Tag Archives: Education

The advantages of shopping around –reduced price TEFL course.

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Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) (Photo credit: SEE TEFL Teacher Training)

 

Like many other students faced with a long summer and little job prospects I wanted to use the time wisely in some beneficial way. I decided after finishing my last assignment for the year that I would like to undertake a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) course in my spare time. This would not only keep me occupied and look good on my CV but would also provide the potential for me to work abroad after completion of my degree.

Unfortunately most of the courses I looked into were over £200 which is a lot of money when you have nothing coming in. I was chatting about this problem with a fellow classmate and she suggested checking Groupon (a coupon sharing website). She had got her own course on the recommendation of a friend from the sight at only £50 for 160 hours. This inspired me to have a look for myself. Although £50 was still a lot of money it was significantly cheaper than any of the other courses I had looked into.

On the other hand this led me to wonder why this particular course was so cheap. If I bought it through the TEFL-LINK website it would cost me £560 for the same course I could buy via Groupon for just £50. I looked at the terms and conditions and found that the only thing not included in the course was the cost of postage for the certificate which would be an extra £5.

I decided the best thing to do was look for reviews of the course and the tefllink website. When these came back positive I decided to go for the much reduced course.

This made me realise that there was probably lots of potential savings on the web for things I had never even considered checking. This strengthened my resolve to check in future and try my very best not to pay more than necessary. I bookmarked groupon and moneysupermaket an am going to test them out next time I need to purchase something online.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com

My friend sent me the link for the course which is https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/special/tefl-express/22121740

And tefllink can be found at http://www.teflink.com/

I hope this helps and you save money in future too. If you know of any other great ways of saving money please do share.

Best wishes

Rachael

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Test subject A- a follow up TEFL: Finding Legitimate Companies.

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No one want to apply for a job half way across the globe, only to be short changed and have no one to turn to.

So, I’ve spent the better part of the evening looking into different companies which claim to offer jobs all over the world.

Of course sometime you can tell from just looking at the site. However, that is not always the case, from there you need to do more searching.

As is common with most companies now a days, they have twitter and facebook account, and becoming more common, having a LinkedIn page. I consider these to be good places to check. The more likes or followers they may be more trust worthy. Of course if you click on the link and the page doesn’t exist then you get away from that site.

Another good thing to look into is partnership information. If the site has the icons and names of other companies that are backing them, go look them up and see how credible they are. Some times this can be really easy, other times you are might have to search for online Australian newspapers to get information about AustChem. Even after you have seen a photo of the Australian PM at a lunch set up by the AustChem, can’t be too careful.

It’s not just sites with jobs offers to worry about. How can you work out the trustworthiness of a site that is offering TEFL courses? In this area I didn’t really do much searching. I found i-to-i from a graduate job website, so I took it as okay and I ended up doing my course with them.

I did go looking at other courses when I decided I did want to go through the process of getting TEFL qualified. Some of them again I judged on the look of the website, while others it was based on how much they were offering the online courses for. If a 120 hour course is normally around the top end of £200s and they are offering it at £60 something not right there.

Always look into a company as far as you can before applying. With doing a TEFL course you can gauge if it’s too good to be true. Whereas with the jobs the more common benefits always seem a bit too good to be true when you first go in. To me if someone offering you free accommodation, to pay for your flights there and back AND offer to pay for one round trip home, something’s always going to feel off. However, these are some common features, so it can be hard to gauge at times.

Anyone else have any tips for doing research let me know! J

Ellie aka Test Subject A.

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Resource review

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In my last post on teaching I decided to test some of the different resources available to revise for the QTS skills exam. I struggled to find any official QTS website so concentrated on basic skill sites instead. If you missed it you can check it out here: https://frogandcount.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/grammer-girl/

I noted that I would examine the following sources:

1) http://www.grammar-monster.com  – a basic literacy site with tests

2)http://www.aplusgamer.com/index.jhtml?partner=^AF4^xdm005&gclid=CNKG8tmYibcCFWXJtAodU3QAxg  – an online game app for maths and english

3) http://keyskills4u.excellencegateway.org.uk/ – a key skills site that requires a free login but provides feedback

4) http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/ – a website for teachers or those hoping to become teachers.

Here’s how I got on:

1)      Grammer Monsters a basic literacy site with tests. It is a down to earth easy to navigate site with plentiful information on the structure of the English language. This basic guide was just what I needed to get to grips with the ins and outs of adjectives and adverbs. I am now far more confident about my use of language and ready to progress to more complex grammar. I might even (possibly) have another go at the official literacy practice test.

 

2)      An online game app for maths and English. Despite the enticing image and description of this product I did not test it. This I due to the need to download it and my aversion to downloading anything that isn’t from a 100% credible source. It may have been the best resource however I do not know. Instead I contented myself with the other resources, the contents of my university library and the suggested reading for QTS revision.

 

3)      Key skills 4 you a website with a free login and provision for feedback. This website has audio explanations with the option to test yourself. There is the option of training or testing. Training teaches the basic skills for ICT, maths and English. I really enjoyed this resource and found the use of interactive tools very helpful in remembering all the new skills. It was especially useful as you could change your preference of font size, colour and background colour making it easy to read. I am going to continue using this, especially for maths, as I continue to progress towards my exam.

 

4)       A website for those hoping to teach. I liked this site as whilst it did not provide any resources it did provide moral encouragement and the chance to interact with other students in the same situation. I would definitely recommend this to anyone going into teaching.

 

So that is my short review of four resources available online for anyone who wants to brush up on their literacy or numeracy. Please do share if you have found a useful resource.

Hope you are having a fabulous week.

Rachael

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Guest post – TEFL adventure!

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HI! I’m Ellie, or Test Subject A. Rachael asked me to do a bit of a blog about TEFL, which stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This is because I am on my way to getting TEFL qualified and hopefully getting a job from it soon. This is just a basic overview of what I have done and found out so far on my journey. I am now on a 120 hour course so I may write more as I go through the course and learn more.

TEFL came to my attention from a graduate job website. It was offering me a TEFL job in China, with some very nice additions to it, the main one to me being free provided accommodation, while also being a paid job. Both there’s areas were appealing. Owning to the fact I want to find a job in order to be able to pay my way thought a Master Course. However, I’m not one to just jump into something without looking round it.

I also looked around at the different ways to gain a TEFL qualification. You can one either online, in a class room or a combination of both. Some jobs offer to put you through a TELF course, which would be done online, and with the last 20 hours in a classroom in the country of the job.

The courses differ in length from 20 hours to 120 hours, and ranged in price from around £90 to around £300.  The cost of the courses meant I had to be sure about wanting to going into TEFL.

So I went about looking at the different locations that employ native English speakers and the range of payments and benefits you could gain. This was to make sure it wasn’t just the China job I had seen that offered accommodation. As it turned out most jobs did come with this benefit, or provided money to use in renting an apartment or flat and help in finding one.
The majority, if not all (if a long term contract), of them offer help with VISA applications. A small amount will also pay for flights or provide you with a flight allowance. As well as all many other benefits that I shall not list here.  Along with this the pay seemed to remain good for the different types of jobs.

However, it was not these benefits that made me choose this line of work. The possibility to travel and earn money while doing so where the defining factors. The ability to help others in learning the convoluted mess we call the English language also played a factor.

I came across a few websites that offered TEFL courses, job lists or both.  Here are the main ones I am using:

  1. http://www.onlinetefl.com/ i-to-i was the first company I found, and not really thinking about it I signed up to the sight, which included giving a phone number. I didn’t question giving them this until after I had done it. It is easy to search for jobs on this site, however, it has a habit of saying it is unable to load the pervious when you click back, and when you tell it to try again will load and early search result. This is annoying if you had been looking at jobs in Asia and have moved onto Europe. There is also a tester here: http://taster.onlinetefl.com/index/start
    ADVICE- DO NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS SITE UNLESS YOU ARE SERIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT GOING INTO TEFL. They will call you up, and ask you about it. However, if you are thinking about and are still unsure it is useful, and the guy I spoke to was very friendly and helpful.
  1. http://www.tefl.com/ This site I used to look into more jobs. So far I have just looked into Europe, but they offer a larger selection of jobs than the previous website. However, the majority of the jobs in Europe they have seem to be based in the UK, which is not something I personally want to do. At the same time they have more, paid, jobs available in Russia than i-to-i which I like.  They seem to also offer training as well, but as I am using i-to-i I’ve not looked into it. They also offer an overview of the cost of living in a country you are viewing a job in (you do need to be logged in to see this page) With an account you can save jobs you are interested in, making it easy to find again when you want to apply.

(More to come later as I find them)

Other sites I have come across:

http://www.teflengland.co.uk/about-the-course.asp :- This one claims to find you a job as soon as you have finished your course.

http://www.eslcertified.com/ :- Same as above and they also offer a free tester, however, you need to make an account to access it.

http://www.britishcouncil.org/teacherrecruitment-tefl-qualifications-tefl-or-tesol.htm :- Definition of different teaching qualifications.

Some books that might be useful:

Lessons from Nothing: Activities for Language Teaching with Limited Time and Resources Bruce Marsland

Learning Teaching: A guidebook for English language teachers. Jim Scrivener

A Training course for TEFL. Peter Hubbard.

Well that’s it for now. May do more later, with details on what the courses give you.

Test subject A

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The whey to make your own cheese

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I have always wanted to have a go at making my own cheese but have always been put off by my assumption of the need for complex ingredients and equipment. Then I found this recipe for Labneh a simple cheese that can in made in 24 to 48 hours.  http://www.self-sufficient.co.uk/Making-Labneh.htm. This inspired me to look for more easy cheese recipes.

I bought some whole milk, 500g of Greek yogurt, a pack of clean dishcloths to use as cheese cloths and some more honey.

Straining Yogurt

Straining Yogurt (Photo credit: eekim)

Making the Labneh was very simple. I mixed salt into the yogurt. I placed one of my clothes inside my colander covering the holes and then poured my salt yogurt mix into this. I brought the edges together ensuring none of the mix escaped and sealed it at the top with a food clip (the recipe suggested elastic or string but I used the first thing that came to hand). Then I left this mix to drip over a bowl for the next 24 hours.

Next, feeling a bit braver, I moved on to making my own curds and whey. I used the recipe from wiki how: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cheese-at-Home to attempt this. I boiled two cups of milk. Then I turned the hob off and mixed in 4 teaspoons of vinegar leaving the pan on the hob. I left the pan for about seven minutes then strained the mixture through my substitute cheesecloth lined colander. I doubled up my cloths for the next bit just in case. I squeezed water (this is the whey) out of my curds and then skipped the option to add salt before hanging this next to my Labneh to drip. Next time I make this I will probably try adding herbs at the salt stage but this time I wanted to try the basic cheese before I began to experiment with the flavour.

3 hours later- checking on my curds and whey I found my small parcel solid enough to place in the fridge. My Labneh mix was still very soft I placed this in the fridge too. I tied both to the shelf above allowing them to continue to drip. I now had two cheese mixes which needed to be left a minimum of twenty four hours to mature.

24 hours later I decided to test the cheese.

The Labneh was still very soft but had formed into a delicious creamy cheese. I tested this on toast and would definitely make it again. It was so easy that I would try this recipe again with my three year old nephew who loves helping in the kitchen.

The Curds had hardened into a solid ball and on tasting had very little flavour reminding me and my friend of mozzarella. There was also a slightly vinegary taste around the edges. This may have been due to my adding slightly more vinegar than suggested to help the curds separate from the whey. If I made this again I would buy un-homogenised milk instead of the normal whole milk.  I would also add some basic herbs to change the taste or use it on pizza instead of eating the cheese cold.

The results- This was fantastic fun and I would try it again. When I have another go I would like to try making cheese using goat’s milk instead of cows. I would also like to test the fridge life of the cheese but this would involve leaving it long enough to go off (a difficult challenge in my house).

Once again thanks for reading. I hope this has been in some way helpful and don’t forget to share your own experience.

Best wishes

Rachael

 

P.S. Here are some picture of my cheese although forgot to take photo’s until after it had already been tasted so the recipes make more than seen.

 

Homemade Labneh (soft cheese) in blue cloth

Homemade Labneh (soft cheese) in blue cloth

Homemade hard cheese from curds and whey mix

Homemade hard cheese from curds and whey mix

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Grammer Girl

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English: Wooden toadstools in Coed Moel Famau ...

English: Wooden toadstools in Coed Moel Famau There are four wooden toadstools at the side of the forest track here. They are labelled A,B,C and D. I assume that they are associated with the numeracy (and literacy?) trail that has been set up in Coed Moel Famau. See also 1249929 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After attempting a few of the literacy and numeracy practice tests for the QTS exam I decided I needed to do a bit more revision. Thankfully, I have a year to master the art of grammar and punctuation before I take the dreaded tests.

I already own the recommended books, but want some more practice without having to pay anything. My aim is to test a few numeracy and a few literacy websites that aim to help with key skills whilst working through the books.

The official site is:

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/professional/b00211213/numeracy – numeracy practice test and resources

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/professional/b00211208/literacy  – literacy practice test and resources

The first sites I am going to try is

http://www.grammar-monster.com  – a basic literacy site with tests

http://www.aplusgamer.com/index.jhtml?partner=^AF4^xdm005&gclid=CNKG8tmYibcCFWXJtAodU3QAxg  – an online game app for maths and english

http://keyskills4u.excellencegateway.org.uk/  – a key skills site that requires a free login but provides feedback

and http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/ – a website for teachers or those hoping to become teachers.

I will document my success and failures here. anyone who has any suggestions please do share or let us know how you yourself get on too.

Best wishes for the week

Rachael