CertTESOL 2015 Experience with Shane English School

* What made you take the course?
I was recommended this course by a friend of mine. I originally wanted official certification in English teaching in order to further my career here. Furthermore, I wanted to learn more TESOL teaching strategies for young learners.

* How did you find it?
I found the course very beneficial for beginning teachers as there was ongoing feedback throughout the teaching sessions to improve and become more efficient/effective/reflective as a teacher. For example, the phonology/grammar sessions provided practical advice on how lexis and vocabulary could be taught, to which I have incorporated many of these techniques into my full-time teaching work.

* What advice would you give other people on the course?
Originally I had underestimated the difficulty of the course, and the work involved. Time management skills are needed efficiently juggle the demands and ongoing assessments in this course with full-time work. Time is also needed to review the work covered in the input sessions and to apply it into practice during teaching sessions. However, this time is well worth it as it equipped me with new strategies and approaches that I had not encountered before during my teaching endeavour.

* What did you benefit from the most?
I benefited the most from with input sessions and the Unknown Language project. The opportunity to learn a new language provided me with the opportunity to put myself in students' shoes, and thus develop tailored approaches to English learners in my community and some of the barriers to language acquisition, in the same way I had experienced difficulties with the new language myself. The teaching sessions also provided me with an opportunity to experiment a variety of teaching approaches, and clear and detailed feedback from tutors allowed me to reflect on the fine tuning of these ideas.