Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Panlong Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Chongqing? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
Why complete a TEFL courseEnglish is the mostly widely spoken language in the world. Some 328 million speak it as a first language (1) compared to 320 million to 400 million (the figure varies) who are native Spanish speakers (2) and an astonishing 845 million native speakers of Mandarin chinese (3). That alone makes English an important world language. But that is not the end of the story; there are an astonishing 1,472 million people who speak English as a second language, making English by far the mostly widely spoken language in the world. Only Mandarin chinese comes anywhere close, with 1,350 million speakers, including both native speakers and those who have it as a second language, but that is mostly in a relatively restricted geographical area in and around china. English is spoken around the world. It is not hard to see the reason for the astonishing dominance of English. england, or the UK, has conquered and lost two empires the last 400 years. The first dominated North America and included both Canada and what was later to become another world power, the united states. The second empire spanned the world and included Canada, much of Africa, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, egypt, Hong Kong, and various Caribbean islands ? and even this list is not exhaustive. For better or worse, English, and the English language, dominated the world for 400 years and the legacy of English as a world language remains. Today, English is still the most widely used language for commerce and business, science, much popular culture and, crucially, the internet. This means there remains a huge appetite for learning English all over the non-English speaking world. This makes teaching English a very valuable skill and many thousands of native english speakers have taken advantage of the extraordinary geographical range of English to see the world funded by teaching English. Others have made it their career. By far the best route into teaching English is to take formal training to teach it as a foreign language (TEFL). This may take place in a classroom environment or through the medium of the internet. The courses contain two main themes. The first is a rigorous run-through of English grammar. This is particularly important for those who have been through the state English educational system, where the teaching of formal English grammar has fallen by the wayside, and is a valuable review for older students who, while they may have been taught formal English grammar many years ago, have not reviewed it since and need a sound a comprehensive re-grounding in the discipline. While English grammar is not something every teacher will use on a day-to-day basis in the classroom, knowing correct usage and structure is essential knowledge to underpin the more informal teaching styles of today. The second theme in a well constructed tefl course is a grounding in the techniques of teaching and classroom management. However good a person?s English language skills may be, they will only be able to be put to good use with a sound understanding of how to evaluate the students, develop a rapport with them, and structure a series of lessons that meet their needs and aspirations. The prospective teacher also needs to know how to engage the interest of students, deal with their language problems, and help them develop English language skills as effectively as possible. At the same time the prospective teacher needs guidance on how to conduct him or herself to win the students trust and confidence and establish an effective learning environment within the classroom. The English language teacher needs to know and employ a modern-day methodology like Engage-Study-Active (4); classroom management techniques, such as how and when to use eye contact and gesture (5); when and how to introduce new vocabulary and new grammatical structures (6); lesson planning skills (7); receptive skills (8); productive skills (9); pronunciation and phonology (10); the effective use of course books and the array of possible lesson materials available (11); how to proceed with evaluation and testing, and what they can show you (12); what teaching aids may be available and how to use them (13); and how to proceed when teaching special groups (14). These are all invaluable skills and insight that would be virtually impossible to obtain any other way that will allow the prospective teacher to approach his or her first experiences of teaching confident in the knowledge that they have been given the basis skills and academic framework to begin their teaching careers, and while they will learn more as their experience increases, they will be building on a rock-solid foundation of training that will benefit both themselves and the generations of students they teach. References 1. Christian Mair (ed.) The Politics of English As a World Language (2003) ISBN 978-90-420-0876-2 2. Clare Mar-Molinero, the Politics of language in the Spanish-speaking World (2000) ISBN 978-0-415-15655-4 3. Human Development Report 2011. United Nations. 2011 4. ittt tefl course unit 3 5. ittt tefl course unit 5 6. ittt tefl course unit 7 7. ittt tefl course unit 9 8. ittt tefl course unit 11 9. ittt tefl course unit 12 10. ittt tefl course unit 13 11. ittt tefl course unit 14 12. ittt tefl course unit 15 13. ittt tefl course unit 17 14. ittt tefl course unit 19
