Teach English in Lujiao Zhen - Chongqing

I have gained a great deal from this class. And I am not just saying that. I started this course during my month long vacation to visit my family and friends after two years of teaching in korea. When I started teaching in 2008, the only teaching experience I had was from substitute teaching in the inner city of Richmond, VA. and in the suburbs of Fairfax County. Needless to say that was more babysitting than teaching and in some cases bouncing. My first year in Korea I spent every day learning something new by making new mistakes every day. I learned a lot that year through experience and my second year was much more productive because of those efforts. This brings me to my personal gains from this course. I completed the first six or so lessons while still at home. During these first lessons I was able to brush up on some of my basic grammar points, which was refreshing because I hadn't review this material since 2006. More importantly I was able to use the classroom management lesson and the lesson on teacher verse student roles and dynamics as a reflection on the previous two years of teaching. During this time I was able to recall situations in which I made mistakes and through the course work create solutions and new approaches that I could implement in the coming year. To be specific, I was spending too much time talking because if I didn't the students would. I was able to see that I needed to produce better activities and most importantly that I need to structure my class using the ESA formula. My first week at my new job I did just that. Having a basic knowledge of the ESA lesson structure improved my lessons immediately. My lessons progressed in a way that benefited the students as much as if not more than the teacher. I have found The ESA format to be both efficient and productive. From the time I started my new job until now I have progressed through the material rather slowly. So slow in fact my tutor was kind enough to give me a one month extension. I feel that this protracted approach was beneficial to my development as a teacher because I was teaching full time over these months. Each time I completed a course I made an effort to apply what I learned to my classes each day until I found a balanced way to use these new skills. An example of this is just recently I completed the course on evaluations, grading and choosing course books. It just so happened that this course coincided with the end and beginning of the month when I was preparing new text books and evaluating the students speaking tests. I applied what I had learned about choosing text books as much as I could and I feel that I chose a better book because of what I learned about using the book as a guide and not as the sole source of material. In addition, I was able to evaluate my students more objectively in terms of how the grade will benefit the students confidence. I was also able to present the grades to the class in a way that made them want to have a higher score because they felt they were in competition with the other students. In short, I think this course would have been helpful if I had completed it within two months or the seven that I required. But for me the seven months was very useful because I had time to apply each lesson to my daily efforts. I plan to continue using what I have learned in this course. I have already applied quite a bit of what I have learned and will continue to do so as the opportunities present themselves. At the end of my contract which is six months away I hope to land a job teaching adults. At which point this course will be of great value to my students and I.