Case studies: English as a foreign language teacher: Sara Clarke

Sara gained a BA (Hons) in History some years ago and, as a chartered librarian, has worked in library and information services in various sectors. In order to gain more flexibility, she completed a CELTA course with an aim to becoming a freelance teacher of English as a foreign language.

Four years ago, when I moved to Scotland from London, I needed a new challenge and opted for a one-month intensive CELTA course.

I gave up my job working as an information officer in the academic sector because I wanted more flexibility after working full time for many years. I became a volunteer teacher of EFL at the University Women's Club and I teach the wives and partners of visiting PhD students and academics for 1.5 hours, once a week. I usually teach the advanced group of between three to eight students.

I had heard about the group and was particularly interested as I have been in the position myself of living abroad and feeling isolated.

It was necessary to have the teaching qualification in order to teach with this group. All the teachers in the group have various EFL teaching qualifications.

Preparation for a lesson might take an hour or two, or a full day. I always make a timed lesson plan that I try to stick to. Typically, this might start with a warm-up, then we might move on to phrasal verbs, where I try to elicit the meaning of a limited number of phrases from the learners, then put them into examples through a pre-prepared short play or story. Thirdly, we might move on to an everyday reading comprehension exercise by using newspaper articles or something I've downloaded from the web. This nearly always leads to an interesting discussion. We never finish too early!

The last ten months have helped develop my confidence. As far as the future is concerned, I have identified a need within the university sector for overseas students who hope to stay on and work for a limited period in the UK, as they are currently entitled to do, but whose level of spoken English and familiarity with the UK working environment is limited. I hope to run one or two specialist courses each academic term, although preparation for these will be challenging, as will finding an appropriate venue.

Although I am nowhere near retirement yet, I envisage that as a freelance teacher of EFL, I can continue working as long as I want to.

I love meeting students from many different cultures and enjoy their enthusiastic contributions to the lessons. There is a lot of shared humour involving everyday situations which we can all relate to, but it is necessary to be sensitive and respectful of the culture of other people too.

I would suggest choosing a well respected qualification if you are considering TEFL as a career rather than as a way to spend your gap year. With increased experience you can progress within the sector to the DELTA, which prepares you for higher positions within TEFL.

AGCAS

Sourced by AGCAS editors

Date: 

August 2010

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