Pre course 1 – What makes a good teacher?
Before starting the actual TEFL course you’re asked to finish the pre-course task. It mainly consists of some knowledge tests – or at least that’s what I assumed.
I subscribed about a week ago and promptly received an email afterwards. To be honest I just quickly read over it to see what it was about without really paying attention as I wanted to do it more thoroughly later.
For fun I made one test where you had to count the sounds of the words. For example the word “knight” has three sounds; an “n” sound (as the k is silent), an i sound (like the word eye) and the final “t” sound (as also the g and h are silent). And that with a bunch of words, some easier, some more difficult and some depending on how you want to pronounce them (English or British).
I really liked this test because it made me think of English in a different way and you’re not asked to do this anywhere else.
On a side note: I only had one error which made me feel pretty good about myself.
Anyhow, the email says this course will take about 15 to 20 hours to complete which for me probably means three days.
So today I thought of doing the actual first task they will give you. It seems like an easy task: the question is “What makes a good teacher?”. They give you the task to think back of some of your teachers you think were good teachers, what subject they taught, how they taught, what made them special, and so on.
First teacher that popped to my head was my teacher from 8th grade as, dude, was she hot.
Of course this not a very good argument for being a good teacher. However, thinking actually about the teachers and those that had the most impact on me I realized they have all one thing in common: being an English teacher.
Herr Badum from Germany in 7th grade who was the first that taught me that speaking another language is actually useful and fun.
Ms Bosch from England at the language school who gave really good classes and who probably taught me the most of my current English.
And finally Sra. García from Spain. Ok, she was my Spanish teacher but she majored in English, however, due to Germany’s law and education system she was only allowed to teach Spanish as she was a native.
Those three were the once that got me where I am now, which I am tremendously grateful for.
Sure, I had those teachers where you legit do nothing all time which is fun as you play some games, talk to your friends or make of fun of the teacher as – let’s be honest – when you go to school your teacher is the enemy.
With some teachers I went to bars for a drink or two. With some I even still talk every now and then about some things.
I remember being a little boy who couldn’t be arsed with anything related to school. One day, we had a substitute teacher and he saw me wearing a “Fear Factory” sweater (if you don’t know the band look it up, you might like it) who came up to me and out of the blue started telling me how much he likes them and their sound and gave me recommendations of similar bands. I didn’t know what to say or what to do at all. After all, he was a teacher. I just answered “sure” and was lucky to never see him again.
When I was 22 I went to a language school to do an apprenticeship as foreign language correspondence clerk and the role of a teacher was not an enemy any more. Actually, thinking back now it’s really ridiculous to why one would think that way.
Also before some of my friends started to study teaching at university (because this is how you become a teacher in Germany) it never occurred to me to think of a teacher as a “normal person”. Seeing some of them being a teacher I thought Having a teacher like you is going to be cray-zee. Also with some of them I was thinking: “You’re going to be a bad teacher” which is not in my hands actually but brings me back to the initial question: What makes a good teacher?.
When I’m thinking back of the language school (my most recent teacher experience) the reason why I like those teachers, especially Ms Bosch, is because it was fun. Not in a the teacher is making jokes the whole time kind of way or a way that you talk about stuff like video games the whole time. I had such teachers as well. No, more in a you learn in a fun environment kind of way.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos, not only for entertainment but also because there are SO many good YouTubers that are educating and teaching things and lately I feel there are so many popular ones because they realized that how they were taught was super boring and they found a way to make their content interesting and funny so that you’re entertained but also educated at the same time – mostly with the use of memes which is our generations inside jokes. This however, is a different subject.
Obviously you can’t make a video with a lot of memes talking/explaining a certain subject but can use them – and other ways – to make boring topics less boring.
This, of course, also differs from the subject and topic you’re teaching. A holocaust meme when teaching world war II? Might go backwards. The “I can has”-cat meme when teaching English grammar. Why not? At least it shows how it’s not done.
This is how I’d like to teach. Go with the flow, be up to date and try to make it entertaining. It’s easier said as done as (I think this myself quite often) it can come of as wanna-be hip when you try to be cool to get their attention and it just fails horribly.
I subscribed about a week ago and promptly received an email afterwards. To be honest I just quickly read over it to see what it was about without really paying attention as I wanted to do it more thoroughly later.
For fun I made one test where you had to count the sounds of the words. For example the word “knight” has three sounds; an “n” sound (as the k is silent), an i sound (like the word eye) and the final “t” sound (as also the g and h are silent). And that with a bunch of words, some easier, some more difficult and some depending on how you want to pronounce them (English or British).
I really liked this test because it made me think of English in a different way and you’re not asked to do this anywhere else.
On a side note: I only had one error which made me feel pretty good about myself.
Anyhow, the email says this course will take about 15 to 20 hours to complete which for me probably means three days.
So today I thought of doing the actual first task they will give you. It seems like an easy task: the question is “What makes a good teacher?”. They give you the task to think back of some of your teachers you think were good teachers, what subject they taught, how they taught, what made them special, and so on.
First teacher that popped to my head was my teacher from 8th grade as, dude, was she hot.
Of course this not a very good argument for being a good teacher. However, thinking actually about the teachers and those that had the most impact on me I realized they have all one thing in common: being an English teacher.
Herr Badum from Germany in 7th grade who was the first that taught me that speaking another language is actually useful and fun.
Ms Bosch from England at the language school who gave really good classes and who probably taught me the most of my current English.
And finally Sra. García from Spain. Ok, she was my Spanish teacher but she majored in English, however, due to Germany’s law and education system she was only allowed to teach Spanish as she was a native.
Those three were the once that got me where I am now, which I am tremendously grateful for.
Sure, I had those teachers where you legit do nothing all time which is fun as you play some games, talk to your friends or make of fun of the teacher as – let’s be honest – when you go to school your teacher is the enemy.
With some teachers I went to bars for a drink or two. With some I even still talk every now and then about some things.
I remember being a little boy who couldn’t be arsed with anything related to school. One day, we had a substitute teacher and he saw me wearing a “Fear Factory” sweater (if you don’t know the band look it up, you might like it) who came up to me and out of the blue started telling me how much he likes them and their sound and gave me recommendations of similar bands. I didn’t know what to say or what to do at all. After all, he was a teacher. I just answered “sure” and was lucky to never see him again.
When I was 22 I went to a language school to do an apprenticeship as foreign language correspondence clerk and the role of a teacher was not an enemy any more. Actually, thinking back now it’s really ridiculous to why one would think that way.
Also before some of my friends started to study teaching at university (because this is how you become a teacher in Germany) it never occurred to me to think of a teacher as a “normal person”. Seeing some of them being a teacher I thought Having a teacher like you is going to be cray-zee. Also with some of them I was thinking: “You’re going to be a bad teacher” which is not in my hands actually but brings me back to the initial question: What makes a good teacher?.
When I’m thinking back of the language school (my most recent teacher experience) the reason why I like those teachers, especially Ms Bosch, is because it was fun. Not in a the teacher is making jokes the whole time kind of way or a way that you talk about stuff like video games the whole time. I had such teachers as well. No, more in a you learn in a fun environment kind of way.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos, not only for entertainment but also because there are SO many good YouTubers that are educating and teaching things and lately I feel there are so many popular ones because they realized that how they were taught was super boring and they found a way to make their content interesting and funny so that you’re entertained but also educated at the same time – mostly with the use of memes which is our generations inside jokes. This however, is a different subject.
Obviously you can’t make a video with a lot of memes talking/explaining a certain subject but can use them – and other ways – to make boring topics less boring.
This, of course, also differs from the subject and topic you’re teaching. A holocaust meme when teaching world war II? Might go backwards. The “I can has”-cat meme when teaching English grammar. Why not? At least it shows how it’s not done.
This is how I’d like to teach. Go with the flow, be up to date and try to make it entertaining. It’s easier said as done as (I think this myself quite often) it can come of as wanna-be hip when you try to be cool to get their attention and it just fails horribly.
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Thank you for being part of my life :)