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Certificate in the Theory and Methodology of TESOL

The course materials consist of 600 pages in four modules, each containing four study units. The first three modules are similar to those of the CES (Certificate in Educational Studies in TESOL) course. The fourth module is specific to this CTM (Certificate in Theory and Methodology of TESOL) course. This course takes around 250 hours of study, including completion of the tasks and the assignments.

Detailed syllabus

Contents of Module 4

Unit 13 An Introduction to Linguistics

  • What is linguistics?
  • General linguistics
    • Formal grammars
  • An alternative view of language
    • Functional grammars
    • Speech acts
  • Applied linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
    • Language
    • Standard languages
    • Register
    • Teaching register in the classroom
  • Written and spoken registers
    • The primacy of speech
    • Lexical density
    • Effects of culture on learning
  • Feedback on the tasks

Unit 14 An Introduction to Psycholinguistics

  • Stages in child language acquisition
    • How do children acquire adult language proficiency?
    • Generative grammar
    • Universal grammar
    • Differences between language acquisition and learning
  • Second language acquisition
    • The nature of language learner errors
  • Analysing errors
    • Contrastive analysis
    • Error analysis
    • Behaviourism vs. mentalism
    • The input hypothesis
    • Interlanguage
    • Language aptitude
  • Feedback on the tasks

Unit 15 More on Lesson Planning and Teaching

  • Approaches to teaching
  • ARC
  • Task-based learning
    • The TBL framework
    • The components of TBL
    • A sample lesson
    • Problems with PPP
  • Sitting down to plan
  • Feedback on the tasks

Unit 16 Preparing Your Own Material

  • Reasons for preparing your own material
  • Evaluating your coursebook
  • Preparing materials to suit your class
    • Sources of input
    • The pros and cons of authentic material
    • Editing the language for the input stage
    • Editing the content to make it culturally appropriate
    • Editing text from newspapers and magazines
  • Activities
    • Exploiting material
    • Factors affecting activities
    • Some practical considerations for material production
  • Feedback on the tasks
  • Teaching around the world
  • Index

After exploring our information pages, you can enrol online or contact us for more information.