I am an isolated teacher, how can I continue training?

[Hermione38]

Hi Lucy,
I've been teaching English now for the past 5 years - adults of various levels, mainly business as I have a business background.
I did a TEFL course by mail to get started and have never been observed. There are a few areas like methodology and planning that I feel unsure on plus I'd like to 'take the next step' in teaching. Can you recommend any courses? I'm living and working in Southern Germany and am not that flexible, as I have a young daughter.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Lucy]

Hi Hermione,

I think it's great that you're considering more training. You'll learn so much and have renewed enthusiasm for teaching.

What is the level of the first TEFL course you did? It will help me give you some ideas about the next step to take.

In the meantime, you could also look at this post I wrote some time ago:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12

All the best,

Lucy

[Hermione38]

Hi Lucy,
Thanks for your quick answer. One problem is that I'm pretty isolated here, not much chance (or time) for 'exchanging'.
The first course I did was a correspondence TEFL.
What I think I need is some sort of observed teaching - any ideas?

[Lucy]

Dear Hermione,

I'm guessing that your initial course was at Certificate level or maybe a taster before the actual Cert. That's really why I asked the question in my earlier post.

For people who wish to get observed teaching practice, I normally suggest finding a willing colleague. It helps if the colleague is more experienced or more qualified than yourself but less experienced colleagues can also make excellent comments and contributions. I'm afraid I don't know how you can get observed teaching practice if you are isolated. The only thing I can suggest is talking it over with a teacher of any subject; is there anybody else at all? Another good way to learn about teaching is to sign up for a course in any subject at all. You'll learn by observing your own teacher. Recently, I've learnt Spanish, singing and self-defence and I learnt something about teaching from all of my teachers. But then you said you don't have time...

The only other thing I can say to somebody who is isolated and doesn't have time is to keep in touch with sites such as this. Maybe write in again when you do have some time.

Lucy