How much can you pack into a weekend TEFL Course? Perhaps I should start with what I didnt expect. I didnt expect to find myself puzzling over how to put 27 body parts on the floor at the same time, I didnt expect to be running through the corridors trying to memorize perfectly a completely random sentence, and I certainly didnt expect to find myself spurting out strange accents in front of a room full of people Id met just hours before. I guess the point is that I didnt expect to have fun… but I did. Learning should be fun
Your first day of the TEFL course starts at 9am and ends at 8pm and that makes for one really long day! Its an intensive experience and a steep learning curve, so by the time you leave on Saturday you re likely to be completely knackered. Dont make any big plans because you just wont be up for it, and if at all possible avoid the Friday night drinking fest (believe me you will regret it at 9am the next day when your tutor starts speaking to you in Japanese!).
If you re expecting teaching English abroad to be anything like those long dreary lesson you sat through at school then you re in for a big surprise! The main emphasis of a weekend TEFL course is to teach you ways to make lessons fun (for your student, but also for yourself). Sure, you ll learn all about teaching methods and the English language, but all this is taught using fun based teaching techniques that get you thinking without boring you silly.
A lot of you sceptics will be shaking your head right now and muttering that learning cant be fun but I think you ll be proved wrong. I challenge you not to laugh when your tutor pretends he s a pre intermediate student with full Borat accent and an intriguing inability to get anything right!
Its surprising just how little we native speakers know about the English language. For us speaking English is instinctive you might well use the past continuous tense a hundred times a day but you ve probably never needed to know that they have a name, let alone what it is!
During your weekend course grammar comes up again and again but it isnt bogged down with it. A lot of the time you re learning about it without even realising it and you re encouraged to teach your students in the same way.
You ll head home after the course with an extensive TEFL book that covers everything you ve been taught and a little more, so if you want to familiarize yourself with grammar before you go, you can.
It important to remember that this isnt your average academic course. Its safe to say that by Sunday night you ll have worked with or at least spoken to every single person in your group. Youll be working together, learning from one another and generally getting to know each other as you work through the playful learning tasks set by your TEFL tutor.
Remember, the people on your course are probably as passionate about travel as you are, so you ll be in the perfect position to exchange ideas, share your travel experiences and generally get excited about your travel plans!
I discovered on Sunday that most of my group had collapsed into bed by 10 o clock the night before, and I must admit I was asleep long before that (mind you Id foolishly gone out the night before). It might well be exhausting but by the time you get round to your second teaching practice on Sunday night you ll be amazed at just how much everyone has improved. This isnt just a case of knowing what to teach, its having the confidence to teach it, and by the end of the course youll be absolutely sure that you can teach a group of budding English speakers without a problem.
In my experience weekend TEFL tutors tend to be the kind of people that you cant help but like. Theyre loud, enthusiastic and, most importantly, not afraid to make a fool of themselves. Theyll be the ones making you laugh at 7.30 on a Saturday night when you ve been working hard since 9am and brightening things up with a game when everyone seems to be lagging. Exhausting but rewarding.
So to recap, youll play games, make new friends, suffer from side splitting laughter, build your confidence, learn heaps of new skills and come away with an internationally recognised online TEFL course that will see you on your way to travelling all over the world! Get in!
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