Job Discussion Forums

[nickpellatt]

With so many threads discussing TEFL courses, I thought it might be useful for some people considering to share my experiences on my Trinity Cert TESOL course, which ends tomorrow.

I'll start at the very beginning of the process. If you attend an interview, which does seem a set part of the process, do be prepared for a language awareness assignment and a writing task as part of the interview. My interview was scheduled to last 90 minutes, and this wasnt to allow me to talk endlessly about my teaching experiences, or my reasons for wishing to teach, but to allow time for the tasks mentioned.

A search here for an idea of the types of task you will do might help beforehand, I cant remember everything I had to do, but it was questions like 'explain the difference between listening and hearing'. You dont have to be 100% on your answers, but simply being aware this is part of the interview process is a good idea.

They will tell you during the interview, (and during the course) that it is stressfull, and one of the most difficult and time consuming things you can undertake. DONT LET THIS PUT YOU OFF.

Despite this being a very over-used phrase when discussing the one month intensive course, I dont really think this is true.

If you manage your time effectively, tackle assignments early and prioritise your workloads....it really shouldnt be so difficult. Yes, there is work to complete at home most nights, but if you are well organised this isnt really a problem. The first week is quite hard as it introduces a lot of new things, but somewhere in the second week it all becomes much easier....and I have coasted my way through the last two weeks simply by tackling my assignments early.

This brings me to my next point. And Im sure this wont be popular in some quarters. Think long and hard about taking this course in another country! Some people on my course did struggle to manage their time, and the workload....and this made their experience stressful. More stressful than it needed to be in honesty, but imagine if you have just arrived in another country and have gone straight into this course. New environment, different food and culture perhaps......possibly even jetlag? This would surely make the course much much harder than it needs to be.

Yes, it may offer an advantage in that you can look for work in the city that you train, and there may already be a network to help you find a job, but it could make the course a much more stressful experience.

I would personally suggest think long and hard about wether this is going to suit you or not.

Now, I am sure most people considering this course really worries about their grammar knowledge. This course wont address this and make you 100% confident on all areas of grammar, but what they will try to do is highlight ways to approach grammar, and try to teach you some skills to help tackle and teach it. If you are a grammar novice, DO NOT BUY a book like Swann, which is often recommended. Far better to buy a book teaching you simple grammar from a learners point of view. Your course provider will probably recommend some titles.

I bought Swann, and found it useless. Worse than useless even. Learning Teaching by Scrivener is also highly and often recommended, but based on my experience it is useful, but not essential. You will get bombarded with a number of handouts and other material during the course, this is enough to learn from without worrying about buying lots of expensive books. Of course, if you can afford it.....go ahead...but dont feel you really really need them to complete the course.

Do brush up on one or two areas of grammar beforehand, and this can be done online. Daves is one of many sites that you can pick some ideas up from, but grammar is so extensive you wont be expected to know everything, so perhaps just learning the tenses would be a good idea.

It might also be a wise idea to look at phonemes and the IPA before you start the course. Being aware of some of the phonetic symbols will be an advantage and a headstart over some of the other trainees. You dont need an extensive knowledge of them, so dont spend weeks studying them, but having a little knowledge will help.

If you already have teaching experience, as I do, dont expect this to be valued, or often even discussed, during the course. By the same token, I would suggest you dont discuss it too much either. It can be an advantage, but not always. Having some experience meant I wasnt nervous before teaching, but I have picked up lots of bad habits that arent things they like to see on the course.

And of course, having teaching experience doesnt always mean you have experience of being in a class with 5 of your peers watching you, taking notes, and then evaluating you afterwards!

On the course itself, do listen to the tutors. Despite the comments I have read online, my tutors were actually really decent teachers. They are generally skilled and familiar with lesson plans and language points, so 99% of the time their input is worthwhile. I cant believe an experienced teacher couldnt learn something from this course, so be prepared to listen and learn from the tutors and your peers, who can be equally capable of helping you learn something.

Take on board what people suggest during your observed lesson feedback, and address weakeness in your next lesson, and note these as personal aims. Taking steps to address weaknesses and adopt new ideas is something they seem to really like.

Generally, keep everything in perspective, and enjoy the course as much as you can. I found it a lot of fun, and I have learned a lot, and picked up a lot of ideas that I will hope to include in my future classes.

I will add more to this thread as I can remember it! But I hope this is some help to anyone thinking about, or due to start a similar course.

[willraber]

On behalf of all us wannabes out here, thank you for your candid observations of your course. In addition to being able to accept change and criticism, as I was reading your post, I sensed that a positive attitude is also essential.

Will

[nickpellatt]

You may notice I havent posted my grade yet...I will get that tomorrow but I think I will get a B.

My teaching has been good, but my assignments not so good. B, C and C have been my grades.

Lots of students have failed to pass their assignments first time....but they have all been giving the chance to resubmit.....some of them have done that twice.

So as long as you do resubmit and complete the work.....I think it is very very hard to fail. Thats something else to bear in mind!

If anyone wants to ask any questions, please do so whilst the whole course and experience is fresh in my mind

[fluffyhamster]

Thanks for sharing Nick, I'm sure all the potential teachers out there will appreciate what you've written.

Just one question though: when you say 'Far better to buy a book teaching you simple grammar from a learners point of view. Your course provider will probably recommend some titles', do you yourself have any in mind? The reason I ask is that I'm one of the types who often recommends the likes of Swan ( ), and as far as I'm aware, so do most course providers (probably because he keeps learner needs and potential problems in mind, indeed isn't beyond the grasp of intermediate students themslves - see some of the reviews on Amazon - and provides a means by which teachers can go beyond the mimimum requirements of their initial training, if not during it then certainly after. (How did you get your language awareness up to sufficient speed for the interview let alone the course? Probably you are just intelligent and quick-thinking enough to wing it a bit, or have spent ages browsing through the more demanding threads here on Dave's or something!) Then, Swan co-wrote Learner English, which certainly seems a pretty useful book for teachers).

Perhaps you mean actual textbooks, or indeed simple elementary (and/or bilingual?) grammars, of the sort that one's potential students might soon be learning/being taught from, but textbooks sometimes (hell, often) make a bit of a pig's ear of explaining or illustrating grammar points (not all grammar can be simply expressed or glossed over - it can take many many, carefully-selected exemplars to make one point (in a series of "necessarily" connected and interlocking "points"))...or perhaps you aren't keen on grammar generally? (If so, well, neither am I, but it does provide another way/strand of organizing the lexicogrammar and the syllabus generally). Anyway, cheers and beers!

[nickpellatt]

Grammar isnt a strong point in fairness, and I did have to wing it in my interview. I hadnt consulted this forum or any other prior to the interview...so really wasnt expecting any language awareness questions. What I found (and this is my experience, maybe not the same for all course providers) is that they dont expect you to be able to answer every question. They want to see a logical measured approach to it, with a semi-sensible answer.

This holds true whilst on the course too I thought...after all, we all know students who have been studying tenses for 5 years, and they still make mistakes, so how can most of us learn all the tenses in 5 minutes.

The reason I dont recommed Swann, and I will be putting my copy on Ebay tomorrow, is that is didnt help me, with my minimal grammatical knowledge. For example. My language awareness assignment, was to explain 3rd conditionals for intermediate students, and advise on the difference between 2nd and 3rd conditionals. First stop...Swann....check the index and chapters...NOTHING directly related to either 2nd or 3rd conditionals. I didnt know what a 3rd conditional was. Swann didnt tell me.

Second example...I was teaching a lesson on past continuous...again, consult Swan....nothing. Or nothing usable for someone with minimal knowledge of grammatical terms. Its probably a great reference book when you know grammar...but to learn it....its (IN MY OPINION) actually worthless....I honest to god wouldnt recommend it for anything.

My girlfriend is Chinese and an lower intermediate to intermediate speaker....if I gave her Swann I doubt it would be effective...for someone new to grammar and teaching its worse!

I didnt buy any other book, so cant recommend an alternative.

My tense knowledge came from here http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses.htm

Simple diagrams showing use and construction for language learners....so anyone out there looking for help with basic tense construction....thats a decent link for you! I think if anyone about to start a course and who is nervous...its important to remember, you wont be expected to know everything.....so dont panic and look at everything, and end up learning nothing.

Use a link like the one posted, and get to know the tenses.....then look at the IPA...and this is possibly enough to put you on the right learning path...

[fluffyhamster]

I have the 2nd edition of Swan. Looking in the index, I didn't find first, second or third conditional, but there was 'conditional clauses and verbs (terminology) 141.1'. Turning to that section, there's 'Clauses constructed with if (except in reported speech) are often called "conditional clauses"'. This implies that the if part is important. After two examples, there is a cross refererence to sections 258-265 ('For details of the different kinds of structures with if, see ~ '). Section 258.2 more or less repeats what's in 141, but scanning down the page, I find at the bottom, beginning in section 258.6, something about the "three" sorts of conditionals:

[denise]

This is really helpful information. I'm feeling nostalgic now, missing those crazy days of my TEFL course...

I'm one of those people who recommend taking the course in the country or area you ultimately want to teach in, for the reasons you mentioned. I can see how it might be more stressful, given that in addition to a very intense and rigorous course you're also adapting to a new country, but I wonder how much of the "adaptation stress" is really people going out and partying and drinking every night. Now, I'm no homebody or prude, and I like a glass of wine or two as much as the next person, but during the TEFL course I restrained myself until probably week 3 or 4, while many of my classmates were going out and hitting the pubs from the beginning-all part of soaking up the local culture. Not that I'm saying that's always the case, but it does happen, and I can't imagine that having a hangover would make those teaching sessions any easier.

Just a thought.

d

[TEAM_PAPUA]

This appears to mirror my CELTA experience.

Do you think they get a share of the 'Swann' sales? I did my course 10 years ago, and they were forcing this grammar brick onto us back then.

I suggest going with Murphy - Essential Grammar if you are clueless about grammar.

[nickpellatt]

Fluffy Hamster

Ive copied and pasted one sentence from your reply..

"the third conditional, in which the verb in the main clause is `would have' or `should have' and the verb in the conditional clause is in the past perfect tense."

I am pretty sure that will make no sense to a novice. It uses 'main clause', 'conditional clause' and 'past perfect tense'. These grammatical terms are unlikely to be understood by a novice. Swann is the same, it assumes too much knowledge so is not very helpful to a learner. I know I may risk looking a total dunce in posting this, but learners of grammar...be it students of English or native speakers....need to be treated in the same way with a basic approach. Yeah its still going on ebay!

I use my son as my test case for such grammar things. He finished his GCSE exams this summer, and is now at college studying 4 A levels. He was head boy in his last year at school, and achieved the 2nd highest exam scores in his school (Including English).

I had him read your last reply, looking at the references points, and asked him to give me an example of a 3rd conditional sentence. He couldnt.



Denise...I also wonder if many of the people on my course still used the weekend for going shopping with friends and family, and still watched their favourite TV shows every night. There has been a number of people telling me they have been up until 5am working on assignments, and two people crying in class. Now I have done a lot of work.....but never like that, and I used my weekends to catch up on longer assignments.

As my posts show...I am certainly not an expert hehe, but I did generally work from 6-10pm on coursework for the first week and a half. Living with family meant I didnt have to worry overly about housework, washing and cooking. I was also able to complete my work in relative comfort.

If I had taken the course in China, where I was teaching.....it would have made my life much much harder as I wouldnt have had the support network or the comfort.....and being with other trainees would have been a distraction. I can see benefits to doing it 'in country', but if passing the course and actually learning as much as possible is more important then I think doing it in the most comfortable and familiar surroundings is the way to go.

Ill qualify that statement further.....I really wanted to take as much out of this course as possible...passing with a C and learning some skills I can use in the future....is more important to me than passing with an A havent learnt and retained, few skills.

Anyway....I am wandering off to the school now for my final day....and should get my grade later.....I had a 1-1 interview with the tutor yesterday who said he would employ me tomorrow, and he genuinely thanked me for my input....so that is a good sign...and really, as important as a grade is......to me anyway.

[Kootvela]

I second the sugegstion of buying Murphy's book because it's really much simpler in explaining things.

As far as terms for novices go, I can relate. Sometimes my Lithuanian students ask me to translate some trmes (like possessive adjective, nominal clause, etc) into Lithuanian and I stumble! I just don't know their corresponding names in Lithuanian so every time I go and bug a teacher of Lithuanian who knows bits of English and that is a mission almost impossible

Anyway, thanks for sharing the infor and cheer up. Even bad experience IS experience.

[spiral78]

A third plug for Murphy's. His simple explanations work in most teaching contexts, and are simpler for a new teacher to both take on board and to apply in the classroom.

[fluffyhamster]

Nick, surely the COBUILD there provides a painless way to learn/realize what a clause is (and I am pretty sure there is a glossary for those interested in a more direct definition, as there is in the Swan 2e's 'Language terminology' front section, not that Swan was direct and helpful enough to be as explicit about clauses in his general remarks on conditionals ) - is the indirect information that COBUILD's provided such an imposition or overload? (If so, the reader could simply try and ignore it, pass over it "as best they can"). The fact is, this sort of information could (hell, will likely) prove useful further on into a TEFL career (some might be surprised that it isn't a definite part of initial training!), and it's as much a blessing as curse to have it available in the one tome (it will save buying others); as for past perfect, this is as essential a term as past continuous/progressive and presumably one that you did not in fact object to having to learn on your course.

BTW, the fact that your son couldn't give you an example of the third conditional isn't really saying anything other than that prospective EFL teachers are the ones who need to learn and usually do learn something about conditionals (especially the "basic" three LOL).

Sorry if I seem to be getting on your case, as that is not my intention - rather, I'm just interested in the "pedagogy of pedagogy", what is the best way to produce and equip the "best" (most suitable?) teachers possible. I mean, hey, I'm not a completely rabid fan of Swan, and when I do seem to recommend him (in other threads) I pretty much always in the same breath suggest (try to suggest) "easier" books (including ones such as indeed the Murphys) or alternatives such as the COBUILD, because I appreciate that people may not have the time or interest to get fully up to "speed" and/or would appreciate something as you say more along the lines of what the average foreign student can more successfully manage (e.g. Murphy is basically exercises, with succinct explanations using the minimum of metalanguage for those who really "need" them). I recall that long, long ago, back in the mists of time and aeons before I'd decided to do a CTEFLA/CELTA, I was poking my nose in the likes of the Collins Gem English Grammar, and IIRC the title, LTP's Essential English Grammar (Edit: Actually, it was Blissett & Hallgarten's First English Grammar (but still from LTP)).

Undoubtedly, course providers could give much better advice regarding the suitability/possible unsuitability of the jumble usually of books that they recommend, but I would also argue that the choice would not become at all fraught if people were more prepared to invest in and become more familar with several as opposed to just one book (and then, they could buy say an "easier" and a "harder" one). Basically, any book of any value will ultimately start to make demands of the reader, if there is to be any learning, and I am not totally convinced that the Swan is such an appalling stretch (but again, I am no diehard fan and think for this "level"/more comprehensive sort of reference book, I now prefer e.g. Eastwood's Oxford Guide to English Grammar if not the COBUILD Grammar).
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=698107#698107

[nickpellatt]

LOL, I dont feel you are getting on my case....and my ego is such that I am happy to expose my lack of knowledge.

The point about my son is key though....as a bright student, and an intelligent person...he is unable to understand a grammatical concept via those sources. This applies to anyone who doesnt know grammatical terms....its no good explaining a term that is possibly new to someone, by talking about relative clauses and infinitives...as they may not understand those terms either.

Im far from the finished article as a teacher...but I had worked as a teacher in China for two years, and also worked in two different summer schools in the UK. I also have just completed half of an advanced diploma in applied linguistics with the Open University. I have taught a number of simple grammatical terms....but I have learned them as a learner would...with simple terms and examples from textbooks. My experiences as a teacher and an OU student...actually meant I am quite a bit ahead of some of my peers, as crazy as that may sound!!

I think for anyone to tackle learning, needs to start from the same point our students do. The link I posted was awesome for understanding tenses, why we use them, and how they are constructed. This is where learners and prospective teachers need to learn from. Naturally, we can use these and other grammatical terms easily in conversation or in writing...but we cant accurately identify form, function...and then convey it to our learners......I feel I need to learn it from the same tools they do.....I certainly do anyway...

Anyway...Im off out with all my coursemates tonight....going to sink a few well deserved beers.

[fluffyhamster]

Heh, glad to hear I've not upset ya, Nick! Y'know, I too am not averse to exposing my ignorance (and sometimes do, in the course of my wafflings)!

Hmm, it would've been an idea to give your son a few examples (I did signal that I'd omitted them thus: '(Swan then gives illustrative examples, including of structure(s))') - I mean, who'd disagree with what you've said ('I have taught a number of simple grammatical terms....but I have learned them as a learner would...with simple terms and examples from textbooks.'). FWIW, the examples that I omitted from that section (258.6) of the Swan were: If we play tennis, I'll win; If we played tennis, I would win; If we had played tennis, I would have won.

Keep us posted on the grade you get (I'm sure you'll pass! ).

[Madame J]

Yeah, you've certainly outlined my main reasons for taking the course in the UK. I think if I were plunged into a new exciting environment for my course, the temptation to spend all out of course hours exploring that part of the world would be too great.

However, I do have one worry with regards to not taking the course in the country in which I intend to teach, and that is the issue of making friends. I have a friend who took her CELTA in Madrid and subsequently remained there, and she has admitted that she doesn't know how she would have made friends without the social life provided by her coursemates. It must be quite hard to find other opportunities for gaining such a social network, I'd have thought.