ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#31 | July 30, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036
South Africa was primarily a Dutch colony and later taken up by the British. The country was plagued by racial and cultural conflicts but has conquered over its troubles to a large extent in the recent past. It is now a multi-cultural and a multi-lingual country with 11 official languages and only 8% of its’ population conversant in English. Economically, it has been doing very well and is striving to do better in the global world. Since communication is very important to further their development in world economy, the people in South Africa are educating themselves in today’s lingua franca, English.
In addition to that, South Africa is also a major tourist attraction owing to the breathtaking mountains, beaches, wineries and a rocky coastline. It attracts people from all across the world and the tourism industry finds it essential to communicate in English with the tourists.
English is being now taught in South African schools, colleges, language schools and even, corporations. All aspirants and experienced teachers interested in taking up English teaching jobs in South Africa must however, go through a certified English teachers training course.
An aspirant in an English teachers training course learns the scientific systematic method of teaching English to non-English speaking people and overcome the barriers to the learning process of a foreign language.
Specific English teacher training courses like the TEFL Certification course are available for English teachers interested in teaching young learners. It is a challenging and satisfying job to teach a foreign language to young learners. A teacher must be well-acquainted with child psychology before taking up the responsibility of teaching young learners and plan lessons suitable for this particular age group. A teacher must keep the lessons fun and interactive in nature to ensure maximum participation and retention of knowledge. Teaching young learners a foreign language and helping them overcome their mother-tongue influence requires considerable skill and expertise and is certainly not a job for an amateur.
The TESOL (Teaching English to Students of Other Languages or Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) Diploma program has also gained a lot of significance in order to apply for teaching jobs in South Africa. The TESOL Diploma course is a detailed course which trains an English teacher on developing the four basic language skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. The TESOL Diploma program focuses on the basics of English language such as grammar and phonology and trains an English teacher on the skills and methods of teaching English as a second language to people with a different mother-tongue. It is an apt course for teaching English to people of different age, regional, linguistic and social backgrounds.
Teachers teaching English in South Africa get to enjoy the picturesque beauty of the country and at the same time learn about the different mix of cultures and traditions. It is difficult to find such a mix of so many different people and cultures in any other place but South Africa.
TEFL Academy offers Online TEFL Course with courses like Teaching Young Learners business English, grammar, phonetics, TEFL Diploma and pre-primary teacher training.
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