A Comprehensive TEFL Cert. Course for Aspiring EFL Teachers

I recently completed CIEE's online, 150-hour TEFL certification course and found it to be a truly thorough educational experience. The course content included theories, best practices, and practical tips in language teaching that every type of teacher and learner could benefit from. During the course, there was ample opportunity for putting what I'd learned into practice, to receive and give peer feedback, and to share in generating ideas with my cohort. And on top of all that, our tutor (with whom we met via video conferencing once a week - one of the course highlights for me) was extremely helpful in providing timely and relevant feedback to help us grow in becoming culturally competent educators who understand how to meet the needs and learning styles of our students. To add to it, the practicum was valuable in getting real-world experience in the classroom through observation and practice. One downside of the course for me was that it was difficult to keep up my motivation for 11 weeks working with a high volume of online presentations in the same format (it began to feel monotonous), but the weekly meetups helped. My greatest takeaway was the cache of practical skills and real examples of lessons, activities, and classroom management techniques that we could use in the EFL classroom to make for a dynamic learning environment. All in all, I feel well-prepared for my teach abroad experience after having completed the TEFL certification, which built on my previous experiences in education and working with youth.