Why TEFL?

• ESL – English as a Second Language – Students learn English in their own English-speaking country. For example, a Mexican immigrant learns English in the USA.
• EFL – English as a Foreign Language – Students learn English in their own countries. For example, a student in Spain takes classes there.
• CELTA – Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults – This is Cambridge’s Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
• TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages – This is another term for this profession.
• TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language – This is the one that you want to be certified in to teach English. TEFL is the most widely recognized

• Certificate in the ESL profession and this is the one that Canterbury English has been offering for over twenty years!

A TEFL Certificate is a Gateway to Travel and Adventure

• A TEFL Certificate is your gateway to the adventure of living in another country, as it will give you a job to support yourself in the country of your choice. Most English schools require you to have a TEFL certificate in order to hire you. Many students of our program have first taught in Madrid for us, then after a year or so they have moved on to other countries around the world. There are few nations on the globe that don’t have Canterbury English TEFL graduates teaching in schools, academies and freelance!

Where do TEFL graduates teach?

• The teach in English academies such as Canterbury English, language schools and state and private schools, as well as in-companies. There is a variety of ways to work: Schools offer contracts, no contracts, freelance, part time and full time work, small groups, large groups, one-to-one with children, adults and companies. You may know the language that the students speak or you may not, it is not necessary to speak it to teach English.

Teaching TEFL entails the following:

• You help students learn the English language in a dynamic and interesting way that helps them assimilate the language faster, so that they can communicate in English, which is their final goal.

What are the main goals of students?

• 1. Converse in English.
• 2. Prepare for school exams.
• 3. Get a better job.
• 4. Communicate with colleagues in other countries
• 5. Communicate in English on vacation in a different country
• 6. Although these are some of the main reasons, often each student you ask adds another personal reason onto the list.

What are the Typical Goals of Students Learning English?

• In general students want to improve the basic language skills which are: speaking, listening, writing and reading and the TEFL trained teacher should focus his/her lesson plans and classes to stimulate these four key areas of the language. Teachers should have at their disposal an array of tools that the English teaching profession provides: course books, audio-visual materials, newspapers, games, role-plays, dialogues, songs, literature, art, pop-culture, football and a long etc. The key is to find out what your student is interested in and then that will help you focus the class. For example, if you have a student who is a novel writer and is a highly cultured person, then use literature, poetry, art, songs and the cultural section of an British or American newspaper rather than the football section of the Guardian! But an article in English on the latest Real Madrid vs Barça might work really well with a taxi driver who wants to improve his English to be able to talk with his international clients. Everything depends on what makes your student tick! You can find that out during the first few classes and then this information will help you plan lessons, which they will be interested in, and they will progress faster because of the enthusiasm you have generated in them.