How to TEFL; a peek into the TEFL classroom

If you've never taught before, the idea of stepping into a TEFL class can be daunting. Perhaps the fear of the unknown might even stop you from taking a leap into EFL teaching. In that case, read on to see what a sneaky peek of a real TEFL class can reveal...

A typical TEFL lesson
I better start by saying no two TEFL classrooms are the same but let's imagine the following is a typical EFL lesson. Now let's observe and see what's going on inside. Watch part of this  TEFL class and notice:
1) How are students seated?
2) Who is doing most of the talking?
3) What does this tell you about TEFL methods?

Hopefully you'll have noticed the following....
1) The students aren't seated in rows. Why?In TEFL, we try to seat our students in a horseshoe shape rather than in formal line or rows. The reason why we do this will tell you much about TEFL methodology. In the typical TEFL classroom the buzzwords are 'communicative language teaching'. This means encouraging the students to communicate and therefore practice and become more proficient at the language. This means the class is laid out in a way that encourages peer-to-peer communication and student to teacher communication. Chairs can be easly moved for pair/group work.
No-one is lurking at the back away from it all. Everyone can turn to talk to their neighbour or the teacher easily.

2) The students are talking much more - the teacher is saying less than I thought
This follows on from the above point; the idea is to get students communicating and practising the language.
The teacher's role is often to introduce the theme or language point then have a variety of tasks the students can do in pairs/groups/individually to practice what has been taught. They will try to 'elicit' responses from students where possible instead of just telling all the time.
We tend to think of teachers leading from the front all the time. In fact, the best TEFL teachers can stand back once the students know what they have to practice/create/do.

A common error new teachers make is to talk too much. Remember, if you're talking, the students aren't!

3) Conclusion
Getting students active in the lesson and engaging in learning English are absolute TEFL musts. This explains the horsehose layout, the amount of time teachers talk and the way students are often organised into groups/pairs to maximise student communication time.

'Communicative language teaching' is in play whatever we teach, whether practising reading, writing, speaking, listening or grammar. It informs everything we do in the modern TEFL class.
When I started training to teach EFL, I couldn't get over the way this communicative  method differed from the way I was taught French at school. It was more fun and interactive; engaged students seemed to learn better.

I hope you've enjoyed this insight into TEFL begun to understand a little of what it is all about. Of course there is more to teaching English effectively than where we seat Angelina and Frederico! But this communicative mindset forms the basis of our approach to teaching.

A good TESOL/TEFL training course will equip you completely for your own classroom -  but  if you want more of an insight or have any TEFL related questions, email me and I'll be happy to help.