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The most important thing I gained from this course is how incredibly complex the english language is. As a native speaker, I have a natural propensity to think that english is quite simple and will be easy to teach. This course demonstrated to me that this is far from the case. The various units made me realize "This is going to be hard to teach!" Some of the most effective questions throughout were the ones that said "How would you teach this to a non-native speaker?" That's a great question! How do you demonstrate the passive voice to someone who has never been exposed to it? I think that this course has allowed me to really reflect on the difficulty of learning english and has allowed me to be prepared for difficulty in explanation when I begin to teach it rather than taking the level of difficulty for granted. The course got me to really dig deep into my creativity and helped me realize that I must take a step back and learn to explain the language in as simple of words as possible. The course also was a very welcome refresher on essential aspects of english grammar. I definitely needed to be reminded about all the various past, present, and future tenses, for I have not focused on these tenses in well over a decade. I also gained a lot of tremendous ideas for teaching various materials. There were several great suggestions in each unit of different games/activities that can effectively demonstrate the material, and these recommendations will be a great resource when I am actually in the classroom. Finally, I feel that arguably the most important thing I gained from this class was how to structure an ESL class. The lesson plans were intimidating at first, but once I understood the rational structure behind the straight-arrow/boomerang lessons (I am still not sold on Patchwork lessons), they became tremendously helpful. I would likely have made my classes far more open ended, but the structural recommendations make me realize that effective classes build throughout the lesson until it can all be "activated" by the end. As for putting it all into action, I plan to keep all of the PDF's from the various units on file as a solid reference. I will use many suggestions from the various units and will be sure to pre-structure every single lesson using the Lesson Plan Templates. But really it all comes down to a mentality shift. This course has truly changed my mentality about TEFL, and that is something that does not need to be consciously put into practice- it is now a part of me. I now realize how difficult the language is, and because of that realization, I will be more willing and able to come to all of the students' needs and not pass them off as insignificant. There is nothing more frustrating than being confused about an aspect of a new language, but there is nothing more rewarding than firmly grasping a new aspect of a new language. I will be sure that all my students err on the side of the latter and find my class tremendously rewarding and beneficial.
