The TEFL Specialist

Engaging

From the start, it is critical to engage with learners. This is not just about building rapport, but genuinely wanting to understand individuals, and their fears, hopes, expectations, weaknesses, strengths and learning objectives and outcomes.

From an understanding of learners as people and individuals, we can more effectively author and provide bespoke learner learning, and so targeted, intelligent and powerful support.

Enabling

Enabling learners through a rigorous and robust academic understanding of the basic language building blocks, alongside developing learner learning skills; and developing transferable academic skills and knowledge.

Empowering

There are several component parts here.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, are affective factors and building self-belief, confidence and inspiring aspiration.

Secondly, is the academic consolidation of second language acquisition skills and specific English language knowledge, skills, expertise, and competency.

Thirdly, is a focus on consolidating all four standalone and integrated English language reading, writing, listening, and speaking, alongside wider learner learning and transferable academic skill.

Finally, the judicious withdrawing of direct and indirect, formal and informal scaffolding frameworks

The mission objective here is to help learners become independent; and to shift the teaching and learning focus more towards facilitation and supported self-learning, praxis and critical self-reflection.

Enriching

The English language is an amazing and rich language, and its teaching affords those of us who see it as a passion and vocation an opportunity to use English language teaching as a catalyst for and door to a spectrum of rewarding and enriching special topics such as literature, and the wider humanities and arts, as well as STEM.

Perhaps more importantly, ELT affords learners an amazing opportunity to individually explore topics, subjects and areas of personal interest.

English and Educational

Whilst we call it English language training, we must never forget the importance of the wider educational context within which ELT sits. As professionals, we have a moral and ethical imperative to also fulfil wider educational, as well as personal and professional development, purposes and obligations’ assuring that through our teaching we allow learners to fulfil their fullest academic, personal, and professional potential.

Experiences

Underwriting and assuring all our ELT is the importance of delivering an educational, learning and ELT experience. This is not shorthand, nor an excuse, for substituting high-impact, high value learning with lightweight, fun focused activities. Rather, it is about delivering for learners a genuine added value teaching and learning experience, one that requires that both learners, as we as professional practitioners, go the extra mile. Nor is it a case of deploying different methodologies per se. It is more about the ‘academic’ and ‘learning’ experience, and focuses on the culture, context, ecosystem, and environment within which teaching, and learning is conducted, using the widest possible range of sources and activities. From museums and galleries, theatre and film, and special one-off topics; through ICT, digital and online frameworks, to LRC’s, study groups and learner buddies, a holistic approach is required where the sum is greater than the parts.