Fee Genuine TESOL

Firstly this course has helped me the most in terms of lesson planning. By breaking down the lesson into sections with individual aims and goals I have been able to better prepare my lessons and establish goals for my students and myself. The engage, study and activate divisions give the lessons a solid pattern and flow, with each activity leading into the next with clearly defined activities and time limits. As a result it is easier to see where my lessons are going and how they will get there. I am certainly going to use the lesson planning for my future lessons. Secondly I have personally enjoyed the studying the grammar points in the course. This has always been a personal failing – having never been properly taught grammar in school and just expected to know things as a first language english speaker. It has given me a better grasp on my own language, which has, and will, help me in the classroom. Hopefully, by better understanding my own language, I can explain it better to my students. The exercises were also really enjoyable. This course has also challenged me to be more creative in coming up with ideas. Recently my lessons have become stale and repetitive and the course regularly required me to think of new ways to approach grammar points and new exercises for the various lesson stages. I have already put some of these to use in my lessons and will continue to do so. By having to marry grammar points to a stage in the lesson, I have to be more creative and actually think about what I am doing – as opposed to just putting together a lesson and hoping for the best. Lastly it has made me reevaluate the goals I have for my students and the goals I have for myself. Previously I was just preparing and producing lessons on a regular basis with no definite aim. I have, since taking this class, taken into consideration the levels of my students, the personalities of the classes and the teachers I work with and come up with my own personal goals for the class. I used to just hope that whatever lesson I had would go well and that the students would participate. The lesson planning has made it easier to ensure that students participate and that the work I produce for them suits their level. Now I have long-term goals. For some of the classes I have succeeded in improving their writing skills but now I want them to learn from their submissions by correcting their own mistakes (based on the techniques suggested in unit 3). I hope eventually find individual goals for each class. Overall it is beginning to make my teaching experience more interesting and more rewarding. It is becoming easier to plan lessons and the students are responding. This course has been really worth the time and effort.