Battling for First: The Bahrain 2007 Grand Prix

An article by Roger Munns


Formula One racing in 2007 has exploded with excitement as the third race in the F1 circuit, held in Bahrain, has brought the world's attention to focus on one captivating rookie by the name of Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton, the young British driver, finished second after the Bahrain Grand Prix racing event. To date, Hamilton has finished first, second or third in his first three Grand Prix races, an unprecedented accomplishment.

Fans of F1 racing were treated to speeds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour, as well as hair raising turns and squealing tyres as drivers fought for lead positions in last Sunday's race. F1 racecars can reach speeds in excess of 340 kilometers per hour, many in less than ten seconds under the gifted hands of drivers like Hamilton and Massa.

Those following the fast rise of the rookie Hamilton were not surprised that he managed to latch onto a front-row start during qualifying sessions on Saturday. Having edged out Felipe Massa during the second F1 race in Malaysia a week ago, Hamilton slipped in behind Massa and stayed put for most of the race. As of the close of the Bahrain race, Hamilton shares 22 points in the running for F1 champion with Alonso and Kimi Raikkenen. The winner of the Malaysian Grand Prix last week, Fernando Alonso, finished fifth. After the race, Hamilton commented that he had every confidence that if the race had gone a few more laps, he would have edged past Massa for the lead. Hamilton will have an opportunity to strut his stuff again in the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix, to be held May 13 in Catalunya, Spain.

The Bahrain Grand Prix winner, Felipe Massa, had his hands full maintaining his lead after repeated threats by Hamilton's car early on in the race and later, as it came to its exciting conclusion. Hamilton didn't stop for fuel or a tire change until Lap 19, and as far as he was concerned, that stop made all the difference in the race. He did not particularly caring for the soft tires that didn't grab the track, as he would have preferred, he stated after the race.

The Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir made its debut in April of 2004 and holds the distinction as being the first Formula One World Championship racing event to be held in the Middle East. The 57-lap track runs just over five kilometers in length and offers just about a half a dozen sharp turns that serve to thrill thousands of observers who follow the F1 circuit races in person, as well as the millions who tune in to watch this third of nineteen F1 Grand Prix races for this year's championship. Grandstands, built to hold 50,000 spectators, often spill over, as they did again this year, with over 100,000 enthusiastic racing fans in attendance.

The Formula One racing event in Bahrain is held near the island's capital of Manama at the Sakhir racetrack, and the Bahrain International Airport offers easy transportation to and from the racing event on the largest of the Bahrain Kingdom's thirty-six islands. Bahrain, the only Arab state that is actually a group of islands, offers a mixture of white, sandy beaches and plenty of warm sunshine able to accommodate the thousands of visitors to the island each year who come to enjoy the 'Arabian Sheik' atmosphere that the racetrack offers, situated as it is in the midst of desert sands and endless blue skies.



About the Author

Details of the Monaco Formula One race and for those thinking of visiting the Grand Prix hotels in Nice and offshore Barclays Bank Monaco visit YourMonaco.com

Getting Started in TEFL: Choosing a TEFL Course

Useful advice from Keith Taylor


The demand for English teachers around the world today is very high, as English continues to be the preferred language in many areas of life, from study and work to entertainment and travel. For the foreseeable future at least, you will never be short of a job if you choose English teaching as a career.

So, if you've heard tales from a returning teacher of the wonders of living and working in Thailand, Brazil or Morocco and you think it might just be the career for you, how, exactly, do you get started?

Well, the first thing to confront you may well be the minefield of acronyms, so let's work through that first of all.

ESL stands for English as a Second Language. Add a T, giving TESL, and you have Teaching English as a Second Language.

EFL is English as a Foreign Language. Again, add a T, and you have TEFL, Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Traditionally, TEFL refers to teaching in non-English speaking countries, whereas TESL refers to teaching in English speaking countries, to non-native speakers living or working there. In practice, though, the two terms are often used interchangeably, and both are covered by the all-encompassing TESOL, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.

During your training or job search, you might come across a host of other acronyms, asking you if you have experience teaching ESP or EAP, FCE or IELTS! Don't be daunted by these - have a look at this guide to TEFL terminology.

Now that you know a little about some of the jargon you'll be facing, the next step is usually a qualification of some kind. The days of being able to secure an English teaching job solely on the strength of being a native speaker, although not entirely gone, are fading fast. A quick search on the internet for "TEFL courses" (we'll stick with this acronym for now) will return a mind-boggling selection, of varying content, duration, and quality, and it can be difficult to know what to go for.

It might surprise you to discover that most TEFL courses are short. The most internationally recognised and accepted are the "CELTA" (there's yet another acronym for you), run by the University of Cambridge, and the "Trinity Cert TESOL", run by Trinity College, London. Both of these are 120 hour, classroom-based courses, and include several hours of observed teaching practice. In other words, they get you in front of students during the course so that you can put into practice what you learn. These courses are usually studied over a very intensive four week period, and involve a lot of work outside the classroom, preparing classes and writing assignments.

You'll learn a good deal about teaching theory and methodology, and have some chance to put it into practice. You will learn some English grammar, but don't expect to be an expert by the end of the course - this mostly comes in your first few years of teaching.

An increasing number of institutions offer courses of similar length and content to the CELTA and Trinity courses, and you will find that many employers will accept these.

Very generally speaking, the shorter and less classroom-based the course, the less accepted it will be by employers around the world. There are some high quality online courses available, for example, but by definition these do not allow for any actual teaching practice, and so are often viewed in a less favourable light by potential employers. Some courses compensate by teaching theory and methodology online, and including a short classroom-based component to put it into practice.

You can take a TEFL course in many different countries. Studying in Bangkok or Prague, for example, can give you the advantage of the centre's connections with local schools when it comes to finding employment, and some course providers offer help with finding a job as part of the deal.

Another option is an MA in TESOL. As with most Masters degrees, these take one year or longer, and consequently tend to cover theory and methodology in greater detail.

So, to keep your options as open as possible when it comes to finding employment, the CELTA and Trinity Cert TESOL and equivalent courses, or longer MA courses, are perhaps the best options. But there are, of course, other considerations. CELTA and Trinity courses can cost upwards of US$2000. This may seem a big investment if you are not sure yet if TEFL is the career for you.

So a good first step is to have a look at some of the jobs available in countries where you are interested in teaching, to get an idea of the typical requirements. You could choose a shorter, cheaper course, if these are generally accepted where you want to teach, and then study for a CELTA or equivalent after a year or two, if you decide to pursue the profession further.

The availability of short, quick courses often raises the question of unqualified or underqualified teachers let loose on unsuspecting students! Here, the argument runs both ways:

Some maintain that a qualified teacher doesn't necessarily mean a good teacher, and that communicative skills and enthusiasm are just as important in motivating students. Even the CELTA and Trinity courses are, after all, entry level courses, designed to start you off, with the idea that much of your learning will come from experience during your first couple of years of teaching.

Others argue that just as an unqualified teacher wouldn't be allowed to teach at a secondary school in the UK or the US, why should it be any different in the TEFL field - students are paying to be taught by someone with solid training in teaching theory and methodology. And after all, as a teacher, you'll feel better equipped and more confident when you step into the classroom in your new job.

It's up to you which side of the fence you choose to stand on this one! But whether you study for a week or a year, it will in some measure prepare you for the next step in your TEFL career, when you walk in to the classroom for the first time in your new TEFL job.



About the Author

Keith Taylor is the founder of eslbase.com, providing free resources, information and advice for TEFL teachers, as well as a directory of TEFL courses and the latest TESOL jobs worldwide.