Over the last 5 days we completed a TESOL certificate through the Australasian Training Academy. TESOL, which stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, is a fundamental course which teaches the necessary skills to teach English in foreign countries.

Whilst, the course was crammed into 20 hours, with homework and presentation preparation during after hours, the course was still a lot of fun. Generally, the course was centered around teaching children, with some brief mention of adult students. One of the memorable techniques taught is the Rassias method, invented by Professor John Rassias, which teaches students a foreign language through a form of theoretical learning.

The highlights were group presentations, where we had to create and execute a 15 minute lesson for children. These lessons were in a non-English language, which gave both the student teachers and students an idea of how teaching and learning a foreign language felt.

Sonya’s group taught the class five words in Mandarin, and my group taught the class four words in Spanish. The teaching predominantly consisted of Flash-cards and various children’s games, all which the adult students seemed to enjoy immensely.

More photos from the group presentations can be found here.