International College of Linguistics TESOL Course

The International College of Linguistics TESOL Course was first approved by NZQA in 2008. It is a five-week Level 4 course for practising secondary teachers of English who wish to refresh their English, look at current trends, reflect on their personal philosophy of education and be introduced to the Cambridge University Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT test). Primary or non-practising teachers are welcome to join the course, and can benefit greatly from it, but will need to work harder on contextualising issues such as personal philosophy, as they may not yet have had the experience on which to base their views.

The course is run regularly throughout the year. It consists of 100 contact teaching hours, 20 hours per week, plus approximately one self-study hour for each classroom contact hour. Each course has 50 hours assigned to ESOL unit standards and 50 hours dedicated to education unit standards.

The aims of the course are to:

• allow teacher-participants to gain or reinforce knowledge of concepts related to the practice of English language teaching and learning;
• provide an introduction to the TKT award offered by Cambridge University in such a way that teacher-participants may choose to enter Module 2 of the qualification;
• encourage teacher-participants in their professional development by providing opportunities to identify their own personal philosophy of education, identify current English language teaching issues, trends and research and develop a client focus in schools;
• facilitate teacher-participants exchanging ideas about English language teaching;
• create opportunities and requirements for teacher-participants to reflect in writing on their professional lives, past and future, and to keep records of their learning during the five-week course.

On successful completion, students will achieve credits in the following New Zealand unit standards:

· 15009: Understand spoken information in range of contexts, using ESOL

· 17372: Write recounts, using ESOL

· 5274: Identify contemporary educational issues, trends, and research

· 9214: Identify and work with a personal philosophy of education

· 9346: Develop a client focus in educational organisations