Hour Distance Learning Course – Part 1

After a couple of weeks of research, I decided to sign up for the TEFL Training Distance Learning TESOL course instead of the ITC course. I received my first set of study materials one day after signing up and paying for the course. Upon completing the course I’ll be awarded the ACoT TESOL qualification (NQF level 5).

The course is set up over a series of four books that you work through at your own pace. You have 18 months in total to complete the course, but obviously I’m hoping to do it much quicker than that! At first glance the book seems small, but once I began working through the book I realised that it contains a lot of exercises and material and is very intensive! Having to adapt from a native English speaker’s analysis of the language to a student’s analysis is probably the trickiest part.

As part of the course, whilst studying books 2 and 3 you are required to observe at least 6 lessons (lasting at least 6 hours) in a real English school. I have a few places in mind at the moment – TEFL training will send you a number of introductory letters, and it is up to you to approach schools asking to observe lessons. This is a part of the course that I’m really looking forward to, although you have to arrange a school before submitting Book 1 back to TEFL training, so I should get on that soon. Finding the motivation for Distance Learning can be quite difficult whilst working full time, but I’m finding this course really interesting and challenging so far.

I have to mention that the service I’ve received so far from TEFL Training has been great – all of my questions were answered really quickly and they were very quick to follow up from the intensive weekend course. So far I’ve found it to be an enjoyable experience and hopefully I’ll become a good teacher one day

TEFL Training / ITC Intensive Weekend Courses

From 14-16 January, I attended a weekend intensive TEFL course as provided by TEFL Training and ITC. The course ran in Birmingham, but there are courses held all around the country.

I took the intensive weekend in order to regain some of the knowledge passed on to me during my Interac ALT training, and to push myself out of my comfort zone by going on a little adventure which would involve a lot of standing infront of other people and teaching.

The Birmingham course ran on Friday 6-9, Saturday 9-7, and Sunday 9-2. There were around 15 people on my course (apparently a small number), and it was a really diverse group. The course was run by Michelle Maxom of Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies fame. Everyone was obviously a little nervous and apprehensive at first, but it was a really nice group of people.

The course started off with some icebreakers and little activities to help us to get to know each other. They are also good activities that you can use with a new class. Through Friday evening and Saturday daytime we went over grammar and vocabulary, experienced a ‘total immersion’ lesson in Italian to help us see things from a student’s point of view, and learnt some games and drilling techniques. Saturday ended with us being put into groups of 3 to teach a lesson using the 3 Ps – something most teachers will be familiar with. Presentation, Practice, Production. One person taking each aspect. After these lessons we were all given individual feedback.

On Sunday we were shown some warm ups, lesson planning techniques, and how to teach a grammar lesson. Then we were on our own – one hour to plan our own lesson. We all taught our own lessons individually with the other group members as the ‘students’. After these lessons it was the close of the session with Michelle taking questions on teaching, the TEFL industry and job hunting. She then gave us all individual feedback and the course was finished.

In conclusion – this course is one I’d definitely recommend to beginners of TEFL. I was really nervous about it at first but I had a great time and I’m so glad I did it. The course covers all of the basics and is a great way to build some confidence – and helps you get used to standing up in front of others! I think everyone from my course left having had a positive experience and an idea of whether TEFL is something they can envisage themselves doing in the future.

TEFL Training and ITC both run their own separate Distance Learning follow up courses, both with their own merits. I’m currently deciding between the two…