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A great start for anyone dreaming about becoming a certified English teacher. Basic principles laconically explained in high-quality videos by a very charismatic professional. Interesting and enlightening concepts helping to look at teaching from a different angle and enrich your own process of doing the job. Unfortunately, there are disadvantages to this too. For anybody whose English is C1 and higher this course will be a little undemanding. Weeks in the course consist of only several short videos and text lectures. But, as I have put it, this course is for beginners and, mostly, for foreigners whose goal is to teach English abroad and get a certificate as fast as possible. Another thing, probably the most crucial for me is lack of feedback from professional teachers regarding evaluation of essays. Your work is evaluated by your peers the majority of which are, firstly, not so well versed in English, making myriads of mistakes along the way without a second thought to correcting them, and, secondly, do not really care about the amount of work you put into your essays. It was quite common to see dry, simplistic "Good." comments without any proper critique. This, of course, does not encompass each and everybody enrolled to this course and has nothing to do with the very course itself, but this is the picture I dealt with most of the time having my essays reviewed. Anyways, the course is worthwhile and will definitely help you.

I have just finished the first course of this specialization. I don't expect it all to be as easy as this was for me. I'd say the coolest thing, the way I see it is that, throughout the whole course, they never talked about grammar or rules, rather about how we learn best; how students are affected by teachers; pitfalls of teacher burnout, how to's a few, and how not to, yes, but they mostly stayed toward the positive. Sure, there were some things which might be a little exclusively for language teaching, but I'd say, more, really, the things they explained were about teaching and learning in general. Anyway, I can get that grammar stuff out of books , on the net, or even on the Youtube. It's what makes me a good or a better or a worse or a useless teacher I want to learn. And up until NOW, it's exactly THAT they've been helping me with. One real waker-upper was when they suggested that neither the world, nor the classroom is ever (and never going to be) perfect. THAT was a load off my mind, and one of the most encouraging teacher helps I've EVER had: like, "Don't look at what you don't have, but what you DO have is what makes you a "professional"! (even if the lights go out!) Many Thanks! ---Rey Hudson

I am so happy because this the first time I have commited to finish a course, which encouraged me to keep persistent to pursue online leaerning.

Do you know, prior this course, I was quite worried about my ability both english capacity and teaching experience to finish this course. However, with an useful series of video and practical assignments, I could gain the deep insight into the teaching techniques and methodologies. I appreciate Mr Sane with his sense of humor and great knowledge because he inspired me a lot. Some assignments gave me a golden opportunity not only to receive peers' feedbacks but also broaden my horizon from review theirs.

However, I think that discussing forums should be updated and developed to work. Because when I had look on this forum, I rarely find any open topic realted to the lessons, instead of some posts that urge readers to view and appreciate their assignments, Besides, I think it could be better for learners to have a wide variety of materials and resources to brush up on and enrich knowledge.

Anyway, thank ASU and professionals so much for your time and efforts. I will try my best to earn the whole ESL certificate.

This was a fun and exciting course. As a practicing teacher it was a great refresher for me and could make the connections necessary to help me along. The pace was not bad, The content was presented in a way that most people would enjoy. Dr. Dixon was a great model, he practiced what he spoke of. the metaphors were refreshing and gave me new insight to how I should view learning on a whole. Mrs./Ms. Haraway assisted by emphasizing the points discussed in the preceding videos were grasped. ty

On the other hand I wish that more time was spent on the theorists that would help learners who were not teachers understand better and make the connections between the cognitive processes and the acquisition of language or any content for that matter. I would also have appreciated small group interactions as some others courses do as group assignments and i wish that there was direct feedback from the tutors . I think that it would help authenticate the course even more.

I am grateful for the opportunity afforded to me .

Dr. Dixon was very engaging. The examples, metaphors, and illustrations were entertaining and helpful. The doses of each module were just right. The technology could be worked on. There were times I finished videos but did not watch the credits and so the video was marked as not finished. The program should accept a video task as complete once you pass the content parts of the videos. The same for the quizzes. There were times that I finished the quiz but I did not select them button to go to the next item. Therefore, those quizzes were marked as unfinished and I had to do them over again. It would be good if the program did an autosave of your progress. Other than that, great setup with the peer reviews and opportunities to submit video.

I would highly recommend this course to anyone who has little experience or really needs to learn classroom strategies for teaching language, or even teaching in general. I'm not giving it 5 stars because even though I can't say I didn't learn anything from it (I did), 39.99 per course for a few courses (is it 3, 4 total?) is a little much for me. I was seeking something for my professional development, I don't regret it. The teacher in this is very clear and charismatic, the information is easy to understand and never boring, and the strategies and theory, which is only discussed lightly (with additional resources) is extremely useful. I understand why it's a paid course, but it's pricey for my teacher salary.

Although much of the content seems common sense it is probably necessary to build a common foundation here for later courses. The peer assessments are potentially interesting but, in practice, the majority are so trivial--3 or 4 sentences repeating back material from the lectures--as to be hardly worth reading. Since there is no real qualitative assessment in the peer grading, the work put in by a minority is not acknowledged nor the shortcomings of many highlighted.

The instructor is unbelievably upbeat and animated which some will love and others. . . not. I tend to be in the latter camp but recognise this may be due to cultural differences or simply that I'm a boring old sod!

I think it's a really good opportunity to be able to obtain a TESOL certificate online and this course seems to be able to do it very efficiently. However, I have found the approach of the style of the lessons a little bit slow and too dramatic- and somewhat even childish. I'm sure the planning of this certificate program is to ensure that people who take it will remember it so that they can really make use of it in their profession- so they probably avoided long and boring lectures. But still, I must admit that the lessons look a little bit annoying sometimes :) Still, thank you for the opportunity.

Excellent and 'delicious slice of cake' of an introductory course - couldn't be happier to embark on my teaching journey (I'm switching careers to the teaching profession & become an English language instructor) with this group of brilliant passionate, no-doubt hardworking instructors, whom I wish all the best in everything in their lives as well as all course classmates & takers, & readers of this review - looking forward to course 2 out of 8! Can hardly wait (rhyme) all good I anticipate ;) PS. I gave a 4-star rating; I never give full-ratings because there's always room for improvement.

The course is helpful in providing the right mindset for becoming a language teacher. I learned a lot of techniques that I have started using with some of my students. I think the course can improve on its exercises and activities. It would be nice to have more essay activities instead of just objective quizzes (although they're very helpful in remembering). A good exercise would be interactive essay responses; instead of just providing a review for someone else's response to the essential assumption, you can provide a "response to the response," in order to start a dialogue or discussion.

This course was and still is a great start for individuals who want to start their teaching carriers. It contains amazing videos, readings and assignments. The missing 'STAR" was for the peer graded assignments. Even though my assignments were graded in a short time by my friends and peers, others really had to wait a bit longer. But their assignments were graded finally. To sum up, I recommend you to enroll in this course as well as to the other five courses by AZU.

The course is good enough--a means to an end. The 4-part, six weeks apart format is kind of bothersome because the wait period sort of dampens the momentum and enthusiasm created during the first course (especially if you complete the whole thing in a week-end). The course is well put together and infused with a little humor. The visuals are good and if you're in the right mood, the course is enjoyable and ifun to interact with folks from around the world.

This is a fun, informative and helpful class for anyone wanting to become an effective language teacher. It's a nice mix of best practices and proven techniques that really work. I'm more confident and encouraged by this constructive approach toward teaching teachers how to most effectively help and motivate adult students to learn a new language. The ASU presenters and content team are very knowledgeable and passionate about teaching.

For a neophyte to online learning, I feel lucky to undergo a course where the instructor/ course presenter made the lessons easy to understand, the lectures were presented as if the instructor and the learner are in the same room and not just the presenter talking to the camera. It became easy for me to finish up the segment of the specialization and was driven to push through with the entire course because of it. Kudos to you all!

Excellent teaching but not as amazingly easy to access as the linguistics course or the Mandarin courses I took, probably because of the demand. I had to complain several times because I was sometimes directed to a module I had already completed. I was charged twice in September, once on the 2nd and again on the 10th. I supposedly began for free, so I think my first charge should have been on the 10th.

The course is very inspiring and educational. I do appreciate that coursera and ASU can put this course on site. It synthesizes education theories and actual teaching experiences. However, I do think this course would improve a lot if teaching practices could be incorporated because for teaching professionals the teaching itself is the most important thing.

The course is really great. The pace is good, the instructions are clear and easy to understand and learn. But I believe there could be more materials for us to study, more discussions propositions so we could develop more on our understanding, and the tests and quizzes could be a little bit more complex. The final one only took me five minutes.

As a holder of MA degree in ELT, this course has brought back,

in a more interactive and effortless way, the old theories techniques and methods of English language teaching I learnt in my study. So grateful to the SYA organisation sponsoring this course. Last but not least, this was my first coursera course, yet it will never be the last.

well organized, user friendly, brief but informative, based on videos (nevertheless, a transcription is always provided), if you are fond of metaphors you will definitely enjoy it. you have a choice to prepare a video clip (if you prefer the spoken language) or an essay (if you prefer the written language) for each assignment

This is the first time I am taking any course online and I enjoyed this course. I felt that it was a good introduction to how to establish the steps for a good foundation for ESL teachers. I am now taking the second course to further my progress toward my certification through ASU. Thank you for this opportunity!

Estuvo muy bueno, de pronto sería bueno incluir más videos en los que se pone en práctica los distintos principios. De todas maneras, debo reconocer que es una muy buena alternativa para aquellos que se inician en la enseñanza y quieren tener una idea más clara sobre lo que implica enseñar. Felicitaciones!!!