Feel like
you’re ready to Take a giant leap into the Word of TEFL and find your first
proper Job and teach your first proper class? Well, I’ve got news for you…YOU
KNOW FUCK ALL!!
That CELTA
will be more useful to use if you used it to filter your coffee before your
first class. Fuck knows how the ramblings of a crazed CELTA trainer, who
probably last taught an actual class in the early 90’s, will help you.
And don’t
expect the school to train you either… no, they’ll force you to adopt some
crazed mish mash of teaching methods they scraped from Wikipedia, or the back
of leaflets distributed by other schools no doubt.
No, the
only sure fire way of delivering a good class and becoming a decent teacher is
through experience. Honest hard work and learning from your mistakes.
‘Hard work?’
‘Experience’ – all sounds a bit long winded doesn’t it? Well then relax because
I can heartily recommend the newest book by ETX – ‘Speaking Activities That Don’tSuck’ – which will shave years from the time it takes to progress from ‘shitty,
school hopping, TEFL teacher’ to ‘barely employable TEFL teacher’.
It’s a HUGE
book – 177 pages or so of advice and tips on how to teach – each facet of
information derived from hours of classroom toil and learning by doing – and yours
to take and freely integrate into your lessons.
Everything
is there – a breakdown of what a modern English class should look like through
to the most important bits, like private classes and sure fire ways to get
people to talk – that’s why students pay the money after all.
I think for
most, this book will be good toilet fodder (and I mean that in a good way,
scientists have proven time on the toilet is where we come up with our best
ideas) – Something to read progressively, every day, whilst trying to take what
you’ve just read and implement it into your next lesson.
I think the
true advantage of this book, or guide, is that fact that the situation is very
much presented ‘as is’, without all that hippy bollocks your teacher trainer
fed you. Plus it’s entertaining enough to keep you reading, not like the
horrible ‘How to teach English’ tomes you’ll find in a British Council library.
For ‘experienced’
Teflers, there is still something to be gained from reading ‘Speaking ActivitiesThat Don’t Suck’ – if only to absorb the different perspective of the everyday
situations we all endure as TEFL teachers – and perhaps to laugh, and cry at
comedic (yet sadly true) observations made by ETX through his book.
SUMMARY –
USEFUL, FUNNY, CHEAP
or buy for Kindle here
BTW, one extra addition, for students who already have some proficiency, you can try them on some old school grammar translation tasks. They can actually get people to 'THINK' more like a native. Worth checking out:
Grammarlings!
BTW, one extra addition, for students who already have some proficiency, you can try them on some old school grammar translation tasks. They can actually get people to 'THINK' more like a native. Worth checking out:
Grammarlings!
and don't forget it's also available at kindle:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B0066SM4IG
and of course, if you don't have a credit card or paypal and don't want to buy one, send me an email and we can probably work something out.
A good teacher should acquire a healthy experience of dealing with the students.And above all honest hard work and learning from your mistakes.
ReplyDeleteAn impressive useful post.I liked your post because this is the first one that was about other people instead.
ReplyDelete