The TEFL Course

So I'm finally in an area where I have some legitimate access to the internet for the first time since coming to Europe (that would be Noel's place in Magdeburg) so I'd thought I'd add an entry into my blog considering how much of a piss poor job I've done of keeping you people updated on my comings and goings. Hell, even my family barely know what I have been doing.

I finally finished the TEFL course back on November 7th. For those of you who have no idea what TEFL is, or are perhaps too lazy to, um, scroll down to previous posts, TEFL is a month-long intensive training course that I took in order to become an English teacher and stay in Europe past 90 days.

This course was probably one of the most intense things I've done since college, and frankly, I'm glad it's over. From the first day of class to the end was wall to wall work, work, and more work. One the very first day, we were shown an example of what a lesson plan normally looked like, whati t contained, etc. Our instructors then proceeded to tell us that we would be creating a lesson plan at the end of the day and teaching our first classes the following day. Here we were, barely a day into training, and we already were going to teach the following day. Shit!

The classes we taught ranged from 4 students to up to 16 students, all of which were Czech adults. Going into our my first lesson, I was nervous as hell as to how these people would take our teaching, but throughout the course, they were actually very patient and cooperative, even very helpful. I've never had a problem getting in front of a group and talking, and once I got my nerves down after my first lesson, it became a lot easier to get in front of a class full of Czech students and teach.

The most difficult part of teaching, I've discovered, isn't actually teaching it, but planning it. Much of my time was spent preparing for lessons more than actually giving them. I'd usually wake up at 7:30am, do some work on a lesson plan, get into class at 10, go to class from 10 to 6, and then spend from 6 to 7:30 in the library getting materials for the next lesson, and then the rest of the night actually writing up the lesson. It was that much work. It was almost sad because I didn't get to see as much of Prague as I would have liked because we had so much damn work. But I guess that was the point.

Our instructors, Paul Whitaker and Terry Glosser, were both helpful. Everyday, we learned new concepts and new grammar lessons to give us a refresher on some of the stuff we were expected to teach. The grammar always kicked my ass. I never fully grasped it in grade school and I struggled to grasp it in this course. By the end of the course, though I think I finally turned a head and was able to understand some of the things that I had to teach to the rest of the class.

The best part of the course was the people I was taking the course with. We had a great group of people who all got along extremely well, and in a little over a month, I was able to make some good friends. Most came from America, but we had a few from England and we even had an Aussie. We all usually went out and got drinks on the weekends and got loaded up on Czech beer. Had a great time with them all and wish them the best of luck in their teaching jobs.

The best part of this course is that it is now over. Now on to finding a job...