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This course has introduced me to various aspects regarding the role of a teacher. I have learned so many new things and have been introduced to numerous new ideas which really sparked my interest and gave me a newfound appreciation for what it is like to be a teacher. Even though the course is concise and simple in nature, the information which it provided was really helpful and practical and it has given me a great set of tools which will be a great help for me as I embark in this career. It also serves as a good reference point whenever I feel the need for some guidance especially when I am just starting out in my teaching journey. The units which caught my eyes the most were the ones regarding the different teaching methods and techniques which are followed by the TEFL community. I will admit that some of the concepts were challenging for me to fully grasp mainly when it comes to its applications in the classroom, but the more thoroughly I read through them and the more practice questions I have answered, the more my level of understanding and appreciation for the materials increased. Since there is a wide range of different techniques which are available for the teacher, I found it hard to decide which technique is the best one to use, but after completing the course, I learned that there is no best or worst technique or method for teaching, but what is important is to be able to unitize all those methods and try to involve most of them throughout the course of teaching as each one has its own purpose and advantages which is an important component that leads to a full and comprehensive teaching style. I realized that in order to be able to fully master these skills and be able to apply them in my teaching, I must expose myself to more practical situations and shadow real teachers until I start to develop a sense of familiarity which will truly enable me to apply all these skills and integrate them in order to create my own unique method then slowly develop and improve it as I go along. This is because learning the skills, in theory, will just give a basic idea about what is expected and will serve as a guideline. However, if I really want to learn those skills and be able to apply them in real classes, it will require a more practical form of learning which can be achieved by giving monitored lessons under some kind of supervision which will give me a better image about my own performance and level of understanding for those skills. Another important part of being able to properly learn those skills is to know when to apply each of those skills in terms of the type of lesson topic at hand, as well as the final outcome for that lesson. In reference to the ESA (Engage, Study, Activate) format, it is crucial to be able to determine which format to follow in for a certain lesson which depends on various factors such as the length, required flow, and the depth and level of the language for that particular class. In order to do so, it requires some level of wisdom which can only be acquired by actually trying to teach with ESA as the base point, and slowly developing skills such as time management, general teaching flow, gauging the response from the students in terms of participation, and so on. While doing the course, I faced some difficulty in terms of assigning the most appropriate type of activity to each of the phases. My answers were wrong during the first set of questions, but after reviewing the sample lesson flows and task sheets, I was able to fully understand what is required for each of the phases, which enabled me to assign sets of activities to its respective phases in a better and more efficient manner. I learned that In order to have the ability to create an effective lesson, I must determine the main goal for that lesson as well as what is the objective for the use of those phases and what it can contribute to the lesson as a whole. This must be accompanied by all the other teaching skills which I have acquired from the course, as well as the skills that will be developed throughout the teaching process as I teach more and more classes and gain better knowledge about the process of teaching along the way.
