What is the TEFL Toulouse TEFL course?
The TEFL Toulouse course is an intensive 4 weeks of training at our training centre in Toulouse, that will give you the knowledge and practical skills you need to start teaching English professionally in France and around the world. It is NOT an online TEFL course and NOT a weekend TEFL course in a hotel. Successful trainees are awarded with the Certificate in TEFL at the end of the 4 weeks, which is the basic qualification that employers are looking for around the world.
What and who will I be able to teach after the course?
By the end of the course you’ll have the skills and knowledge you need to teach:
- General English
- Business English
- Young Learners
- One-to-One lessons
…. and we also offer add-on professional development courses to make you even more employable in some of these areas.
How intensive is the TEFL course?
Our 4 week TEFL course is demanding and intensive, but very rewarding and a lot of fun. You’ll be at the training centre from Monday to Friday, 9.15am to 7pm, with perhaps one or two afternoons off a week. You’ll sometimes be working on lesson planning and course assignments outside of these hours too. We believe and excel in simplifying complex teaching approaches and needless jargon. In fact there is nothing particularly complex about what you are learning, there is just a lot to cram in, in 4 weeks.
“I just wanted to say thank you for the course, I enjoyed it, and I learnt a lot. After leaving, I went to Vietnam for three months volunteering teaching English. I travelled for a month in Taiwan and now I’m back in Vietnam teaching full time (and paid this time not volunteering!). I’ve been back a month already, I teach in public schools, from 3 to 11 year olds, they’re so cute and funny. I’m staying here for at least six months, after that maybe back to Toulouse, I don’t know yet. The TEFL certificate has definitely made a lot of difference, as it’s what everyone asks for here, so I just wanted to say a big thank you for helping with that! I wish you all well!”
Lauren Pearson – August 2018 course
Every morning you’ll receive over 3 hours of classes on teaching theory, how to plan TEFL lessons, how to teach the 4 skills, how to teach English grammar and pronunciation, and more. As well as this you will teach a minimum of 6 one hour lessons (teaching groups of real life students of English who come to our training centre) and get detailed feedback on your classes from qualified professionals. You will also observe lessons given by experienced teachers,and receive lesson planning help in the afternoons from 2.30 to 4pm.
A TEFL theory class
Teaching English through drama to our French students!
Here’s what a typical day looks like:
| 9.30am – 11.10am | Input session 1 |
| 11.30am – 1.15pm | Input session 2 |
| 1.15pm – 2.30pm | Lunch break |
| 2.30pm – 4pm | Lesson planning help time |
| 4pm – 6.10pm | Teaching practice and observation |
| 6.20pm – 7pm | Teaching practice feedback |
TEFL coursework, assignments and assessment
You’ll complete most of your coursework at our training centre during the working day, but the intensive nature of the course means that you will also need to spend a proportion of most evenings and weekends doing some home study and preparing lessons. Our TEFL course does not include as many assignments (ie work to be done at home) as some other TEFL courses, as we prefer to get as much as we can done during the day together as a group and with the staff onsite.
You’ll be assessed on your teaching practice, a one-to-one project, grammar tests, an unknown foreign language observation task and your professionalism throughout the course.
One to one teaching
TEFL Toulouse seen from the street!
What’s included in the TEFL course price?
- 4 weeks of tuition from our qualified and experienced teacher trainers
- All course materials
- For successful graduates, the official Certificate in TEFL from IATQuO, numbered and stamped, showing completion of the course, and a certificate from us, highlighting your performance and providing an explanation of grades. (We are always happy to issue a reference and further information when requested to do so by an employer.)
- Welcome drinks evening, and end of course celebrations including champagne and lunch / dinner
- Lifetime job guidance wherever you are in the world
- Free accommodation finding service
The TEFL course in more detail
What’s included in the 4 week TEFL class?
You’ll have at least 6 hours of teaching real students, putting into practice everything you learn on the course. These lessons will be observed by a trainer and include a feedback session afterwards, where you’ll reflect together on how the lesson went. The first teaching English lesson in week 1 will be largely planned for you.
You’ll have the opportunity to observe experienced TEFL teachers teaching for at least 3 hours, and will also observe at least 6 hours of your peers’ lessons.
How does English work? Knowing how English works is important if you want to be able to teach it. We include theory sessions on English grammar, including:
- Parts of speech
- Present, past and perfect tenses
- Tense and time
- Referring to the future
- Conditional structures
- Auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, phrasal verbs
- Passive structures
- Reported speech
- More complex elements of vocabulary
- Articles
- Form and function
You’ll learn the different phonological (pronunciation) features of English, including:
- The consonant sounds and symbols
- The vowel sounds and symbols
- Diphthongs
- Intonation and how it changes meaning
- Stress within words in English
- Stress within sentences and weak forms
- Connected speech
- Regional and international variations of English
- Articulation
Other theory sessions include:
- How to present language in context
- Teaching English grammar and vocabulary
- Improving your students’ speaking skills
- Improving your students’ listening skills
- Improving your students’ writing and reading skills
- Lesson planning – various approaches
- Lesson activities toolbox
- Eliciting and concept checking
- Using drama, roleplay and music in the EFL classroom
- Using dictation
- How to correct English students’ errors
- Teacher language
- Educational Technology and online teaching
You’ll learn how to plan lessons effectively, how to create appropriate lesson aims and make sure you achieve them, how to plan the individual stages of a lesson, anticipate problems that may arise during lessons and be prepared with solutions. We also look at:
- Learning to plan a lesson using established “scaffolding”
- Alternative approaches to lesson planning
We look at some different theories of how we learn a language and different approaches we can take when teaching it, as well as the importance of different styles of learning and how they affect our approach.
- Basic principles of TEFL
- Language skills and systems
- Approaches to teaching EFL
- Learner styles
- Learner objectives
In these input sessions you’ll learn how to use both published course books and different types of authentic materials in your lessons.
- Exploiting authentic materials
- Using course books
You’ll learn how to deal with different and difficult situations that can arise in the TEFL classroom (adults, teenagers and 6 to 11s) and different student profiles, as well as how to organise your classroom effectively.
How are Business English classes different to General English classes? You’ll learn how to teach business English skills such as giving presentations, negotiating, dealing with phone calls, participating in meetings socialising, video conferencing…
How do you control a class of teenagers? You’ll learn how to teach a class of Young Learners, some different approaches and activities that you can use to teach kids and teenagers.
You’ll learn how to diagnose an individual TEFL student’s needs, objectives and language issues, then plan a tailor-made series of English lessons.
During the course you’ll have two one to one tutorials with your trainer to discuss your progress and answer any questions you have.
Every afternoon before the teaching practice session, experienced trainers are on-hand to give help and advice for your lesson planning. Note that many TEFL courses don’t offer this, they just have “someone available during lunchtime”!
We’ll give you a two hour session to provide help and advice regarding finding a TEFL job, including CV and interview tips and techniques, where and how to look for a TEFL job, and how to set up as a freelancer (auto-entrepreneur) in France.
We also provide lifetime job guidance.
TEFL course assessment:
Here’s how you’ll be assessed during the 4 weeks:
- Teaching Practice
You’ll have a minimum of 6 hours of observed teaching of real students, followed by feedback with a trainer on your lesson plan and your teaching. You’ll need to show that you can reflect on your own teaching and put into practice constructive feedback. - One to One project
This project gives you experience in preparing a course of study based on a student’s needs and interests, and also gives you practice teaching just one student. You’ll choose a student, diagnose his or her needs in English, then design a lesson based on this diagnosis, teach it, and evaluate it in depth. Finally you’ll design an imaginary further short course of study for the student. - Grammar tests
We’ll assess you on how well you’ve assimilated the English grammar and phonology input on the course. - Unknown Foreign Language Observation Task
You’ll have two beginner lessons in a language that most trainees do not speak, given entirely in the foreign language, and write a short project based on this experience. Through this you’ll gain an insight into how it feels to be one of your future students, being spoken to in a new language. The aim is to help you adapt teaching methods to find other ways of getting our meaning across, and to help you empathise globally to a greater extent with your beginner students. You’ll write a short project based on this experience. - Professionalism
I’m in! What’s the next step?
If you’re ready to apply, just fill out the application form! Or just contact us with any questions at all!