FCE FOR TEACHERS
On August 9th we started an FCE course for teachers with a Diagnostic Test in order to know if the participants have the required level (Upper-intermediate or B2 according to the CEFR) and could also cope with the different skills required in the test papers.
The FCE qualification is the basic qualification a teacher of English should have. Why is this so?
Most of the world’s English teachers are not native speakers of English, but we all know that it is not necessary to have a nativelike command of a language in order to teach it well . How much of a language does one need to know to be able to teach it effectively? Of course, we know that there are other factors that influence the effectiveness of our teaching but let´s try to answer the first question by thinking of the language-specific competencies that a language teacher needs These include the ability to do the following kinds of things:
to comprehend texts accurately
to provide good language models
to maintain use of the target language in the classroom
to maintain fluent use of the target language
to give explanations and instructions in the target language
to provide examples of words and gramatical structures and give accurate explanations (ex. of vocabulary and langauge points)
to use appropriate classroom language
to select target-language resources (e.g. newspapers, magazines, the Internet)
to monitor his or her own speech and writing for accuracy
to give correct feedback on learner language
to provide input at an appropriate level of difficulty
to provide language-enrichment experiences for learners
