Last night after work I stayed behind in the office and decided to tackle my Checkpoint Two of my TEFL which is on Grammar basics. All I can say is, "WOW!" I studied English all the way up until A-Level and I can honestly say there is loads of terminology that I didn't learn all through my school years and my grammar is not as good as I thought it was. Quite a difficult pill to swallow, however it had made me realise that I really need to brush up on my subject knowledge of English. Checkpoint Two was divided into 3 parts and I got: Part 1 - 103/114 Part 2 - 68/84 Part 3 - 45/52 Not bad all in all, however it did take a lot of thinking in some areas. I think a lot of people who have the idea, "Oh I wanna teach English abroad, it'll be easy cause I speak English..." will actually get the shock of their lives when they realise that it's not all that straight forward as it seems. There's quite a lot you need to know and whilst it'll probably get easier as it goes on, it will always be a good idea to know what you're talking about. What if a student asks you a question and you can't answer them? It would be cringe worthy for sure. Either way, I passed Checkpoint Two so I'm pretty happy about that but I know I need to keep practising so I become more confident with it. I think I'm going to buy some decent grammar books to help me a long the way.
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cassie1987’s Blog
Checkpoint Two...
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- cassie1987 I'm Cassie, a 23 year old from Manchester, United Kingdom. I have...
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Some grammar though, I don't teach. I teach a conversation class (not a exam prep class, or I would teach it). For example, I have one book that tells students to use "whom" when they use who as an object (for example, "Whom are you going to invite?"), but honestly, who uses that? I don't know any NES who uses "Whom" on a regular basis!! In fact, I had to google to get an example sentence! Grammar is really important, don't get me wrong. Nothing can make your students sound worse than saying their sentences backwards and in the wrong tense (and it is often important for meaning, for example a drama title in Korea directly translates to "princess of man" but when you apply some grammar rules more accurately translates to "man of princess" or "Princess' man"), but if you don't use the rule, don't teach it (unless you are like me and Paul and have to teach American grammar and Americans use the rule or you are teaching to an exam).
PDixon
That sounds like very good advice about the books and so on. I may take you up on that also.
generally speak, most people that are native speakers cannot speak english well... its because we pick up a life time of habits, mixed in with dialects and the fact we dont need to know all the terminologies or correct words to be understood... hence why most native speakers are the worst at grammar for their own language...
luckily, there are grammar books, dictionaries etc that are all very useful to have around... i have an iphone and on it i have an American Dictionary - for the simple reason that here in japan i am suppose to use american terminology, pronunciation and words... no matter how much american TV ive watched it doesnt help being a notherner from England... so dont be ashamed to have some good books on your desk (or ipad/phone/eReader) etc.
Good luck Chloe, at least we all know we are having problems with the same area, so it can't just be 'us' being thickies can it??? lol
I've just started section one of checkpoint 2, and although I read and re-wrote everything from the learning resources I'm still finding it hard to get my head around grammar! It's crazy to think that all the years of studying it at school it's just not as simple as it used to be! Haha!
I'm just taking the checkpoint at a steady pace and thinking hard about the answers. Hopefully that's a winning method!
Good luck on the next checkpoint guys!
Chloe x
LOL Yes I've hear it's a toughie too, I don't think I will be rushing it, I really want to start understanding these tenses, so yeah you're right reptition is the only way I think. (Unless someone can point us towards a simpler way??...please!!)
Good luck to you too :)
Hi Nikki,
I'm exactly the same! The tenses are killing me! I've been trying to drill them into my brain and I understand the concept of them but when it comes to being given a sentence and asked to say whether it's present perfect continuous etc I go blank!
I think repeated practice is the only thing that will help me in this case as by then I'll have it worked out... Hopefully.
Good luck with the next checkpoint! I heard it's pretty hard so I'm bracing myself for it!
Hiya Cassie,
I understand where you're coming from, I am certain I never learn most of that stuff in school 30 + years ago.
I passed easily the 1st part, ok on the 2nd part, but failed the 3rd part then passed the 2nd try, but only just.
The problem is, I still feel like I am relying on getting my answers from the resources we are given leading up to the checkpoint, rather than being able to think (and understand it myself) so I don't know how I am going to be able to retain it.
I am still struggling with tenses and past/present participle, I just can't get it straight in my head in a simple way...but maybe there isn't one!
There is a lot of stuff on the internet, and I can read until the cows come home but for some reason (old age I expect) It just isn't sinking in GRRR!!
Pleased to have it out the way, but not pleased that I don't feel confident I actually know it!
LOL I'm sure it will get easier over time, hope so :)
Well done by the way :)
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