As a TEFL International student nearing completion of the TEOL Intensive Course, I am reflecting on my achievements and contemplating on what opportunities now lie ahead. One prime reason for wanting to obtain a TESOL Certificate was to gain more scope of career choices, which as a recent Marketing graduate I feel I have certainly achieved. However, I profoundly underestimated the many other ways in which I stood to profit from the course.

I have been particularly blown away by the immense sense of freedom gained knowing that in most parts of the world it is possible for me to build a career. Being spoilt for choice about teaching destinations has reminded me just how unpredictable and exciting life's path can be!

Admittedly, I did not find all aspects of the TESOL course as thrilling. It was incredibly frustrating to be in a beautiful, foreign country in a classroom for the majority of the time. Although I had been forewarned about this aspect by a friend and former TEFL student I was not prepared for just how intense the day would be, especially having to lesson plan after input sessions.

I was impressed with how well the input sessions were delivered, especially for the grammar input which allowed a lot of time for revision. I had always been put off the idea of learning English grammar; however I was still curious about it since my international friends knew more than I did about it. I did not quite realise just how rewarding it would be or the appreciation I would gain of the English language as a result.

Initially, I did not see much point in learning phonology in such detail, however after experiencing problems first-hand with teaching Thai students how to pronounce certain sounds like 'r' sounds I see how helpful it will be for pronunciation work.

I am also grateful for being forced to learn the teaching skills through teaching practice as opposed to pure study. The ESA teaching method really promoted the notion that the Teaching Talking Time (TTT) should not exceed the Student Talking Time (STT). This made the teaching experience far less intimidating as it demonstrated to me that the students do most of the work. In practice I found keeping the TTT minimal tougher than expected, particularly when students could not elicit the target language. However, I realised that a good solution is to mime actions, which I likened to a game of Charades. This reminded me that teaching is fun and not daunting, which is how I felt very much to begin with.

The most frustrating yet challenging task for me was formulating lesson plans as it required me to work on my time management, which I have struggled with prior to the TEFL course. It also brought out my creativity in terms of creating worksheets and activities. Creating activate activities at first worried me since it had to ensure that students received the maximum STT and so to begin with I used mill drills and surveys. However after lesson input sessions on teaching ideas I saw how fun it is to create something you see come alive to help students interact, and so it soon became the easiest part of the lesson plan.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing my Student Profile as it gave me the chance to apply the ESA methodology in a one-to-one situation which I was eager to do as I intend to teach private tuition lessons. It also gave me the chance to build good, immediate rapport with my student and as a result I could closely identify her learning needs and work better to tackle them. It was also great experience learning how to devise a placement test for the student. In addition, I found the lessons to be far more enjoyable as they were not being so closely monitored by a trainer and the lesson was not so rigid, although I still ensured that I kept to good timekeeping.

In respect to the lessons, I do feel that classroom management is something that does not come to me as naturally as teaching individuals, which I have done in the past in the form of training and also teaching English to friends. Classroom management is something that I can continually improve on and I appreciate that this is not something that you can pick up in 4 weeks, so I am not put off teaching classes/groups. However, since I have not had a lot of experience with lesson planning I would probably benefit from building experience in one-to-one teaching before going into classroom teaching, to build my confidence with lesson plans. Since I am returning to England after completing the course, it would be ideal to teach private tuition lessons as part-time work.

I am amazed at how much I have managed to learn in such a short space of time and I am certain that the TESOL qualification stands me in good stead for the future.

Christine