:: 6th former TEFL course

Taking a gap year or time out after leaving school is a rare chance in life to create new opportunities and experiences for yourself, be independent, learn useful skills and have fun. In fact, taking a gap year in many cases can actually change the direction of your life, so it’s worth spending some time thinking about what you will do.

Nowadays a gap year is seen as an essential part of an individual’s personal development. A well thought out and planned gap year encourages school leavers to be enterprising, proactive and to use their time effectively, all of which will impress university admissions staff and future employers.

Why TEFL?

We firmly believe that doing a TEFL course and teaching English during your gap will enable you to travel and open up new doors and opportunities to you. Teaching English puts you at the heart of a community allowing you to integrate with the locals and be more than ‘just a tourist’. As the demand to learn English increases all over the world, the teaching opportunities are endless.

Here are just a few things you can expect to gain from taking a TEFL course and teaching English during your gap year:

Life skills - be more confident, learn presentation skills, organisation skills and team work skills

Teaching skills: useful for future careers where you have to instruct or teach individuals in any subject area

Take on responsibility: as an EFL teacher your students’ learning is in your hands. The sense of achievement you feel at the end of each day is amazing!

Earn money: be self-sufficient, fund your travels and save money for your future

Get a teaching certificate that you can use later in life, should you want to take another gap year or career break

Meet new people, explore new cultures and create fantastic memories– teaching is all about individuals and communication. You’ll have a network of friends and former students from all over the world.

TEFL course information

As EFL teachers ourselves we know that just because you can speak English doesn’t mean that you can teach it. It’s essential for your success as a teacher and your students’ learning that you have some training behind you.

Cactus TEFL has created a combination of a practical TEFL course and an online grammar/language awareness course that will give you the skills to teach EFL successfully.

The face-to-face part of the course is an intensive 20 hours where you’ll be trained in the essential areas of TEFL teaching. This is a ‘hands-on’ course designed to give trainees as much practical training and experience as possible. We usually recommend that this phase of the course is carried out over a weekend, although we’re also happy to arrange the training over a series of days.

20 hour TEFL Course content

• Icebreakers – getting to know each other
• Unknown foreign language lesson – become a language student
• Classroom management techniques – just how do you control a class full of rowdy students?
• Learner styles – how do you learn a language?
• Teacher roles –  what teaches need to know
• Using and adapting materials – making the most of the resources you have
• Teaching a language-based lesson – how do you teach grammar and structures?
• Teaching a skills-based lesson – how do you teach listening and reading?
• Teaching a lesson – you become the teacher!
• Teaching pronunciation – protest or protest?
• Error correction – How to correct your students’ errors in a constructive way
• Cultural awareness in the classroom – what teachers need to be aware of
• Teaching large classes/with limited resources – useful information
• What next – what to do now

Online English Language Awareness Course (ELA) We’re very proud of our online English Language Awareness Course. It has taken the fear out of grammar for hundreds of trainees and has helped them explain grammar more effectively to their students in the classroom. In fact it was recently nominated for a prestigious British Council Innovation Award.

The course is an interactive online course that tries to accommodate all learning styles. 30 user-friendly modules explain the main areas of English grammar and allow trainees to practise what they have learnt. The course modules can be taken in any order and can be repeated as many times as the trainee likes within the 45 day period.

Click here for more information on ELA.

Where are you thinking of teaching?

Once you’ve completed your course it’s really up to you where you go and teach. Cactus TEFL is on hand to advise you on where you can go, what salaries you can expect to earn and give you useful TEFL industry information for the country or countries you plan to visit. Please also use our TEFL jobs site for current job vacancies all over the world, country-specific information and useful CV advice. You can also use our Little Book of TEFL Jobs which gives you lots of practical advice and information about finding work. Click here to download a copy.

You may want to consider taking a language course to help you integrate with the local culture. Please click here to see our range of language courses abroad or visit www.cactuslanguage.com.

How to organise your TEFL course

These courses can only be booked in groups with a minimum of 6 trainees. Cactus TEFL can arrange this programme for private, corporate, school and 6th form groups.

Private and corporate groups need to have group leader as the main contact and arrange their own training room for the 20 hour TEFL course.

If you’re a parent or student please print this information and pass it on to your teacher, Head of 6th Form or your Careers Department.

Teachers and Careers Departments need to get a group of at least six students together to run a course. The course will usually take place at your premises.

Course fees - 20 hour TEFL course and the English Language Awareness course

Course fees vary depending on the group size and the location of the course. Cactus trainers are located all over the UK but it may require a lengthy journey for them to get to you, which might cost a little more. Cactus TEFL will let you know in advance if this happens and will always try to keep additional costs to a minimum.

6 to 9 trainees - £235.00 per trainee
10 to15 trainees - £229.00 per trainee
15 or more trainees – please contact Cactus TEFL to discuss your particular requirements.

Need more information about TEFL as a gap year option and our gap TEFL programme?

You can phone, email us or complete the contact box below.

Contact Cactus TEFL:

Email: info@cactustefl.com 

Telephone: 0845 130 4775 Option 1 for TEFL

*Denotes a compulsory field