Video review of Week 1

Hello, and welcome to our end of week 1 review. I’m Monica. I’m Marie Therese Hello, everyone. Welcome. And we’ve got people from all over the world on the course, haven’t we? All over. All over the world. We’ve got lots and lots of people from India, lots of people from Brazil, but people from more exotic places like the Philippines. All over. Really and truly. And we had that answer garden thing in the course, and people have just put up where they’re from, and if you go to that step, you can see it. See where people are– exactly.

And also, if you read the comments on the step, you see that we have people changing career– I think someone called Keith, he was an IT specialist. He’s going to travel and teach English. We’ve got other people who are thinking about changing something in their life. And someone called Linda said she wanted to take the plunge. She hoped she could take the plunge. We invite you all to take the plunge and start teaching English. But also, we’re got lots of experienced teachers as well– Lots of experienced teachers. –people who were saying they want to do the course as a refresher. Somebody was preparing for TKT exam, and they’re doing this as a way of increasing their knowledge about TKT.

We have people preparing for CELTA. A lot of people are preparing for CELTA. Now why is it important– why is it useful to do this course if people are preparing for CELTA? Well, I think it helps you at least get to know the terminology that we use in CELTA courses a lot and in EFL a lot. Also, it gives you kind of like a basic grounding, I think. You know, the kind of methodology that we use and a little bit of language awareness, because later in the course, I think in week 3 or week 4, we do a bit of grammar and vocabulary pronunciation stuff and how to teach it.

So I think it gives you a nice little sort of introduction or foundation. People who have done the course before doing CELTA on previous courses have said it was invaluable, haven’t they? Yeah, yeah. And really helped them get a good start. Yeah. I’ve met a few, actually, because I’ve gone to assess courses. And actually I had somebody on one course that walked in on the first day– she said, “You’re Marie Therese. I saw you on the video.” But not everyone’s preparing for CELTA. No, no. Of course not. Some people are doing the course for professional development. Munira mentioned that she was going to share what she learned with colleagues. Oh, fantastic.

And I put a comment saying, well, why don’t you do the course with colleagues. Do the course together, and then you can talk about what you’ve learned, and talk about the steps and learning on the course. So we encourage you to kind of work with other people. Good idea. And did you learn a foreign language? I did. I– well– It’s hard, isn’t it? It is so hard. Every course, we try to learn a foreign language, because we like to do to ourselves what we make you do. And lots of you commented on how difficult it was to learn a phrase in the language that you don’t know. So I thought this time I would have a go at learning Hindi.

And I did Hindi, as well. Well, that was just amazing, wasn’t it? Yeah. We’ve turned into mind readers, haven’t we? So I looked at Hindi because it was a nice short phrase to learn and I thought I could remember it. And it’s [SPEAKING HINDI] [SPEAKING HINDI] And we think that’s “My name is Monica.” And then I learned, [SPEAKING HINDI] which means– I think it means “How are you?” How are you, yeah. But unfortunately, I don’t know how to reply. [LAUGHTER] Oh, we’ll have to ask– mine was Deepa and the other ladies on the course. Perhaps somebody could tell us how to say, “I’m fine, thanks.”

[LAUGHTER] It was really the idea of having that step on the course just to make us empathise, really, with the learners about how hard it is to learn a foreign language. We also had stuff about motivation this week. Lots of really interesting comments from everybody, really, about their own motivation. Yeah, so I think people think about how they learn languages and what motivated them– or what demotivated them. Yeah, true. Lots of people said standing up in front of the class and reading out loud was horrible, and all the eyes were on them and they didn’t have confidence. Or a teacher that talks all the time. You know, that didn’t allow the people to talk.

If there’s no pair or group– or group work. A lovely story from Stella, who said– who had a lovely mother. I have to tell you about– –Stella’s mother. Her mother used to read books to her, like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the child version. Oh, OK. And I think the one was Treasure Island. And another one was about a girl who kept getting into trouble. But they were in Stella’s native language– and sorry, Stella I don’t know what that was, but her mother would translate it with her. Wow.

So she grew up with her mother kind of reading stories and translating from one language to the other, and that’s how she learned to love English, and what motivated– OK, so she’s bilingual, probably. Yeah. But then we went on, didn’t we, to talk about how we as teachers can motivate our learners. Yes, and we had some really, really interesting and good ideas, and I made a note of a few. So Susie Thompson talked about the need for a variety of activities, and also having activities where they get the learners up and walking about. And I couldn’t agree more, especially with young learners– getting them up and doing songs and games and having quizzes and that sort of thing.

Works for adults as well. People often say, adults don’t play games. Well, I’m sorry. I do. And also, I had noted a comment from Isabel, who, her idea for maintaining motivation is to invite somebody into the classroom. And I think that’s a really good idea. I mean even somebody who has experience– maybe they’ve visited a country or something like that. Get them in, let the learners ask them questions and that sort of thing. And I think that’s a really, really good idea. She said it had to be a native speaker, but I think it could be anybody. Anyone, yeah. Just anybody that speaks good enough English to be understood.

Most people learn English now to communicate with other people who are learning English too– So it’s becoming an international language. Sure. Just get rid of idea you have to have native speakers. And I had one more, which was from Sumaya, who is working, I think, in Bahrain in the Middle East somewhere and she talks about the need for practise. And I think that’s a really, really– Yeah, vital. –really, really vital thing. And she talks about if you don’t have practise, she said it flies in one ear and out of the other. So that’s a good point

Yeah, and we’ll be coming to talk 00:06:04.990 –> 00:06:06.280 align:middle line:90% about that later in the course. Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of people mentioned the importance of learning names. I think Edgar was the person who first mentioned it. And some of you have got very large classes. And do you remember the name of the person who had to learn 300 names? Was it Jose? Was it Julio? Julio. Julio. 300 names, and we were all very excited to read that. I think it would take me a long time to learn 300 names. To learn 300 names, absolutely. Absolutely. But it is very important. If someone knows your name, you feel valued, you feel acknowledged, don’t you? Yeah. Makes a big difference.

Also for discipline, I think. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We’re not going to talk about discipline now. That comes in classroom management, but very important that you know people’s names. And it makes them feel special as well. Yeah. So that’s it, really. Last things for this week? We normally have a quote of the week. Yeah, I’ve got a quote of the week. Everybody ready? So my quote of the week is from Beatrice, and Beatrice says, “Knowing a language is very different from knowing how to teach it.” And I think that we’re going to come back and talk a lot more about that. Because people keep saying, do I need a qualification? And I think the answer’s yes. Yes, OK.

My question of the week is from Ivana and Ivana– lots of you talked about the importance of having a good classroom rapport, good classroom environment, creating a place that people want to be. And Ivana said that creating rapport was like building a bridge– so building a bridge to the learners. So that was was a really nice thing. Very nice. And finally, we normally have a country profile, don’t we? Yeah, and this week it’s Spain. So lots of people expressed an interest in working in Spain, perhaps, and so we got one of our teachers in Spain to write a little thing about what it’s like to be a teacher in Spain.

And that’s going to be put up on the step It’s on the step. Exactly. Exactly. OK. There’s a Word document. Just click on the document. OK. So that’s it for this week. We hope you have a nice weekend, and we’ll see you next week, and we’ll be starting off by answering your questions. Yup. Goodbye, everyone. Bye-bye. Have a lovely weekend.