Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / September 2004

What is TEFL, TOEFL?

Do you really, really, really, want to get up one day knowing you have to
face a class of students after just 48 hours teacher training?  Especially
in Germany, where students take great pleasure in exposing teachers with a
lower level of knowledge of how the language works than they have
themselves (you may be a native speaker, but you haven't learnt the
mechanics of English like these guys have).  These people don't take
prisoners.  And do you want to be crap at what you do for a living?

A weekend course is a waste of time and (usually a fair amount of) money.  
You won't learn anything useful and the sort of people who'd give you a
job on the strength of it wouldn't be worth working for (cf Groucho Marx
and clubs).

Take a couple of months and take a part-time CELTA.  Munich British
Council will sort you out with a decent centre:-

British Council InfoPoint
Herzog-Heinrich-Str. 7
Erdgeschoss rechts
80336 München

Coming next; weekend introduction to Brain Surgery.

DC