History
The Faculty has been offering opportunities for students to receive some professional training in TEFL since 1980; that is, well before the Faculty's major curriculum reform in 2003-04. However, before 2004, these opportunities were only offered within the framework of two compulsory courses for students in their senior year of studies: the one course was Applied Linguistics and the other was ELT Methodology. Besides attending mainstream classes, students could choose any or a combination of the following activities:
- Attend seminars on special topics of language education, offered by invited speakers for extra credit.
- Complete an independent project on a selected topic related to TEFL.
- Do supervised peer-teaching on practical topics such as developing reading skills, using games in the TEFL classroom, CALL in the EFL class, classroom testing, having previously been prepared by their tutors to carry out the task.
- Observe TEFL sessions so as to: (a) evaluate the teaching techniques and strategies in a real classroom setting, on the basis of preset criteria, (b) help out students with pair and group work, (c) grade homework assignments, and (d) prepare so that eventually they teach one of the classes by themselves while the class teacher observes.
- Participate in TEFL Workshops focusing on a variety of topics, offered by professional trainers and experienced teachers.
In 2003-4 there was a major reform and restructuring of the whole PRE-ED programme which lead to the present structure and content of the programme.