I did my TEFL course with TEFL Training in 2001, it comprised of a distance learning course and a weekend workshop which I did in Southampton. Shortly after completing the course I moved to Japan with my Japanese girlfriend and after 3 months of looking I got a job with an English language school called Nichibei. They were a pretty shifty outfit but for a first time job it was OK and I was able to cut my teeth as an English teacher.

Tom Brown

After one year I decided to apply for a job at the British Council in Osaka. I’d heard they paid well and that it was one of the best places to teach. Normally they require a minimum of 5 years teaching experience but I thought there would be no harm in trying anyway. I spoke to the head teacher and managed to arrange an interview. Much to my surprise I was offered a job on a part time contact. I think it was a bit of a fluke, but I ended up staying there for a year, punching above my weight and receiving lots of high quality on-the-job training. During this year I learnt many things that really raised my game as an English teacher.

After one year the student numbers began to drop off at the British Council due to a slight recession, so I got a job with OTC Inc Osaka. OTC employs teachers and sends them out to different clients. Usually you teach at a school in the day time and at a business in the evening. They are a well run organization who treat their staff very well. I gained lots of experience at OTC. I taught at  junior and senior high schools, about 20 different companies including some famous names like Nintendo (at their head quarters in Kyoto) and I even taught PhD students at the prestigious Kyoto University. The only down side with this company was the amount of time spent travelling between classes. The travel expenses were paid for, but my time wasn’t.

With all this experience on my resume I found that prospective employers were often keen to interview me when I sent them my CV but maybe more so in Asia than in the UK.

I decided to come back to the UK to do a degree in International Finance and Capital Market Studies at Brighton University. My experiences teaching in Japan had enabled me to have a lot of fun, boost my confidence and set my sights on higher goals for the future. On returning to Brighton I was surprised to get a TEFL job with EC that paid 15 pounds an hour. I had never imagined myself earning so much in the UK. The summer after I got another job with a school in Brighton on a similar wage and the summer after that I got a job with GEOS in Bangkok, Thailand.

Now I have graduated, I plan to study Japanese for 1 or 2 years to get it up to advanced level and then go for a job in finance.

I think the TESOL certificate I did with TEFL Training was very helpful in landing certain jobs, especially with the British Council and the schools in the UK who more or less demand one. Pound for pound it is probably one of the best investments I ever made.

After 9 years of TEFLing I’ve come to realize how lucky I am to be a native English speaker. It’s a passport to working and living in almost any country you choose and earning a good (local) wage. The TESOL certificate helps you to utilize this innate advantage and acquire numerous skills and experiences that can be very helpful in any other career you decide to embark on in the future.

Being a good English teacher requires many skills in different areas and being deficient in one area isn’t the end of the world. In Japan I bought an electric dictionary which, used sparingly, can be a great help in lessons.

I would recommend anyone to do this course and have a go at TEFL teaching. It’s lots of fun and as Del Boy would say: “The world is your lobster!”

Tom Brown

Many kinds of lessons fall under the remit of the TEFL teacher and you may not know which skills are really required of you until you start a particular job. That’s why I want to tell you a bit about my work as a freelancer in London encountering all kinds of students and assignments and in this blog I give you an insight into teaching children and adolescents in one to one lessons.

Now I’ve done all sorts in the industry over the last 12 years or so – teaching, managing a school, writing – but these days I divide my working hours between my one to one English lessons, tutoring teachers studying TEFL Training distance programmes and lecturing on weekend TEFL courses.

I am based in London, a great place to live and work in. It is never dull and with one of the most cosmopolitan populations in the world, it is an ideal place to hone your skills with non-native speakers of English from around the globe. Just hop on the 188 bus from Deptford to Russell Square and you’ll hear more languages spoken on one journey than some countryside dwellers hear in a lifetime.

Recently I’ve been working with two such London residents. Jorge and Matilda aged ten and thirteen respectively. They are from Barcelona and the entire family has relocated because of Dad’s job. Fortunately for them (and me of course), his company is paying for the family to have one to one English support. This isn’t the first time they have lived in an English speaking country so they are at about upper-intermediate level which leads to an interesting challenge. How do you plan an EFL lesson for school age kids whose biggest problem is getting through the school curriculum? The answer? You don’t! This is one of those rare cases when detailed planning goes out the window.

Here’s how you do it. You concentrate on 3 things:

• Encouragement
• Correcting errors
• Highlighting rules and patterns

For example, Matilda needs to talk about the American civil war for a test the following day. As she speaks I show interest, noting down the main errors (without interrupting of course) but helping when she struggles to find the right vocabulary. When a natural pause occurs I take the opportunity to set a few selected errors straight. So Matilda is asked to correct herself when shown her poorer sentences and explain any rules involved. Then I get her to rehash the same information using the newly corrected phrases. By the way, repeating and rephrasing does wonders for your students’ accuracy and fluency too. Try it and see. Here’s an example:

Me: Look at this sentence, Matilda. You said: The general told to him that they will never surrender. Can you find the two little errors?

Together we recall two rules –

1. Tell + someone + something without the preposition “to”.
2. In reported speech “will” becomes “would”.

Me:   Now, tell me about that general again. What did he say?

Matilda: Mmm he said…or he told the politician, that he would never surrender.

Me: That’s much better! Has anyone you know refused to do something recently?

Matilda: Umm yes! My little brother told my mum that he wouldn’t go shopping. She was really angry……..

Lessons like these really call for relationship building. Your students should always feel that you’re on their side and there to help. So smile loads and keep a mild tone of voice along with a sense of humour.

You know, one to one lessons are often like counselling sessions. You spend more time listening than anything else and you help the student express the things he needs to say instead of what a syllabus dictates. This means that, unlike group work, the lesson content is entirely personal. If you want to do some reading on the language teacher in a counselling role take a look at some interesting and unusual TEFL methodology called Community Language Learning .

Anyway I’ll be telling you a bit more about one to one lessons soon but meanwhile, for some handy pointers read Chapter 19 of “Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies” by Maxom (Wiley 2009). Chapter 20 tells you all about teaching younger learners too.

Best wishes,

Michelle

Michelle Maxom,  EFL teacher and writer

Teacher trainer, TEFL Training LLP

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