I'm happy to have achieved the extra 60 hours of my TEFL course - aimed at teaching young learners. This means I have now completed my full 180 hour course and am fully qualified to begin teaching English as a foreign language!

I've really enjoyed this course because I love language and learning about the technical side of the English language (constructs, terminology, grammar etc.). But I've also loved thinking more about the many reasons for language and it's development over time. We use language to convey information and communicate through necessity, but we also use it for fun, in theatre or reading books or socialising and making jokes to make our friends laugh.

It's such an integral part of life, and the older I've gotten, the more fascinated by it I am. I've also found that learning to teach a language to a foreign student has helped my own language learning journey, and vice versa. For example, having empathy for a student and the amount of confidence it takes to even try to speak in another language - with all the fear of embarrassment that surrounds every sentence - particularly in the early days.

I've learned to forgive myself for the mistakes I make when I speak too. Language, especially spoken language, isn't supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be off the cuff, and it's supposed to be fluid and change with circumstance, environment, the speaker and the listener.

And I will embrace speaking more when I'm learning, and not be embarrassed by making mistakes because that's the best way to progress!

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