TEFL International Barcelona

In 2010 in Australia the college I worked for closed and my children left home. I was at a loss as to what to do next. I sat with this for a while thinking over what I wanted to do with my teaching career in middle age. I was a qualified primary school teacher. Eventually I remembered that in my youth I had wanted to teach English as another language.
I searched courses on the internet and found this course in Barcelona. I decided on this one as I had started learning Spanish. I chose the option to do the assignments over the internet and spend 2 weeks at the college attending lectures and doing practice teaching.
This was really a wonderful experience. The college found us boarding with locals which was great. There were only 3 other mature students in the course but the young ones accepted us and we all went out together on weekends. I did spend some late nights with assignments and there was some pressure to get your daily lessons ready fairly quickly to teach them that afternoon.
The teaching staff were all very experienced and gave us good advice on how to live in this city. I got lots of practice teaching English and great feedback and advice on teaching methods from the supervisors.
I could not teach English in Europe because I was Australian and couldn't get my papers. So when I came home I applied for work in China. I secured a good job but had to pull out because of health reasons. In 2011 I was employed as a teacher of English, literacy and numeracy in a nearby town in Australia and taught mainly new settlers to Australia for the next 7 years. As many of my students were refugees, it was a very rewarding experience.

Since my time in Barcelona I have worked in the Philippines and Thailand, my certification helped me to secure jobs in both countries and am now looking forward to returning to Spain to work as a teacher. Wherever you choose to work in the world your time at TEFL Barcelona will help you for sure.

For my final Materials Project (end of course project) I had a Level 4 class who were particularly difficult and very rarely listened to what I said. I decided to address a grammar point as my main focus of the class, even though most people wisely chose complex vocabulary instead! My lesson was on 'Dreams', the grammar point being reported speech. Doing a lesson on something I wasn't familiar or confident with meant that I had to research it thoroughly and put together an effective lesson plan. My hard work paid off and by the end of the lesson I had achieved my aim as the class understood and were speaking in reported speech. For me, this was the highlight of the course and the guidance and teaching from our tutors gave me the confidence and capability to achieve it.

Just finished the TEFL course in Barcelona. I found the course challenging but I got through it with the help of the teachers. Good job perspectives on the horizon. No crisis for English teachers in Spain at the moment.

I mostly went to Barcelona for the experience but as days were going by, I begun to realise that teaching was something really fascinating to me and that fitted my personality. Staff was quite friendly and helpful and I thank them for that. I bonded with some of my classmates and with whom we still keep contact. I recommend this course to anyone with an advanced level of the English language and a good teaching/communicative personality.

I chose to come to Barcelona and do this TEFL course simply because I was unsure of what I wanted to do in life. I knew that I loved languages and was already pretty good at English, so I thought, why not? Doing the course was the best decision I could have made. From the very first day the class was relaxed, a great atmosphere and we all had a great time. We had quite a big group (about 18 I think) and we all got on so well. The teachers, Lisa, Jane and Jamie are great and I really couldn't have asked for more support. They make every lesson fun and interesting (yes, even the grammar lessons) and I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute. On the first day, they took the whole class out for tapas and sangria which was an unexpected but very welcome surprise! It was a great idea for us all to get to know each other. I learned so much during the month. One thing I will say is it isn't a walk in the park. It's hard work and is pretty intense at times. When I started, my grammar was awful. If I hadn't put in a lot of work and study I definitely would have failed the final exam. Instead, I passed with flying colours! :) you get a lot of teaching practise with proper students which was very daunting at first but by the end I absolutely loved teaching them! The Spanish students know that you're learning to teach and are very supportive of this. The career advisor, Mike, was great too. He gave us so much help towards finding a job after the course. I got my certificate on Thursday 5th December, and I just got my first job offer yesterday, Monday 16th December. Mike's help definitely paid off and he made sure we all had good CV's etc. before we started applying. Overall, I would 100% recommend this course to anyone. You will meet great people, learn a lot, experience life in another country, and finish with a top class qualification which you can use all over the world!