TEFL Institute – Course Syllabus

TEFL Institute International Course Syllabus

The international courses are held over a week length, typically Monday - Friday with 100 hours of course work including role playing, homework, quizzes, tests, lesson planning, with an additional student teaching (practicum) component in a live classroom with English language students for 20 hours. Class times vary by location, typical schedule is 9-5 with breaks throughout the day (times vary at each location). Some evenings have homework, other evenings the students are free to enjoy the nightlife. Weekends are free to enjoy the city.

TEFL Institute course topics to be covered:

 

History of TEFL Teaching and Learning Styles

English language teaching has undergone great changes since the classical training of Greek and Latin. The major thrust of this module is to familiarize you with the history of TEFL teaching, its research and teaching strategies, and to consider how to relate to identifying and applying the best practices of the Post Modern era.

• The Field of TEFL / 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 and the ways they like to teach English. This module will help you relate to your experiences as a student, and how they relate to your own teaching style and classroom persona. We will also consider the learning styles of students and the significant effect learning styles have on the process of learning. You will study the physical environment of the classroom and consider how something such as seating arrangements has a profound impact of the relationship of the student's 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 Audiolingual 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. They provide a road map that shows teachers 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 just takes time and practice. This course will prepare you to develop and write effective lesson plans.

• Student’s Needs
• Principles of Learning a Language
• A Framework for TEFL – Presentation, Practice and Production (PPP)
• PPP Lesson Plans
• PPP Conversation sample
• Classroom strategies
• STT/TTT(Student Talk Time/Teacher Talk Time) 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 have not been understood? This is a common experience for many students of any standard language training program. Unfortunately much language instruction in the past has had very little emphasis on actually teaching listening and speaking for real communication.

Many teachers who teach English abroad are non-native speakers of English themselves and may not feel comfortable teaching listening and speaking skills. For that reason, you may find your students are well schooled in grammar and writing, or very capable of reading in English, yet in need of support and encouragement when it comes to listening and speaking. This module is dedicated to these two skill areas. You will learn that listening is an essentially repetitive skill, whereas speaking is productive. We discuss them together since they are interdependent. Another aspect common to both the areas of listening and speaking is that of pronunciation. English is a complex language and we will provide you with the necessary skills and tools help get you through this process.

• Teaching Listening
• Teaching Difficulties and Types of Activities

• Types of Listening Exercises
• Listening Lesson Plan
• Developing and Conducting Speaking Practice
• Teaching Vocabulary and Forms-Oral Drills
• Open Class or Small Group Vocabulary Drills Procedure
• Oral Vocabulary Production Activities
• Desert Island
• Vocabulary Review Activities
• Pronunciation – Intonation
• Minimal Pairs

Reading and Writing

We will explore what it really means to read and write in a second language, as well as how to teach reading and writing using authentic materials. This module includes 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 Plan
• Teaching Literature
• Developing Writing Skills
• Writing Systems Different Languages
• Types of Writing
• The Components of Writing
• Providing Written Feedback
• Writing Lesson Plan: Based on Needs Analysis
• Writing Lesson Plan: Patterned Poetry

Grammar

A large part of teaching EFL is the teaching of grammar. English has an extremely complicated set of rules and exceptions for its syntax or grammar. Part of the complexity arises from the history of the language itself. Languages are generally not static; they change 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. We will take a look at how well you know your grammar and how to teach grammar. Grammar will be taught in relationship to the four areas of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. At the end of this module you will have a better idea of what you may need to consider as you plan your lessons.

• More History of English work
• 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

Your browser may not support display of this image.By now in the course, you have already got a good idea about the profession and the teaching skills regarding the four skill areas and you have written a lot of lesson plans. We've also discussed with you at length the importance of including a context in which to present new language items and grammar concepts. In this module you will learn to use visuals as a means of providing context and opportunities to develop students' skills in Listening, Reading, Writing, and Grammar.

You'll learn that just about anything that encourages communication is fair game. That means that teachers should include all kinds of resources for students. Even though there are many textbooks to cover the subject, there are also supplemental resource books, computer software programs, ESL websites, and even great movies that may work well for the class that you teach. Finally we will take a close look at assessments, both formal and informal, and what effective assessments might look like in your classroom. You will cover:

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

Course Goals

• Develop an awareness of the field and practices of TEFL.
• Develop an understanding of the components of the English Language as related to teaching English to non native speakers.
• Design Lessons for EFL/ESL Students at a variety of levels.
• Develop appropriate lesson plans for your English Language Learners in Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing.
• Consider and comment on the work of fellow classmates.

Module One

The Field of TEFL, the Teacher’s Role, Classroom environments, Multiple Intelligences/The importance of learning styles

Learning Objectives

1. Students will be able to use acronyms related to the field of ESL EFL appropriately.
2. Students will be able to describe the qualities of effective instruction.
3. Students will be able to develop an idea of their potential teaching role and style by comparing, contrasting, and evaluating positive and negative qualities of their previous teachers.
4. Students will be able to describe 5 different physical classroom environments and describe when each might be appropriate, as well as choosing a physical classroom set up that fits their teaching style.
5. Students will be able to discuss visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learning Styles and multiple intelligences.
6. Students will identify their own learning styles and MI and relate to their own lessons and instruction.
7. Students will design a classroom set up which serves a variety of teaching purposes, back to back, u formation, circle formation, straight rows.

Topics

• The field of TEFL
• The teacher’s role
• My role as a teacher
• Classroom environments
• Cross cultural issues

Module Two

Methods (emphasize direct method, natural approach, task based, content based), the idea of i+1, learning environments

Learning Objectives

1. Students will identify psychological factors that influence student learning
2. Students will explain the role of the affective filter concept in the classroom.
3. Students will be able to explain and identify lessons in which the following teaching approaches are used and whether or not the following teaching approaches may or may not be appropriate:
   • Grammar Translation Method
   • Audio Lingual method
   • Direct Method
   • Silent Way
   • Desuggestopedia
   • Total Physical Response
   • Communicative Language Teaching
   • Natural Approach
   • Community Language Learning
   • Task Based Learning
   • Content Based Learning

Module Three

Writing lesson plans, ABCD objectives, PPP format, develop lesson plan for listening, speaking, reading, assessment design and purposes

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will write clear measurable objectives ABCD.
2. Students will develop two lesson plans of their choice from listening, speaking, reading, and writing using PPP format.
3. Students will propose assessments that reflect the material covered in their lesson plans.
4. Students will be able to explain the four skill areas.
5. Students will design brief lessons for mini activities for a selected skill area.

Topics

 

• The four skill areas and pronunciation
• Writing lesson plans
• ABCD objectives
• PPP format
• Develop lesson plan for listening, speaking, reading
• Assessment design and purposes

Module Four

Speaking and Listening

Learning Objectives

1. Students will understand the difference between pronunciation and intonation.
2. Students will be able to create appropriate comprehension questions.
3. Students will be able to coordinate and conduct appropriate oral drills.
4. Students will locate and select appropriate listening material for a chosen level.
5. Students will be able to construct a PPP lesson plan on both listening and speaking.

Topics

• Listening authentic listening, experiential teaching
• Speaking accuracy/meaning speaking activities
• Teaching Pronunciation

Module Five

Reading and writing lessons-vocabulary and journals and free voluntary reading, literacy issues, authentic reading materials, reading skills, writing levels, abilities and tasks

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will explain why direct translation and cognates are not always the most effective means of teaching language.
2. Students will provide clear strategies for teaching pronunciation and spelling, as well as consider the role their spelling may play in the classroom.
3. Students will explain the role of vocabulary in language acquisition and offer preliminary strategies for teaching vocabulary.

Topics

• Writing accuracy/communication, grammar/form, diagnostic tool
• The problem with English pronunciation and spelling
• The role of vocabulary, concordances, collocations, and sounding right

Module Six

Intensive grammar review, parts of speech, verb tenses, SVO+. VSO+?, comparatives/superlatives, prepositions of place and time, develop writing and grammar teach grammar through guided discovery.

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will diagnose common grammar issues students will demonstrate in class.
2. Students will propose recommendations for overcoming these errors
3. Students will provide a remedy for a sample student.
4. Students will prepare a grammar lesson including objectives, using guided discovery, visual, gap fill close exercise, and assessment tool.
5. Students will prepare a writing lesson including objectives, PPP, a writing model and a rubric.
6. Students will demonstrate an ability to recognize grammar points and name them appropriately.
7. Students will be able to contrast the form and history of English with other spoken languages and generally explain how those differences affect ELLs especially in morphology, lexis, syntax, semantics, phonology, and spelling.

Topics

• The history of English
• Language systems phonology, morphology, lexis, syntax, semantics, discourse
• Intensive grammar review
• Parts of speech
• Verb tenses
• SVO+. VSO+?
• Comparatives superlatives
• Prepositions of place and time
• Develop writing and grammar lessons - vocab and journals and free voluntary reading.
• Teach grammar through guided discovery

Module Seven

CALL activities for the classroom, find and review a video resource, review an ESL textbook, evaluate online resources, exercises, lesson plans, authentic materials, bibliography

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will evaluate a TEFL/TESL web resource.
2. Students will review a TEFL/TESL web video resource.
3. Students will review an ESL or reference textbook that they can use for developing communicative activities.

Topics

• CALL activities for the classroom
• Video resources English for all myfeca
• Review an ESL textbook
• Evaluate online resources, exercises, lesson plans, authentic materials
• Bibliography

Module Eight

Thematic lessons and activities, final project-one week lessons on a theme

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will develop one week of thematic activities encompassing all skill areas for their intended class level using authentic materials.

Topics

• Instructional design
• Fitting lessons and activities into a thematic unit
• Final project

Module Nine

Final words, comments grades, preparing and packing for your first teaching job, preparing for culture shock

 

Learning Objectives

1. Students will be aware of the stages of culture shock.
2. Students will compose an essay on what they have learned in the course.

Topics

• Final words
• Comments grades
• Preparing and packing for your first teaching job
• Preparing for culture shock