The Trinity Certificate TESOL course is for people who want an internationally recognised qualification and an intensive up-to-date and practical course of teacher training. Below is an outline of the main features of the course. If you still have some questions, contact us or check our Frequently Asked Questions section.

Before the course starts

When you enrol for a course (following a successful face-to-face or telephone interview), we will send you a substantial pre-course task, designed to raise your awareness of teaching methodology and the grammar and phonology of English. Depending on your prior knowledge, this can take anything up to 20 hours to complete. You will be asked to refer to How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer (Longman), an excellent introduction to language teaching, and complete some tasks which will be handed in (but not assessed) at the start of the course.

Timetable

A typical course timetable follows, although there may be some variation:

Input session 1: 11.00 - 12.00
Input session 2: 12.15 - 13.15
Input session 3: 13.30 - 14.30

Preparing to teach: 16.00 - 16.45
Teaching practice (TP): 16.45 - 18.30
Feedback on TP: 18.30 - 19.30

The school is open earlier in the morning and later than this at night for you to prepare classes and work on assignments. You will work hard during the course and some of your days will be long. However, you will enjoy plenty of support from your tutors, staff at OxfordTEFL and fellow trainees. Much of the success of the Cert. TESOL is due to the high level of rapport, co-operation and friendship established on the course.

Teaching Practice

The practical nature of the course is emphasised from the very beginning. Trainees are divided into teaching practice groups on the first day and begin their teaching practice on the second. Each group is assigned a practice class of real Czech students and a teaching practice tutor. Teaching practice includes a feedback session where the teaching practice tutor discusses the lesson with you and gives you guidance on the teaching point for the following day. Halfway through the course the practice class is changed to provide trainees with an opportunity to teach classes whose English is at a different level.

Assessment of your teaching practice is continuous and is based on both your classroom teaching and your ability to reflect effectively on your own and others' teaching.

Input Sessions

We believe in learning through involvement, and students are expected to participate in many different ways during the sessions. Where necessary information will be supplied, but more commonly you will experience a workshop approach, where your tutor acts as a "facilitator/animator" rather than as a lecturer.

Teaching Skills

During these sessions you will acquire and practise a wide range of teaching skills found in mainstream current English Language Teaching. A large number of activities and areas are covered in detail and these are all of immediate practical value for planning your teaching practice lessons. Video is used in some sessions and observation of OxfordTEFL teaching staff and students provides further insights into lesson planning, staging and management.

Language Awareness

These sessions cover areas of grammar and phonology and are designed to provide trainees with a basic working knowledge of these subjects and how to teach them effectively. Trainees find these sections particularly rewarding (and challenging!), as most native speakers of English have had very little previous opportunity of studying the nuts and bolts of their own language.

You will sit a 60 minute written exam towards the end of the course, which will test your knowledge of grammar and phonology.

Learning an Unknown Language

You will participate in four language lessons in a language you have no prior experience of, taught completely in the language itself without recourse to English. This helps you put yourself in the position of a basic level learner of English and to experience communicative language teaching at first hand. Languages taught on past courses have included Czech, Arabic, Russian, Swedish, Hebrew, and Japanese.

Written Assignments

During the course 3 written assignments are set. These are:

• a record of your experience learning the unknown language (see above),
• a case study of one of your students with a diagnosis of their language difficulties,
• a project where you create original material to be used with your learners.

Assessment

There are 5 assessed areas on the course. Your teaching practice, your 3 written assignments and your language awareness exam. Each is graded from A to D. A, B, and C are pass grades. D is a fail. You must achieve at least a C grade in all 5 assessed components to be awarded a certificate. The Materials Assignment is externally assessed by the Trinity moderator. If an assignment or your language exam is a D grade you will be given an opportunity to resubmit the assignment before the course ends, with advice on what you need to do to achieve a pass grade.

You will receive your grades on the Monday after the course has finished

Certificates

You will receive 2 certificates. Trinity College awards a certificate to all successful candidates on completion of the course. OxfordTEFL, in addition, awards a certificate with details of your grades and an outline of course content as a reference for future employers