Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

[scruffysa]

FH my love for you is only exceeded by my love of my girlfriend, my mother, my family and friends, her family, Colombia, Spanish, Marmite, Jaffa cakes, the tv channel Dave, dvd's of House, The Shawshank Redemption and Liverpool FC.... and would appreciate you looking into the TESOL plus course if you can...

I am only looking at being taught the basics of Teaching, lesson planning, ideas on how to teach, what to teach etc....
This, coupled with reading a few good books, will hopefully stand me in relatively good stead to be able to sit down with one, two, but no more than five, people at a time and guide them through the fundamentals of the English Language.

If I can't face, or impart knowledge upon, these few students, then I might as well give in and forget being a private tutor, and personally I can't see why having had some practice at teaching on a Celta course beforehand will enable me to be better at it....
Also I will be observing, and more than likely helping, the private tutoring that my girlfriend and her aunt undertake in Colombia...I'm sure they'll soon tell me where I'm going wrong...

[scruffysa]

Oooh FH, one more quicky....

Am a little confused between Adv Learners Dictionaries and COBUILD...could you clarify the difference?

*Noob question alert*

[fluffyhamster]

Damn, and there I was about to log off and watch a DVD...

But nah, I was actually just Googling 'InternationalTESOL Plus online course' and just wanted to check that the following was the provider you were looking at (it was the fourth non-ad link down in the resulting hits):
http://www.intesolinternational.com/cert-ES-TESOL.shtml

I'll post this question quick then immediately follow with a reply about the ALDs.

[scruffysa]

That's the kiddie!

Only the plus version....

Mate, don't miss out on a dvd because of me...plenty of time to go before I finally leave for Colombia....

[fluffyhamster]

COBUILD ("Collins Birmingham University International Language Database") was a collaborative project set up in the mid 1980s between the publisher HarperCollins and Birmingham uni, with the main initial aim of producing a truly authentic, empirical, corpus-based dictionary of modern English. The first edition of the COBUILD dictionary (which is an advanced learner dictionary, by the way) was released in 1987 to great acclaim - its fully-authentic "unedited" examples, the clear and consistent style used for writing its definitions, and its explicit grammar information were all especially noteworthy features - and it formed the basis for a whole range of then mainly grammar (or rather, lexicogrammar) publications, most notably the COBUILD English Grammar (1990) and the apparently more or less penultimate Grammar Patterns in two volumes (1996 and 1998).

So COBUILD helped improve ALDs (which had previously been the preserve of Oxford until Longman joined the fray with its LDoCE1 in 1978, which was innovatve in that it established and used a strictly limited and reasonably consistent defining vocabulary), but with the advent of the BNC (British National Corpus) in 1995, funded partly by Oxford and Longman, these other publishers released new fully corpus-informed editions of their ALDs and the differences between the COBUILD and them became less obvious (although it wasn't until the 6th edition of the OALD that Oxford finally sorted entries completely by frequency and usefulness than according to quasi-historical principles more akin to those found in the OED!). Nowadays one could confidently buy and be reasonably happy with any one of the ALDs from Oxford, Longman, Macmillan and maybe Cambridge (as for COBUILD though see the next paragraph).

Anyway, that thread I posted a link to back on page 1 provides a reasonable overview of the best ALDs (their individual features etc) now available. It seems as if COBUILD started to tinker, cut, chop and change a bit too much for the worse after the third edition (2001?), so I wouldn't want to recommend buying the later/latest editions of the COBUILD, though their bilingualized (i.e. fully translated e.g. E-E-Japanese) edition might be tempting. It's worth looking on antimoon.com for the latest word on the COBUILD and other ALDs - there was a comparative review there not that long ago of most of 'em.

[fluffyhamster]

Taking a lok at the Cert TESOL > Cert TESOL Plus ( http://www.intesolinternational.com/cert-ES-TESOL.shtml > http://www.intesolinternational.com/cert-ES-TESOL_business_teyl.shtml ) pages now...might leave posting any impressions until tomorrow though, cos it's getting a bit late (and if you're not off to Colombia for a while)...

'Night, then!

[caffe]

Trying to find prices for location TEFLIntl course on their site and have found nothing.

[coledavis]

Scruffysa said:
".. do you think this [an on-site course] is an adequate substitute for 4 to 5 years training? To me, 4 weeks intensive training won't give you anywhere near the appropiate time of training, and, moreover, won't be able to give you experience in how to deal with problem students and such other diversions you would find in a classroom...."

I've heard this logic before and I still can't get it: TEFL training is a lot less than teacher training and the implication is that it would be better to have no training at all. Actually, CELTA (I can't speak for other TEFL courses) does try hard to deal with these issues and other classroom 'diversions'. You observe experienced teachers at work as well as getting experience teaching your own classes.

To be fair, I did forget that your primary motivation is to provide individual tuition, so some of the classroom work will be of limited use to you. BUT you do get to use techniques which will be of use, including eliciting, drilling, grading your language and the creation and selection of materials. This part is truly useful, whatever you're going to do in TEFL.


Scruffysa said
"Appreciated, I would like to ask you, what the differences are between a residential course of 4 weeks and an online course of 180 hours?

Is it only that the residential course will give you experience of teaching real students? How many hours would that be of the course too, say 20 hours?"

Answering paragraph 1: One gives largely practical experience, the other doesn't. The hours are not equivalent; the 180 hours are spent alone, not in interaction with students and observing experienced teachers at work.

Answering paragraph 2: "Only!" Actual teaching experience is important, not just to employers but for your own development of skills (hence the employers' interest). It will be probably be less than 20 hours, possibly only 6 or 8, but you will have prepared and built up for them. Please try not to do this accounting trick of counting the 180 hours of the online course as an equivalent to the hours you put in to an onsite course. If you want to do the accounting, consider the point that if one investment, although cheaper, does not provide decent results, then it is wasted, whereas a more expensive course which teaches you something is not.

Scruffysa said:
"If, in the future, I wish to work in a classroom where I need a certain qualification, I will go and acquire that qualification...."
Maybe. Your commitment to teaching students is not touching. You seem to consider decent training as something to be forced upon you (by the economic gatekeepers). Ok, I hope I'm wrong and that you glean enough understanding from the means you intend to adopt to provide some reasonable teaching. Regrettably, without proper training, you won't know. You are unlikely to gain the insights that live tuition would give you.

[coledavis]

[Sashadroogie]

Have to concur with Coledavis here. Whether students are in a group or individuals they still need a teacher who knows what he is doing. Online courses do not provide any level of training. At all. It is all very well for posters to knock CELTA or other real courses, (though they do so after having completed them), but to advise newbies that some basic knowledge of grammar or having a dictionary etc. is all that is needed - this is not helpful really. Would that things were so simple, because my life would not be filled with so many problem teachers and trainee teachers who simply cannot put basic methodology into use, and hence cannot effectively teach anyone.

[nickpellatt]

Fluffy is right. I did an online course with i-i many moons ago, then about 18 months later I did a Trinity, and after that I finished my BA with a 9 month module with the OU called 'English Grammar in Use'. Im still not an expert, or even great at grammar and my job ... but I am willing to put in the hours and money to train and learn.

The online courses seldom take anything like the hours they list on the websites. Based on my experience, they take between 30-50% of the time listed to complete.

They dont compare to onsite courses IMO, because as mentioned, getting to see people operate in the classroom is invaluable. Its not just about the observed teaching (although that is still important).

On my course, I also observed 4 hours of EFL lessons, on a variety of topics and skills, with teachers in a British Council school. That was informative for sure...being able to observe professionals is invaluable.

I also suffered 4 hours of classes being taught a foreign language by a qualified teacher of said language. This was 4 hours not to actually learn the language, but 4 hours to watch how it is taught from the perspective of a learner. Again, pretty valuable.

I already mentioned the observed teaching practice right? I was observed in 10 lessons BTW.

Finally...many of the input sessions or classes on the course, were kinda delivered in pretty much the same way an EFL lesson is delivered. We were often treated in the same way as EFL students, and put into pairs, groups, did mingle activities, and were ICQ's and CCQ'd for each task in the same way we told to work with our students.

We werent just told 'this is IPA, watch a DVD and powerpoint presentation'. Half the class were given questions written in connected speech using IPA, and half the class were given answers...we had to translate our question and find the person who had our answer. Simple things really, but we learnt by doing, and in doing so, often saw how we could use these activities ourselves in a classroom.

Even a conservative estimate at just two hours a day of that, means that over 4 weeks, I watched and participated in 40 hours of classroom management and techniques that I could copy and use myself later PLUS observered teaching practice, lesson observations, 1-1 lessons and student evaluation interviews and finally, learning a new language myself.

Compared to an online course...which offers none of the above, and could be completed in half the stated time, with many of the answers being multiple choice etc...its just really doesnt compare!

[fluffyhamster]

I've had a hopefully not-too-cursory look at INTESOL now, Mark, but before I write about that I'll just reply quickly to a few of the comments that have been posted since I was last on here.

I agree with Coledavis that the "demand" or not for the INTESOL (which does have an add-on TP option - see below) in job ads, as opposed to other certs (CELTA, Trinity etc), ought to be suggestive, and when those ads state 'CELTA or equivalent', establishing any actual equivalency may in reality be more than most employers are willing to do - it's easier to stick with the devil(s) they know!