Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield Hallam University

Although my work at the Yorkshire Trust was only temporary, it enabled me to plan ahead for a few months and it really galvanised my ideas about teaching English as a foreign language. In the 9 months since I had been back from Catalonia, I had been researching places in Barcelona where I could obtain a recognised qualification and I could easily see myself living there. As my attempts at speaking Spanish had gone very well, I had also started to learn more of the language, teaching myself, with formal lessons at night school and by making friends on the internet.

A poem by Andrew Motion

Tempting as this idea was, the Trinity College Certificate in TESOL offered by Sheffield Hallam University was much more practical. As well as having a very good reputation in this field, the part time course fitted in well with my work commitments at the Yorkshire Trust and it was a great way to kick off the New Year.

I have to say that, as far as studying is concerned, I have never had to work so hard in all my life. Even though I consider myself to be well organised and a good manager of my time, I hardly had time to do anything else for a period of 5 months and I was glad for the spare time when my work at the Yorkshire Trust finished, despite a loss of income.

I don’t pretend to have an extensive theoretical knowledge of the rules of English grammar and, for me, the experience was a very steep learning curve. Except for a very practical photographic skills development course that I had attended at the Sheffield College, I hadn’t been in an academic environment for nearly 20 years. Back then, I didn’t know much about life and like most people just accepted what I was told but, in the time since, I had developed a mind of my own and was very aware of my own strengths and weaknesses.

Although the course covered a wide range of topics and methodologies, for students of all ages, I knew that if I ever had the opportunity to put the theory into practice, I would not be organising singing, dancing and party games in my classroom - it is just not me. 

I also realised that I would never, ever want to learn Russian either. Even though the 6 hours of being taught solely in Russian was a very valuable lesson, it was a horrible experience - give me the romance languages, Italian and Spanish, any day!