Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Teaching Practice Feedback

Teaching practice is the most important component of the TEFL course. You prepare each of your lessons with the help and guidance of a trainer, who then observes you as you teach the lesson. After each lesson, you discuss it together with the trainer, and receive detailed written feedback. Here's an example of the kind of feedback you can expect.

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Teaching Practice Feedback
[Click to enlarge]
Teaching Practice Feedback

Teaching Practice Feedback


Teaching Practice Feedback






Friday, May 23, 2014

July interviews in London

Interviews in London this summer will be held as usual at the St Giles Hotel.

We're currently scheduling interviews for 22 - 23 July, so anyone intending to apply for jobs starting in September please ensure we receive your application by the end of June. Applications should be emailed to jobs@anglo-hellenic.com

See the Anglo-Hellenic website for details of the required qualifications.


Anyone taking the TEFL course with us in Corinth this summer will have first priority for job placements.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

New TEFL course timetable

Our brand new TEFL course timetable is designed to maximise your hands-on classroom experience, while giving you just enough theory to provide a sound basis for your practice. We've just finished piloting the new timetable, and we're looking forward to working with the updated course this summer.



The course has a very strong practical focus on learning how to select appropriate materials for learners of different ages and language levels. As most lessons are based on course books, we work extensively with these, just as you will do when you start your first teaching job after the course.



You will also learn how to work creatively with published materials, adapting and supplementing them to make them more interesting for your learners, and how to create activities using authentic materials.









We work extensively with all kinds of electronic resources, including software for the interactive whiteboard, ELT websites and authentic online resources.












Teaching with technology is no longer a special focus - it's part of everything we do.









The gamification of learning doesn't have to take an electronic form. Our trainees learn through practical experience how to use all kinds of games to make it fun to learn pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.









A game of pictionary used in place of a vocabulary test is not only more enjoyable but also more memorable.






As well as several sessions on ways of teaching grammar creatively, our new timetable also includes a whole morning on teaching vocabulary, and another whole morning on teaching pronunciation.




Teaching speaking is a particular focus of the course as for most learners this is the most essential of the four skills, but the one most often overlooked in the classroom. We also combine this with  a lot of work on listening - although most listening activities in the classroom use recordings, most real-world listening takes place when learners participate in conversation.







In all of our work on language skills, we work together on practical tasks so that by the end of the course you have acquired a clear insight into what works and why.



 



Download the new timetable here.

Monday, May 19, 2014

TEFL course student discount



TEFL Greece is offering a ten percent discount off the TEFL course fee to all holders of a student identity card. The discount entitles you to a reduced fee of 1165 euro instead of the regular fee of 1295 euro.

The discount must be claimed at the time of enrolling and cannot be combined with any other offer.

The fee includes:
  •     Meeting at Corinth station and transportation to accommodation
  •     Welcome lunch
  •     TEFL Course fee (tuition, all course materials, unlimited use of all training centre facilities,   TEFL course moderation fee, certification)
  •     Graduation ceremony and party

Friday, May 16, 2014

Evaluating and Adapting Coursebooks

“The trouble with a book is that you never know what’s in it until it’s too late.”

Jeanette Winterson – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? page 33











Peter Beech - info@tefl.gr

Friday, May 9, 2014

Comics in ELT

Pictures are a great basis for stimulating discussion, which is why they're so widely used in speaking exams. Comic strips can be equally effective as prompts for speaking activities, and can also be used to integrate reading and writing activities.


In a cartoon with a single panel, delete the text from the speech bubble and get students in teams to create their own.  This can be done purely as a speaking activity, or extended into a short writing activity. Once each group has made their own version of the cartoon, you can give them the original to compare.


For an activity that includes some reading, use a strip cartoon with several panels. Delete the text from the last panel and get students in teams to decide what it should say.

Of course you'll need to choose cartoons that are appropriate for the age and language level of your students. The theme of "good news and bad news", commonly used in jokes, provides a useful framework.


Or to provide more support for the students, rather than deleting all the text in the last panel, just delete part of it. Or delete any key words you choose from any panel in the strip.


In this example, the language is pretty simple, and as long as the students are able to understand the text, they'll easily be able to come up with some ideas to complete the final sentence.


A comic strip like this can also be used to make an ordering activity, which is an excellent way to get students to notice coherence and cohesion in a text. Using a comic strip adds visual support and makes the activity more fun. Cut up the strip and mix up the panels so students have to put them in the right order. This simple example uses a cartoon strip with just three panels, but of course you can also use this activity with much longer comics.


This same type of comic can also be used to make a matching activity. Delete the text from the speech balloons and have students match where each text goes.



Instead of searching for suitable cartoons, make your own cartoons for students to work with, or get students to create them. Like all of the activities suggested here, this can be done either on paper or in electronic format.


A lengthy comic strip can form the basis of a substantial reading comprehension activity. Or if you provide the visuals and get students to provide the words, this can also work as a collaborative writing task.

There are several great tools available for making comics online. For a good balance of functionality and simplicity, our top recommendation is: 
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/index.html

See the complete TEFL Greece collection of links to useful sites for finding and editing pictures and creating cartoons at http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/pictures2

Acknowledgement

The inspiration for this article came from Michael Robbs' presentation at the 2014 TESOL Greece convention.

Peter Beech - info@tefl.gr