I’ve made a new friend online. His name is Sid and he’s from India. Sid contacted me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could advise him on a career in ELT. His teaching situation looks very interesting and I asked if he would mind me posting our correspondence here.

Dear Sir

I am Siddharth from India and I really liked your article in an English magazine. I am planning to make a career in TEFL. Needed your opinion on ‘Career in TEFL’ especially considering that I am a non native speaker. Would you recommend it? How are the job opportunities as I do not have any teaching experience?

There are a plethora of courses available on TEFL. How do I choose a genuine, valid and globally recognised course provider?

Also, please can you recommend me some good online resources on learning and teaching English to non native speakers?

Thanks a lot

Best wishes

Sid

After speaking by Skype, Sid wrote again and told me about his students. He also sent a photograph:

Hi Jamie

Hope you are doing great.

I have been working with a Multinational Bank all this while, so my teaching experience is zilch and I need you guidance with it.

Currently, I am working with a group of people from the Indian Himalayas (high altitude mountains). They can converse in broken English. Their main aim to learn English is to be able to communicate with the outside world. This area experiences a lot of foreign tourism and to become good guides / run a hotel etc, it is always better that they have good conversational skills.

Right now they are in Bangalore as part of an exchange program to give them some exposure on the outside world. They are also trying to learn computer basics (MS Word / Excel / Internet). They are in the age group of 14 - 20 and the group consists of 8 members.

I have also attached a few photos for your reference. We meet alternate days and try to improve our spoken English. However, I do give them dictation, work on their pronunciation and have informal conversations / role plays, related to their day to day life.

What I am looking for is, how to structure and plan my classes (on a day to day basis) and are there any games through which I can make things more interactive. Do I need to also work on their grammar?

I carry my laptop to show them some video clips. They have notebooks and Pens. It’s great to be with them. They are very keen to learn the language. They are my good friends.

Thanks a lot

Best wishes

Sid

To me it sounds as if Sid is doing a good job already. He has a great group of learners. He has bonded with them. He has analysed their needs. He seems to be making use of a variety of methods (dictation, use of video clips, role plays relating to their lives). And importantly, he is thinking about how to improve learning outcomes.

If he is looking for additional teaching hours, then he may benefit from having a piece of paper which states that he is TEFL qualified. But if not, I would definitely say that for the moment, Sid should keep doing what he’s doing without worrying about that.

What does everyone else think? If you have any advice for Sid, please add a comment below.