Welcome to story 2 of the series where I tell about my English teaching experiences. Click the links below to check out my social media pages or to go to the first story in the blog series.
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First blog post: www.skgediting.net/seasidesammy/2020/9/28/english-teaching-story-1
Snowy winter grounds and no campers.
It was early 2014 and I was working at a summer camp as a groundskeeper. I found a TEFL course at a local university called “Richmond University”. It was an in person 100-hour TEFL course. It was to be over the course of 3 weekends and each weekend it was both Saturday and Sunday for 9 hours each day. Four hours straight, an hour lunch and then another four hours. It also included an online grammar exam that was worth 40 hours.
Both kids and adults love games.
The course included a lot of games and interactive activities the first day but then over the next few classes the course delved into lectures and PowerPoints. These ranged from teaching approaches to general English grammar topics and other ESL topics.
Lunch is a great way to get to know colleagues or fellow students.
I met another attendee who I met with for lunch one day at the Richmond cafeteria. He found out that I was going to book a hotel for the next weekend, but he said he lived in the area and I could stay with him and his wife, who was also in the course.
I was a little shocked as I had only known them for a week. When I showed up, the man was no where to be found and the woman was hungry. We decided to go out to Chilis for dinner, but once there we realized that I was valentine’s day. When we got separate checks, the waiter looked at me like I had punch 25 babies. The three of us laughed about it all night and still joke about it from time to time today.
The final weekend all the attendees had to perform a 30-minute demo lesson. I volunteered to go first, as I figured that I would be teaching first every day as a teacher, so I might as well get used to it. I was very worried and practiced my lesson many times alone. Sometimes on the couch and other times in front of a mirror. When I ran the lesson in the class, it went smoothly. Later in the summer, I passed the grammar test and had the 100-hour TEFL in my hands, ready to head abroad.
I saw many different people in the course, some young, some old. Some were going to the University of Richmond and others were local high school teachers looking to get another certificate. No matter who they were, the ones who had taught the most previously, performed the best when asked teaching questions or grammar questions. It would continue to be a trend as I went about my English teaching career. No matter their age, if they were a non-native speaker or 73 years old. The teacher with the most experience, always outshone the others.