Just finished 120 hr course, so what happens next ?

I found it very helpful to do some volunteer teaching in Bristol before I left.  There are many community funded classes with people from different countries and different levels and I found that the teachers were only too happy to have a classroom assistant.  That way I was able to observe a teacher doing their job and also do some teaching myself.

Also, it looks good on your CV and in interviews.

Hi Erin, i would be interested in these free courses you mentioned, so where, when are they ?

Paul

Hi i just wanted to thank everybody for their replies. Much appriciated and very helpfull... Oh by the way.. its Thailand where im looking to work. I've been living in Thailand for nearly 2 years now, and i have a good understanding of thye schools here and their teaching methods, what they expect etc

Paul

Hi there,

I can see you've received some great advice! You may also like to take a look at the article 'I've finished my TEFL course....what next?' here:
http://www.onlinetefl.com/tefl-chalkboard/i-to-i/posts/7947-ive-finished-my-tefl-course-what-next

Regarding your concerns, some schools actually provide an initial training period to help settle you into the job. It may be of use to use the free recourses on offer on our website when you begin teaching as many i-to-i graduates have told us they found these useful.

Oh, and good luck with the job search :)

You can be prepared for the unprepared lessons, by basically having some easily adaptable games. In one of the classes I didn't have the books for today I was supposed to be teaching capital letters and full stops to 4 1/2 year olds. I ran through capital letters and lower case letters, writing both on the board. I then brought out one of my favourite games (just as an idea of how often I'm unprepared, I've been teaching these kids  months, and this is the first time I've used it with them), which is that I draw  sides on the board, then shout out a thing, and they have to circle it. I drew the lowed and capital case of letters A-G (making sure the Cs were near each other so they could see which was bigger) on each side of the board. I then split the kids into teams and yelled out "capital f" or "lower case b" and the first team to circle it got a point. We played two rounds and this took up a 40 minute lesson with the explanation at the start and a long argument with a kindergartener about where he was sitting, which it would have been better not to have! Anyways, this game is really easy to adapt for any vocab words you want them to recognise, some grammar ("circle a noun, circle a question, circle a period, circle the answer that is in the right tense to answer this question") and can be made easier or more difficult ("circle the word cat" "circle the picture of a cat" and "circle the furry thing with 4 legs which goes meow" are all formats I've used for that game). Like I said, it's a favourite, use mine or get your own, but having a few golden classes that you know you can whip out and at least try is going to make your life a lot easier (I had a class first thing today that I didn't think I'd have, observed by all the parents, with no markers and  kids who spoke no English and I'd never met before, that was awesome!).

I agree with Briona wholeheartedly on 4, I wouldn't go freelance until I had lived and taught in the country for at least 18 months, and by then a lot of your questions will have been answered. 

As for teaching something for which you aren't prepared... you'll do it, you'll do fine! Hopefully it won't be every lesson, but even as a new teacher you will have to do it once in a while. It possibly depends on where you teach, but I know my school is one of the most organised, but we still had no books for pm classes today (first day of the new year). There were 4 brand new teachers at the school and none of them have quit yet :D Being flexible is really important. Sometimes you will have prepared to the teeth but, it just won't be working for that class. There will be a moment where you either snap at all the kids (which I've done) or go "meh, we'll cover more next lesson, this isn't working! I think the rest of today’s lesson has to be dedicated to Simon Says/Hang Man/Pictionary/circle the word on the board/20 questions or any other time killing game in your repertoire that takes up the 20 or so minutes you have left of class. This is the exception and not the rule, but it is generally far, far better that your kids (or adults) walk out of your class having practiced an old language point than walk out thinking "I didn't understand anything and I got yelled at :(". 

I don't know where you want to work, but many countries in the world have a different level of notice that they like to give you before they change everything! In Korea, it can be about 30 minutes, in other countries I'm sure it can be less :D

Answers to your questions depend very much on where you are teaching, not just the country or town/city but the specific school. Since you haven't said where, these are just general responses based on my experience in Vietnam, Portugal and Poland.

1) If you have a standby slot (covering for absent teachers), you will more than likely have to teach something for which you are not fully prepared. Assuming you had a course book, you would work directly from that using the teacher's book for guidance. If you didn't have a course book you would look at what the class had done last lesson and do some revision and, if the teacher had a yearly plan, you could follow that.

2) If you started a job at the beginning of an academic year, you would probably also be starting from the beginning of the course book. If you joined a school mid-year, the school would tell you which page to start working from.

3) Many schools have set course books, but there are plenty of others who don't. You may be asked to design a yearly plan, e.g., week 1, Unit 1.1, week 2, Unit 1.2, etc. Though the school may already have done it for you.

4) I really don't know people with no experience think starting out as freelancers or opening their own schools is a good idea! It's not just your lack of teaching experience or curriculum planning that would be a problem - ask yourself what you know about opening a business in X country! Should you decide to go the freelance route, you would need to conduct a needs analysis with your students. This would give you some idea of what level they were and what they hoped to achieve. You would then plan a course to suit. There is no point in recommending course books as there is no one-size-fits-all series. Students around the world have very different motivations and learning styles and course books are written/adapted to suit.