A Science Teacher Takes TEFL

I had accepted a position teaching chemistry in a Thai high school and the school that hired me—as I had no teaching experience—wanted me to do a TEFL certification course beforehand. They recommended Vantage as they had a number of teachers who were trained there and they were all subsequently highly successful in their client schools.
As advertised, this TEFL course was intensive. Having said that, the lead trainer made it interesting and fun and the time just flew by.

We were introduced to the communicative approach to language teaching and I soon was eliciting responses and praising my students constantly, creating more of a workshop environment instead of a lecture type classroom.

This part of the course was the observed teaching practices where I learned from hands-on experience. Each lesson was on a different language topic and my classes varied from small groups of 8 or so to a large class of 52, which help round me into a more professional teacher who’s versatile in any classroom.

But before I even stepped into a classroom, I first learned how to formulate detailed lesson plans each covering a specific language topic. Each plan was first evaluated by the lead trainer where I had to show my teaching aims, learner objectives, and anticipated problems with the actions to remedy them.

I found myself improving with every practice class—both from the expert feedback I got, but also my self-evaluations. Over time, this helped me spot problems myself. That allowed me to think about what I could improve first, leading to quicker responses which resulted in a more improved teacher for the next session.

Vantage also includes a foreign language experience, where the trainer taught the cultural norms of Thailand and the different expectations and teaching techniques that are used compared to western classrooms. He also taught some lessons on Thai language which demonstrated difficulties in language learning as we ‘sat on the other side of the desk’ and got a valuable perspective of what a language learner is going through.

The bottom line is that I’m now ready to teach! I’m more than confident I can teach a successful class!