What kind of questions are asked in a TEFL interview?

MrMiyagi

What kind of questions are asked in a TEFL interview?

Rosita

If this is an interview to take part in a course, the one I did was not an interview as such but rather a check of your credentials i.e. that you were in fact a native speaker, that you had a degree and if not that you understood how this affected your evetual award, and an explanation of how the course worked.

About a third of my group of 15 or so fell by the wayside as the course progressed, through workload, time constraints and failing teaching practice, but the only person rejected at the interview (which was a group session where you did some grammar exercises - the correctness of which did not seem to matter terribly) was a non-native English speaker.

If this is a CELT/CELTA course, it is not one to take lightly or have other serious stuff going on during it. It is not impossible by any means but needs full attention.

thesecretforme

Hey, I'm going to be doing a CELTA course full time during August. How big is the workload? Classes are from 9.30 to 5.30 every day apart from weekends. I won't be doing anything during that period...
Do you think I will be able for it?

livinginkorea

Is this an interview for a job teaching English or an interview for a TEFL Course? Either way they will want to know your future goals and motivation for it (money, travel, self experience and reflection...etc). Try to check out some different teaching methodologies to drop in the interview. It will show that you have researched somewhat and leads them to believe that you are interested.

I used to teach a TESOL Certificate course so I have interviewed hundreds of applicants for Tesol for Adults or Tesol for Childrens courses. Make sure you say that you really like teaching kids/adults and that you taught your cousin about math or something. Any little experience at all can help you greatly. Oh and make sure you smile too, I know it sounds simple but you would be surprised to know how many people keep stone faced in an interview that is totally people related.

And prepare some questions to ask them as well. An interview is a two-way process remember!

livinginkorea

thesecretforme wrote: »

Hey, I'm going to be doing a CELTA course full time during August. How big is the workload? Classes are from 9.30 to 5.30 every day apart from weekends. I won't be doing anything during that period...
Do you think I will be able for it?

A lot, you will have several TP (Teaching Practices) but no lesson plans if I remember correctly. I never took it but some of my friends have but they were outside of Ireland so I don't know if the course content various greatly from country to country. I know for Koreans to take the course in Korea they have to have a high enough score in TOEIC or something.

And I heard there is something like getting feedback from other classmates to increase their critical mind thinking or something like that. Basically your classmates will look at your TP and then ask you why you did it this way and not that way, etc. Naturally you can do the same to them!

MrMiyagi

MrMiyagi wrote: »

What kind of questions are asked in a TEFL interview?

Sorry, its an interview for a summer teaching job in England.

Táck

slightly aprehensive now!

i'm thinking about going away travelling soon, my uncle runs a farily big english speaking school in spain. he said he'd give me any documentation i needed if i wanted to try and do some teaching on my travels.

he went to spain in the 90's, seen the job in the paper, blagged the interview and has since set-up an english speaking school that is in the top 5 in spain, and brings 1000's of students to ireland, england, and canada and a few other places every summer.

theres hope for us all.

madziuda

MrMiyagi wrote: »

Sorry, its an interview for a summer teaching job in England.

I've done several of such interviews over the last couple of summers and the questions you might expect (and carefully prepare for) are situational ones - for example "What would you do if a student kept disrupting your class and, when scolded, told you: 'My parents are paying you so I can do whatever I want'". Incidentally, a very valid question, plenty of kids like that on summer courses both in the UK and in Ireland.
Other questions that may come up are: "How would you make sure your students don't use their mother tongue in the classroom?", "How, in your opinion, should summer classes differ from those during the academic year", "WOuld you allow students to call you by your first name"? etc etc etc

hope that helps

best of luck

(on a side note, if a summer school is only now doing the interviews chances are they're desperate - in most summer schools recruitment begins in March and ends mid-May when the numbers are more or less solid)

livinginkorea

Yes the discipline question is fairly common. "How would you discipline troublemakers in your class?" Also something about motivation could be asked as well. "How would motivate students?" Also, just came to me now - "What would you do in the beginning of your first class?" You can mention something about a simple icebreaker or 'Getting to know you' kind of task for students.