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Ruth Moody |
Ruth Moody currently teaches at Educacentre in Saint Petersburg. With an honours degree in English and a top cTEFL pass, her ambition is to work towards becoming a teacher trainer. |
| Choosing the right training centre can be as important as choosing the right TEFL certificate. Fresh from Granada in southern Spain, Ruth Moody shares her impressions of Via Lingua's gruelling four-week CTEFL course. | ||
Via Lingua CTEFL, Granada, Spain
Is a TEFL certificate really necessary to teach English abroad? Doesn't experience count for much more than being able to recite
teaching methods backwards, forwards, and standing on your head?
If you have no classroom experience, getting a teaching certificate before launching yourself into EFL is a very worthwhile exercise.
A good training course will ensure that you know your grammar, can plan a lesson which flows logically and
effortlessly, and it will teach you how to correct errors in the way that most suits your
students. Surely that's worth the hard slog of 120 hours of input sessions, 10 academic
hours of assessed teaching practice and long, twelve hour days?
I completed my TEFL certificate with Via Lingua in Granada, in the Andalucia region of southern Spain.
Though I went into the course nervous and stuttering with no idea how to plan a 45 minute lesson, I came out
feeling, if not a perfect teacher, at least much more confident and with
absolutely no nerves before a class.
The first couple of days seemed easy enough – input sessions which ran
through why people choose to learn English, different methods and styles of
teaching, how to plan a lesson, and a couple of lessons spent observing
experienced teachers. The observed lessons had to be written up and analysed. Then the third
day hit. 'Teaching? Us?' we protested. 'But we barely know how to plan a lesson, let
alone how to explain question forms to Pre-Intermediates…'
We were thrown into a whirlpool of nerves and uncertainty after a heavy day of
input sessions, as we were faced with eight eager adults per class. All of us
spent at least three hours on our planning, trying to get everything perfect,
running through ideas with the tutors on the course, and experiencing how a
Google image search can provide ideal teaching materials to keep a range of ages interested for 45 minutes.
Seven more lessons followed, spread over the three remaining weeks. The order of the day was to aim for a mark as close to
6, (Exemplary) as possible.
The grammar classes appeared in the third week. For anyone brought up and educated in
the British state school system, even the very word 'grammar' can send a shock through the heart that would petrify ten strong men.
Very few people in Britain, unless they have studied languages such as Latin or
Greek, or delved into linguistics, can tell their present perfect continuous from their non-separable phrasal verbs.
The CTEFL course ran through everything methodically, somehow even managing to make it fun. Soon, even the
most stubborn of grammar-haters in the class was wandering round Granada analysing shop signs, instruction manuals and anything else which
was ripe for being torn apart by a group of tense-saturated trainee TEFL teachers.
For me, perhaps the most interesting part of the course was the once-weekly hour of unknown language training.
Both the Via Lingua CTEFL and the Trinity TESOL courses feature this element, but the Cambridge CELTA course sadly does not.
Russian was the unknown language in this case, and we were immersed in it completely. Tim, our
tutor, used no English at all throughout the three sessions, and it was
this experience which inspired me to come to St. Petersburg to teach English and
learn Russian.
It was extremely useful to experience the range of emotions which beginner students in our own immersion English classes
must also feel, from fear through to absolute euphoria at finally being able to
say, 'Hello, my name is Ruth. I'm from England, and I'm a teacher', amongst other delights.
That empathy and respect, which some trainees did not fully understand before coming on the course, is perhaps one of the most useful and
valued skills of a teacher. It seems to be something that all the best teachers
understand and use as fully as possible, and it is something that can and should be learnt
and practised.
The marking on the CTEFL course is strict, and leaves no room for slacking.
There is a 70% pass mark on the language awareness, grammar and error correction test,
which has to be gained in order to pass the overall course. A mark of 4
(competent) must be attained on the teaching practice part of the course, and that's just to get a straight pass.
To get a Merit pass is rare, but possible (two out of ten trainees on our course passed with Merit), while to get a
distinction is almost impossible. But hey, it's something to aim for!
Granada is the ideal place to get a TEFL certificate. It's cheap to live in,
exotic in parts, (the city has a huge Moroccan influence visible in the Albaycin
part of the town with its winding streets and stalls selling everything from
leather goods to slippers and tea), and varied. The nightlife doesn't stop
at dawn, there's something to suit everyone, and the atmosphere is free of the spoilt,
touristy feel of the Spain's southern coastal areas.
Oh yes, it's also got one of the seven wonders of the world – the Alhambra Palace. It takes at least a day
to see it all; it's the size of a small town. The training was second to none, and
the support through the difficult times invaluable. The certificate
itself is widely accepted around the world, from the rural parts of Italy demanding an
'internationally recognised TEFL certificate', to the best schools in St.
Petersburg which usually only take on teachers already living in the city. Worth
it? You bet.
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