How to teach English
How to teach English
Getting your qualifications as a TEFL teacher
The first step in becoming an English teacher is to obtain the proper teaching qualifications.
TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language and gaining a TEFL qualification allows you to teach students who are non-native English speakers.
St Giles was one of the first organisations to offer training for English language teachers in the United Kingdom. St Giles offers the Cambridge CELTA Course, an initial teacher training course for native or near-native English speakers:
This 120-hour TEFL qualifications meet the minimum requirements of good quality schools and language institutions around the world.
St Giles also offers TEFL courses for practising non-native teachers of English who want to improve their language skills and develop their teaching methodologies and techniques.
Following certification
Visit our Teaching English Jobs section, where you can search our ESL jobs database for vacancies around the world. You can also read some useful job finding tips and advice for interviews.
Teacher Training Resources
Download our sample lesson plan.
Visit some useful websites:
- A very good site from the BBC and British Council - www.teachingenglish.org.uk
- Free audio, video and text materials to support lessons - www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
- Articles, lesson plans, ESOL stuff, CLIL, Grammar ideas etc - www.onestopenglish.com
- Dave's ESL Cafe - www.daveseslcafe.com
- Agenda web: TEFL exercises - www.agendaweb.org
- English Club for TEFL teachers of English - www.englishclub.com
- Eleaston materials for teaching English - www.eleaston.com
- TEFL games - www.teflgames.com/interactive.html
- Follow the links for articles and lesson ideas - www.webenglishteacher.com
- Regular articles about topics like classroom management - www.esl-lounge.com
- A comprehensive site including resources and news groups - http://esl.about.com
- Create your own crossword puzzles - www.puzzlemaker.com
- Grammar and vocab worksheets - www.tolearnenglish.com
- Song lyrics - www.lyrics.com
- For coursework support materials: Inside Out - www.macmillanpracticeonline.com
- For coursework support materials: Headway - www.oup.com
- For coursework support materials: English File - www.oup.com
- For coursework support materials: Total English - www.pearsonlongman.com
- For coursework support materials: Cutting Edge - www.insideout.net
- For links to other sites - www.esldesk.com/esl-links/index.htm
- Activities for using the dictionary in class - www.cambridge.org/elt/dictionaries
- For teaching young learners - www.edhelper.com
- Useful ESL resources - www.english-to-go.com
- Lessons plans to download for different topics - www.englishlessonplanner.com
- Find online workbooks and textbooks, and create activities - www.quia.com
- Helpful worksheets and discussions on various topics - www.eslflow.com
- Free, interactive and printable English lessons - www.breakingnewsenglish.com
- World news articles for various levels - www.newsinlevels.com