I have just been offered the possibility to do basic, intermediate and advanced English lessons with a local Italian company taken over by a German company. I am thrilled to bits about this opportunity but a bit worried because I am not trained teacher, but intend to give it a go anyway and will put my heart and soul into it! They have approx. 50 people interested in the courses and they are all at different levels so first I have got to do an assessment test to see what course they should take. Can I pick yours brains and ask where I can find a suitable "test di ingresso" that covers basic up to advanced levels so it's just one test for all of them?

The other course they want to do is basic German but in English. Does anyone know a good, adult book for teaching/learning German? Something along the lines of New Headway which is the book I'll use for the a.m. English courses. Should I perhaps ask on the German forum?

Now I have to prepare a programme for them about the courses - that will keep me busy for a while!

Thanks ever so much for your support.

If you have a nice pair I'll give you all the support you'll need

you can find assessment tests online - do a few and then make up one of your own - or nick the questions. Think of doing 50 questions, starting from pre-intermediate onwards. 10 each level and give them 30 mins to do the test.
You should try and persuade the company to run 5 courses, starter, preintermediate, intermedaite, upper int and advanced - as mixing levels is a nightmare

Is it general English that they want? Because if not there are loads of good business English books that are just as easy to use as Headway and may be more useful. Or did the company specify that book?

Can't help you with tests as I've always worked for language schools so they provide their own.

Well done Pugliese but I have to question their choice of a non-qualified teacher to teach English!

I suppose you can find anything on-line these days, tests included.

Perhaps her future employers have realised that most qualified teachers here can't rub more than 2 sentences together and have opted for a "madrelingua" instead.

Yeah right . .not always the best bet, as I can personally vouch for .. but that's another story.

So my offer of support is not needed then?

Here are some of the sites recommended by others on this forum to use for lesson plans, pick them depending on the levels, maybe divide the class in 2 or 3 groups, teach while other levels do exercises?

www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources
www.Onestopenglish.com
www.english-to-go.com
www.busyteacher.org

Well first let me thank you all for your help. What Mark wrote makes me feel like I owe you an explanation, so here goes. I did study languages (French and German) on a Bil-Lingual course at College (many moons ago) and got up to Intermediate Level with the Institute of Linguists. Then I went to live in Germany for 18 years where I started to learn Italian and 20 years ago, I moved to Italy and can safely say I am fluent in both so I know what it takes to study a language. What I haven't done is get any qualifications to teach English as a foreign language. I have however given English lessons in the past (privately) and done a lot of translating work in any of the a.m. lingos. Amongst my customers for translations, is the company who has now asked me to do English lessons for their employees, even though they know that I am not a qualified English teacher. I do have scruples about this fact but should I say no and lose this opportunity?

Lorna aptly commented about the ability (or should we say lack of it) of "qualified" Italian teachers who think they can speak English, but would it be better to turn down the offer and let one of them do the job? They get their so-called "qualifications" here by collecting points not necessarily capabilty, don't they?

Anyway I have already decided to enrol the help of my dear English friend here who has taught in state schools for the past 20 years as a native speaker and just recently been made a docenti di ruolo with the new law and who, by the way, does not a university degree either but is an excellent teacher nontheless.

Let me know what you think

I do need your support Duffer as mine is sagging at the moment......thanks!

I'm using Headway because somebody on here recommended it when I asked for a book to teach English to adults for a course I was doing a while back. I also have the Teacher's book so I study that first before the lesson to compensate for my lack of TEFL knowledge.

OK fair enough, it's just that you might find they want specific business knowledge such as making business calls, writing emails, etc. and Headway is very general. If that's the case I would recommend something like the In Company or Market Leader series, which cater for beginner to upper intermediate/advanced levels. However, I know that teacher's books and CDs are expensive so understand your desire to use the one you have. Otherwise, supplement with lots of business-related material. "Email English" is a good book for extra exercises for your intermediate to advanced students.

I think you will be OK but you'll need to brush up on your grammatical knowledge as grammar teaching can often turn into a bit of a debate! However well you use English, you're probably not aware of the actual rules (we weren't all taught them at school, depending on your generation) and able to explain them to students. In addition to Headway or whatever you decide to use, I would recommend "English Grammar in Use" by Raymond Murphy for intermediate students and "Essential Grammar in Use" for beginners and pre-intermediate. You can base your explanations on the ones given in the books then they can do the exercises.

Please note that my knowledge of TEFL books dates from 2007 when I left the English teaching world, but I was a director of studies of sorts in Paris so I do know the (older) books quite well. Good luck!

Blimey Headway! I was using that in the late 80s ..! It was one of the best mind you, so I expect they've kept that up.

Fair enough Pugliese .. sounds as if you have all the right "qualifications" if not on paper. I just remember my own experience when I first came over and started TEFL and I didn't even realise there was a difference between present perfect and past simple, let alone how to explain it or give a name to it. Plus I did learn a lot from the TEFL course I did a year later, on technique mostly.

Ah, but this is "New Headway".

more like "new Headache"