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In this course, I gained invaluable knowledge and skills needed for a would-be EFL teacher. The course covered many important aspects including classroom management, planning lessons, choosing a course book and using it effectively, in addition to revision of basic grammar and phonetics that I am likely going to encounter in my teaching career. I have learned that being a good teacher has much more than having the skills and knowledge necessary for carrying out a teacher`s duties. Teaching is also about making the lessons fun and varied, catering for students interests, motivating and encouraging students to learn, giving a balance between studying and activities, and making the classroom an inducing environment to learn. The engage-study-activate in its different styles was one of the teaching methodologies that I know I will be applying to make my lessons interesting, balanced and organized. I also learnt that establishing rapport with the students is of a supreme importance in keeping the students motivated and participating actively in the class. The course offered lots of advice and tips on how to establish rapport in the classroom. Teaching english and achieving the objectives of an EFL course require careful planning for individual lessons as well as for the whole course. There was?rightfully ? a great emphasis on lesson planning in this course. Planning a lesson helps the teacher ? especially an inexperienced one like me- to be well-prepared for a lesson and to know what to expect during the lesson, and how to achieve the learning objective. From a personal experience, having a lesson plan helped me be more confident when I gave my first supervised lesson. I felt totally in control of what I was teaching. It also helped me a lot in time management. I intend to use the same lesson plan format provided in the course for future lessons ? at least for the first few weeks. In this course, I learnt the criterion of selecting a course book if I am in a position of making such a decision. If the course book is already decided, I learnt how to utilize the course book effectively, and why it is important not to depend on it exclusively for teaching. I learnt the importance of using resource books, or creating my own material in order to better respond to students` needs and interests. I also learnt that knowing the students` needs, goals, and aspirations can be very helpful for the teacher in choosing and preparing suitable materials to be used in the course. Therefore, a needs analysis ?based on the sample given in the course- can be used to deduce the needs and goals of the students, and then design the course and syllabus in a way that caters for them. I learnt the use of different teaching aids, the pros and cons for each, and things to consider when use each of the teaching aids in the class. Throughout the course, there were many useful online links that offer materials for EFL teaching. So far I used these links in some of the tasks, and I know that for sure I will also be using them especially when it comes to preparing communicative games or comprehension exercises such as gap fills and word searches. Very helpful websites indeed! Finally, tips on how to deal with special groups (i.e. young learners and business english) were covered in a clear and simple way. If I am to teach either of the above groups, I now have an insight of what to expect, how to be prepare, and how to deal with problems if they arise. Because my ultimate personal aim is to teach young learners, I found the material given on unit 20 particularly very useful in this regard.
