Taking a Weekend TEFL Course
What to Expect
With a weekend TEFL course there is no better advice than ‘expect the unexpected’!
Perhaps I should start with what I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect to find myself puzzling over how to put 27 body parts on the floor at the same time, I didn’t expect to be running through the corridors trying to memorize perfectly a completely random sentence, and I certainly didn’t expect to find myself spurting out strange accents in front of a room full of people I’d met just hours before. I guess the point is that I didn’t expect to have fun... but I did.
Learning should be fun
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 can’t 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!
Grammar
It’s 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 isn’t 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 familiarise yourself with grammar before you go, you can.
Meeting new friends
It’s important to remember that this isn’t your average academic course. It’s safe to say that by Sunday night you’ll have worked with or at least spoken to every single person in your group. You’ll 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!
Your TEFL Tutor
In my experience weekend TEFL tutors tend to be the kind of people that you can’t help but like. They’re loud, enthusiastic and, most importantly, not afraid to make a fool of themselves. They’ll 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
Your first day of the TEFL course starts at 9am and ends at 8pm and that makes for one really long day! It’s an intensive experience and a steep learning curve, so by the time you leave on Saturday you’re likely to be completely knackered. Don’t make any big plans because you just won’t 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!).
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 I’d 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 isn’t just a case of knowing what to teach, it’s having the confidence to teach it, and by the end of the course you’ll be absolutely sure that you can teach a group of budding English speakers without a problem.
So to recap, you’ll 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 TEFL qualification that will see you on your way to travelling all over the world! Get in!
