Achieving A TEFL

I feel I have gained skills in several areas of this course. I have been a teacher of english for two years, and have had experience both teaching large groups, and one to one lessons. However I felt I had very little grounding in english grammar, technical terms and lesson planning. I feel the course has been very helpful in improving these areas of my teaching. I feel more comfortable with grammatical terms, and more able to teach students about tenses and parts of speech particularly. I also found the lesson planning aspects of the course very helpful, both in providing a structure for my lesson plans and in encouraging me to think clearly about the lesson’s aims and objectives. I have already been able to put this aspect of the course into practice, and feel my lessons have improved in structure and organization. I also found some of the tips on activities, and places to find activities very helpful when planning lessons. The same is true of the several internet resources that were mentioned. I found the information on course evaluation and student involvement in the content of the course very interesting. I have never really implemented a system of course / learning self-evaluation. When I begin a new course, I have decided to include short evaluation sessions throughout the course, where students can give feedback about the course and think objectively about what they have learned. Whilst completing this course I have been teaching a class of young, but advanced learners, and have found the tips on classroom management and discipline to be invaluable. We have implemented a system of rewards for good behavior and work, and in a situation where two students were not getting along, physically separating them and putting them with different partners, and then talking to their home room teacher, worked very well. Overall I have found the course very helpful. I believe the technical and organizational aspects of my teaching have improved, as has my lesson planning and content. Studying the course whilst simultaneously teaching a class has helped me understand the information in the units more deeply. It has also given me the opportunity to put the new skills and information into practice, and try out some of the suggested activities. I feel my teaching has improved noticeably in the last six months, and I certainly feel more comfortable and professional in the classroom.