TEFL open evening in London - April 09
Wednesday, 22nd April 2009
The TEFL open evening held on 17th April 09 marked a new era in these events for us. For the first time in many years, it did not take place at its usual venue - the Guardian’s newsrooms in Farringdon.
The reason for this was the recent relocation of the newspaper’s operations to a new premises, and despite offering us a lovely venue for many years the replacement that we found was equally as nice and more than suitable for our needs.
This event was held at Eurocentres’ Language school in Victoria, which is extremely convenient for anyone travelling in or into London. We were very well looked after there and intend to use this venue in future as a new home of the Cactus TEFL evenings.
As usual, the evening was fully booked. Scores of people came along to learn more about TEFL and TEFL courses and to get advice on how to put their plans into action. In a change to the normal itinerary, the evening kicked off with a useful and interesting overview of where you can teach EFL, and how best to go about finding a job by Saxoncourt Recruitment’s Ben Robinson.
Following on from this, Cactus TEFL’s Jenny Johnson and Laura Harrison went through the various types of courses available, and how to choose the best one for you. Included in the run-down of course types was Cactus TEFL’s very own English Language Awareness course, now recommended by many training organisations as an essential part of the preparation for a TEFL course. Some pesky grammar questions for the audience to ponder left a few people scratching their heads in confusion, and surprised to learn that an ‘infinitive’ does not mean ‘something that lasts a long time‘!
Next up were Trinity College London’s Head of TESOL, Jenny Pugsley, and Conrad Heynes, one of Cambridge ESOL’s most experienced teacher trainers and assessors. Both gave insightful information on the benefits of doing one of these four week courses, along with other important factors to take into consideration when you sign up. Also included were interesting statistics on who takes these courses, and where they end up.
Last to speak was Garth Cadden, head of teacher training at St Giles’ Russell Square school. His excellent teaching and training skills were demonstrated by a mini lesson in pronunciation, which was perfect for showing just how much there is to learn about teaching EFL, and why it’s so important to get some proper training before you set foot in the classroom.
At the end of the evening three lucky winners were picked from the prize draw. The fantastic first prize was a free CELTA course donated by the evening’s sponsors, St Giles, second prize was Cactus’ very own new and exciting online TEFL course and third prize was a free English Language Awareness course. Congratulations again to all the winners, and best of luck with your courses!
Tags: tesol, cactus tefl, celta, efl, cactus, tefl, english
Posted by Laura Harrison 2009-04 under In the news,
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