At 52 and post-retrenchment, I'm finding myself having to do a big career gear-change in life.
Yes, retrenchment can be pretty damn terrifying, but you can also see it as the universe delivering a much-needed kick in the backside to get you out of a comfort zone that, in hindsight, wasn't all that comfortable.
It's good to have a bit of a stretch when you've been mouldering behind a computer screen doing the same thing for 30 years - and I've found the TEFL Academy programme has done a masterful job of putting me through some career-rebirth burpees for the past six months. Yes, there's been plenty of gear grinding and rapidly elicited expletives along the way, but, hey, "no pain, no gain".
Just like a good run or gym workout gets the endorphins pumping, this course has fired up some neurons that have been parking off in serious couch-potato mode since my school days. And that has felt Eina!!!! But then also... Fantastic!!!!!
A big win for the course has been the responsive, friendly and very helpful student support. That's vital if you're doing training online. So a big thank you to Phillicia Bekker, Bianca Stellenberg, Pranisha Govender and Charnelle Frazer for patiently and expertly handling all my queries no matter how mundane and to Ashleigh D, Brigid S, and Claire H for their useful feedback that helped me to get the most out of the assignments.
The instructional videos did a great job of showing the theory's practical application and navigating the assignments. Mairead O' Connor is a super star teacher whose passion for the profession shines through with each succinctly crafted explanation. She has such a calm, reassuring demeanour that I'm sure she could get a horde of rabid zombies working in pairs and producing the first conditional with little more than her lyrical Irish brogue, a gap-fill worksheet and some crayons.
My course also included a classroom session run by TEFL trainer Luan Dreyden, which I feel was the highlight of the entire programme. Luan took the 10 units of theory content that I'd been wrestling with for the past 6 months and distilled them into a witblits 10-hour one-shot without so much as a single "erm", "um" or "ah". This was an expert at work, and before the day was done, she had me and about 20 other quietly terrified (well, at least I was) TEFL newbies delivering our first lesson in a very engaging yet supportive environment. This one session alone was worth the entire price of admission to the course. The 10-units of theory built the engine. Luan installed the spark plug.
I realise my TEFL "engine" is nowhere near Luan's Ferrari V-12, but thanks to this programme, it will get me out the garage (grinding gears and all) and onto the road to new possibilities, a new me. And for that I'm very grateful to everyone I have met on my TEFL journey so far.