More about Global Crossroad's TEFL Program

 

Providing modern concepts and up-to-date facilities along with the skills of our professional tutors, Global Crossroad's TEFL program aims to be one of the strongest institutions offering high quality TEFL training courses in China and around the world.

 

By the end of the course, participants will complete 150 hours of TEFL training in the following manner:

 

.  125 hours of coursework material and in-class work with the TEFL instructor
.  25 hours of volunteer English-teaching

 

While the instructor has the lead role in feedback sessions, contributions are invited, encouraged and welcomed from all. Said contributions may either be in the form of comments or questions. When covering a particular lesson, the teacher of said lesson is expected to field questions. In effect, developing an ability to evaluate ones own teaching is a crucial component of this course.

 

History of TEFL Teaching and Learning Styles

 

English language teaching has undergone significant changes since the classical studying of Greek and Latin. The major thrust of this module is to familiarize participants with the history of TEFL teaching as well as its research and teaching strategies in hopes of considering ways of relating, identifying and applying the best practices of the Post Modern Era.

 

. The Field of TESOL/ELT
. Learning Styles
. The Teacher's Role
. Roles and Qualities
. The Classroom: The Physical Environment

 

The Classroom Environment

 

The goal of this module is to familiarize students with the field of TEFL and EFL Teaching. Each teacher has their own personality in the classroom as well as individual methods of teaching the English language. This particular module helps participants relate their personal experiences as a student - teaching them to utilize/develop their own teaching styles and classroom personas. We will also closely examine the various learning styles of students and the significant effect learning styles have on the learning process. Participants will study the physical environment of the classroom and consider how elements such as seating arrangements have a profound impact on the relationship of the students' ability to master content.

 

. A brief history of Language Teaching
. The "Designer" Approaches of the 1970s and Beyond
. Communicative Competence and The Post Modern Era
. Communicative and Audio-lingual Comparison of Major Features
. The Psychological Learning Environment: Teaching and Learning

 

Teaching, Speaking and Listening

 

This module provides information on the principles and components of teaching English as a foreign language. We'll look at the difference between language items and language skills as we explore some possible ways to teach them. The fact that teachers spend almost as much time planning lessons outside of the classroom as they do inside the classroom is surprising to some beginning instructors. Lesson plans are extremely important as they provide a road map directing teachers as to where they are going, how they will get there, and where they expect to end up at the completion of a lesson. Effective lesson-planning is a skill that takes both time and practice.

 

This course will prepare you to develop and write effective lesson plans.

 

. Students' Needs
. Principles of Learning a Language
. A Framework for TEFL - Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP)
. Presentation Practice and Production of Lesson Plans
. PPP of Conversation Samples
. Classroom Strategies
. STT/TTT and Giving Instructions

 

Listening and Speaking

 

Have you ever studied a foreign language in school and arrived in a foreign country not understanding others or being understood yourself? This is a commonly occurring and unfortunate experience for many students of any standard language training program.

 

Unfortunately, much of the language instruction/teachings in the past have had very little emphasis on actually teaching the much-needed listening and speaking vital to actual/real-life communication. Many teachers teaching English abroad are non-native speakers of English themselves and often feel uncomfortable teaching the overly-important listening and speaking. For that reason, participants may find that the majority of English-learning students are either well-schooled and proficient in grammar and writing or very capable of reading in English, yet display inefficiencies which are in need of support and encouragement when it comes to listening and speaking. This module is dedicated to developing and honing these two skill areas.

 

Participants will learn that listening is essentially a repetitive skill -whereas speaking is productive. These skills are discussed simultaneously since they are interdependent. Another aspect common to both the areas of listening and speaking is pronunciation. English is, indeed, a complex language. We will provide participants with the necessary skills and tools to assist in teaching and facilitating this process.

 

.  Teaching Listening
.  Teaching Difficulties and Types of Activities
.  Types of Listening Exercises
.  Listening Lesson Plans
.  Developing and Conducting Speaking Practice Sessions
.  Teaching Vocabulary and Forms - Oral Drills
.  Open Class or Small Group Vocabulary Drills
.  Oral Vocabulary Production Activities
.  Desert Island Scenario
.  Vocabulary Review Activities
.  Pronunciation - Intonation
.  Minimal Pairs

 

Reading and Writing

 

We will explore what it means to read and write in a second language, as well as how to teach reading and writing using authentic, certified materials - including strategies for preparing students to read and write in conversational English.

 

.  Reading as Experienced by Many Students
.  The Goals of Reading Instruction
.  Reading Strategies
.  Ten Things To Do Before Reading
.  Teaching Reading Skills Chart
.  Reading Lesson Plans
.  Teaching Literature
.  Developing Writing Skills
.  Writing Systems - Different Languages
.  Types of Writing
.  The Components of Writing
.  Providing Written Feedback
.  Writing Lesson Plans: Based on Needs Analysis
.  Writing Lesson Plans: Patterned Poetry

 

Grammar

 

A large part of teaching English as a Foreign Language is the teaching of grammar. English has an extremely complicated set of rules and exceptions for its syntax or grammar. Part of this complexity arises from the history of the language itself. Languages are generally not static - changing over time, adding new words and expressions as well as spellings, etc. For teachers of English abroad, a general understanding of why the language operates the way it does is essential. This section explores how well participants know their grammar as well as how to teach grammar. Grammar will be taught in relationship to four areas: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. At the end of this module, participants will have a better idea of what necessitates consideration in the creation of lesson-planning.

 

.  More on the History of English
.  English Structure and Grammar as Compared to Other Languages
.  A Functional Approach to Teaching Grammar
.  Word Order in English
.  Parts of Speech
.  General Grammatical Structures for TEFL
.  Verbs
.  The Twelve Main Verb Tenses of English
.  Phrasal Verbs
.  Reported Speech
.  Conditionals
.  Passive Voice

 

Professional Development

 

At this point in the course, participants should possess a really good idea about the profession of English-teaching, as well as the skills pertaining to the four skill areas. In addition, participants should have, at this point, created various lesson plans. We've also extensively covered the importance of including contexts in which to present new language items and grammar concepts. In this module, participants will learn to use visuals as a means of providing contexts and opportunities to develop and hone students' skills in listening, reading, writing, and grammar. Participants will learn nearly anything and everything encouraging communication as fair game. This means that teachers should include a variety of resources for students. Even though there are numerous textbooks covering the subject of English, there is also a multitude of supplemental resource books, computer software programs, and ESL websites. There are even great movies that may be well-utilized for the classroom. Finally, we will take a close look at assessments - formal and informal -and identify what effective assessments might look like in the classroom. Participants will cover:

 

. Visuals
. ESL Textbooks and Supplemental Materials
. Online Resources
. Games for the Classroom
. Assessing Student Performance
. Standardized Testing