I think the hardest part of getting my TEFL certification was just finding a place to complete my practicum. Now for those who don’t know, the practicum is an essential part of a teacher’s training process. It helps to provide valuable insight and experience prior to obtaining independent teaching positions. It is required that TEFL students get at least 20 practicum hours through observations, tutoring and or student-teaching. However, out of these 20 hours, a minimum of 6 hour must be completed with either tutoring or student-teaching. Now I could have done this part online tutoring which I saw a lot of other people do, but I really wanted to have a classroom experience if I wanted to apply to teach overseas.

Now I live out in the countryside, sort of. I live about a little over an hour from Seattle, Washington and there are tons of community resources in the vicinity. These include community service offices, a couple of community colleges and other organizations that cater to the multicultural community we have. I spent nearly two months emailing places locally to see if I can get the practicum experience I needed. I was either met with rejection or no response to my request.

By the time mid-April came around I was stressed, annoyed and finally decided that I might have to do it further south. I started emailing a couple of schools including my own university in hopes that one would get back to me. Surprisingly, my Uni did and the director of the International Program tried to see if any of their teachers would accommodate me. However budget cuts dashed those hope. He did however, give me a list of other Seattle and area programs to contact. So I started emailing them. I just kept thinking that one of these people or school will give me a chance. And one did.

I complete my practicum at a community college just north of Seattle. I did 10 hours of observation the last couple of weeks of their spring term. I mostly observed my practicum teacher, TW. She was great. I took lots of notes while observing like how she presented the topics, how she assisted the class with their learning and her style of teaching. I did get a chance to observe another teacher at the school and you can tell that they had complete different styles in teaching.

Then during their 2nd week of summer term, 12 hours, I became a student-teacher with TW. I assisted in teaching her advance level 6 writing class and her level 2 high-beginner/intermediate speaking and listening class. Both are at the extreme ends of teaching and learning for the students. My first two days, I assisted helping the students with their tasks and lead one activity. Then the last two days, I taught 80% of the classes. The week’s lesson was based on what TW wanted to accomplished that week and quite easy to follow. Though I spent hours the night before tweaking my parts of the lessons. There is a lot of knowing how your student work in each class. I could see how some student work well with the type of teaching I was doing and ones that needed a bit more individual time to help them understand the lesson.

It was a great experience for me and one I would highly recommend doing instead of online tutoring.

If you are in the Western Washington area and are looking for places it email so that you can also complete your practicum, I’ve put down the list that I received to hopefully help you out. Check out their website and you should be able to find the corrected email to send your request.

• Bellevue College – English Language Institute
• Cascadia College – English Language Program
• City University of Seattle – English Language Program & Assisted MBA
• Edmonds Community College -Intensive ESL Program
• North Seattle College – Intensive English Program
• Pierce College – Intensive English Program
• Seattle Central College – Seattle Central Institute of English
• Shoreline Community College – Transitional Studies/International Education
• South Seattle College – Intensive English Program
• UW Continuum College – International & English Language Programs

And yes, one of the school above is the college that I was able to complete my practicum, just not going to name the school or teacher. On a side note, I’m working on my vlogging skills and video editing. It’s not great, but what better way to get the hang of thing but to practice. Right now, I’m working on a visit to my Uni with my friend and her daughters with side trip into Seattle. Not much, but its a start.