Rosie Louise Ellery

My love of languages and knowledge of Spanish led me to my first TEFL job in a high school in Madrid. I have several groups of different ages and abilities. The system in the school means that all levels are mixed for English, and so I am truly challenged. Thanks to the TEFL course, though, I felt prepared to handle such situations and have been successfully teaching all levels and ages.

It is a common misconception that in being a native English speaker, one can teach it. However this course and my experience at the school have dispelled this myth. Knowing and explaining are two very different things and the TEFL course really helped me to understand how to explain concepts that I have known my whole life. I also learned a lot about English grammar; in studying Spanish I began to understand some aspects of English grammar but studying it for TEFL was extremely helpful and I am able to explain in the detail that my students require thanks to the course.

In the classroom I’ve had hilarious moments, namely in a game that required the students to practice using comparative sentences and questions. Two students were stood back to back ready to play. The rest of the class asked questions such as “who reads more?” or “who has the nicest handwriting?”, and the two at the front had to vote for themselves or the other person. All was going well, until one student asked “who has nicer teeth?”, only he forgot the plural of tooth is teeth, and failed to pronounce ‘th’ correctly. He soon realised what he had said, as did the class, and everyone laughed.