Doing the CELTA: Do’s and Don’ts

This short guide is by no-means comprehensive, but I do hope it is practical and to-the-point. It is based on my experience as a CELTA trainer, so one might say I have seen the course form the inside J So here goes!

What is the CELTA?

The Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages formerly ‘Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults’ (CELTA, /seltə/) is an initial credential ( pre-service qualification) for teachers of English as a foreign language, a well known requirement for those entering the field of English language teaching. Since it is recognised internationally, it is a particularly popular credential among both new teachers as well as amongst more experienced colleagues, who see it as a passport to teaching English around the world or locally.

 

 (adapted from WIkipedia)                                      

 

It’s both a journey and a destination!

Back RoadsCreative Commons License Photo Credit: Justin Brown via Compfight

More than 10,000 candidates follow CELTA courses successfully every year. The CELTA is not the end of the road, of course; it’s the beginning of a great journey with the goal of becoming a great ELT teacher!

Who can do it

Anyone with a good knowledge of the English language, at C1 or preferably C2 level, be they a practising language teacher or an aspiring one can apply for the CELTA. Ideally, a candidate should be over 20 years of age.

Anyone with those pre-requisites can, potentially, be accepted on a course. But do remember:

  • You also need to do well on the language assessment set to you by the course provider
  • Your spoken English must be at a level appropriate to teaching a variety of levels
  • Your knowledge of grammar and ability to explain language should be at a good level
  • You must be healthy and of sound mind!
  • You must prove to your interviewer that you are ready to commit to the demands of the course
  • You must provide evidence that you are potentially a successful CELTA candidate

Do bear in mind that teaching is a demanding but rewarding profession. If you are prepared to work hard, be a lifelong learner and commit to the idea that it takes time to become a great teacher, then the CELTA is a perfect choice for you. With this qualification, you will have many more opportunities for career development than with other, non-recognised, qualifications.

Once you are accepted, there is more work to do!

To find our how you can face some of the demands of the course,  we have prepared some tips listed below, based on our experiences of having worked with numerous CELTA trainees since 2006.

Some Do’s and Dont’s

 approved-151676_1280  cross-157492_1280

Do’s

Don’ts
  • Decide whether the part time or the full time option is the best choice for you.
  • Automatically assume that there is only one option: the full-time, intensive course.
  • Take into account that intensive courses are demanding and not ideal for everyone’s learning pace & style. Choose this option if you thrive on pressure!
  • Follow the course if you are going through a hard time in your personal life; this affects concentration and performance.
  • Allow adequate preparation time. Your centre will provide you with a pre-course task, a series of exercises to prepare you and to get you to do some background reading. Do this systematically and thoroughly.
  • Rush through the pre-course task, giving short, superficial answers to the questions posed; the task is not a test, it’s a reflection and learning tool.
  • Do some background, preparation reading before the course; try to read at least two or three of the books suggested in the pre-course task.
  • Avoid doing any background reading because you think you will have time to do this later during your course. This is usually not the case!
  • Revise your formal knowledge of grammar; your tutors may have made some suggestions when interviewing you; follow them.  Read at least two or three good grammar books, including Scott Thornbury’s ‘About Language’.
  • Assume you know it all, either because you are native speaker or because you studied grammar as a learner. A teacher needs a higher level of expertise;  intuition or information passed on to learners is not enough.
  • Be very clear as to what is expected from you on a CELTA course. Download and read the CELTA handbook very carefully so that you can understand the course objectives and course expectations.
  • Think that there will be time for you to do that later. There won’t! You will need all your time to plan lessons and design great activities!
  • Download and read the CELTA 5 Candidate Record Booklet  and any other orientation material your centre provides, e.g. a trainee guide. This will be your constant companion during the course and the assessor will examine it for evidence of good performance.
  • Neglect this opportunity to be well-informed and well-prepared; neglect to learn the rules and how to maintain your CELTA 5 in top condition, so as to give the external assessor the best impression about your potential as an ELT professional.
  • Map out your study schedule for CELTA work: if possible, clear your schedule of other activities during CELTA days and allot specific time slots for your lesson preparation and course study.
  • Not even for one moment should you imagine that this is something you can breeze through without being organised and prepared to work really hard,  especially if following the  full-time option.
  • Approach the course with an open mind. This is a personal and professional development experience. Be prepared to reflect and experiment with all new ideas!
  • Block new ideas and approaches to teaching because they do not fit in  with either how you learnt the language or how you have been teaching (if experienced).
  • Be ready to interact and participate actively, to contribute as much as you can to the sessions, seminars and workshops. Be willing to share your experiences, your knowledge and your reading!
  • Expect the course to be a series of lectures, followed by memorising content and a final exam. This is a highly participatory course and your tutors will practice what they preach!
  • Be prepared to be observed by other teachers and, of course, your tutors. Take deep breaths and light exercise like a good athlete before a race!
  • Be surprised if you feel nervous or shy, even if this is not your usual attitude: it is absolutely normal and usually soon overcome.
  • Brace yourself for the high value of critiquing lessons and learning from your mistakes. Teaching Practice and feedback on your teaching is the most useful aspect of the course!
  • Expect to be praised or feel that you are a failure if your tutors or fellow trainees offer critical comments. Oversensitivity to feedback never produced excellent teachers!
  • Be prepared to observe other teachers teach, look at their lessons critically and offer objective, constructive feedback. Understand that these lessons will contain mistakes; treat them as learning opportunities
  • Be subjective and personal in your peer assessment: you will not help your colleagues this way, nor yourself. We learn valuable lessons even when we observe someone make mistakes.
  • Take the feedback provided in the spirit it is offered – to help you reach your full potential as a teacher.
  • Assume that negative comments imply that your tutors or your fellow trainees do not like you.
  • Do your very best every step of the way and avoid worrying about grades.
  • Obsess about grades! Some of the best teachers and teacher trainers started with a standard PASS.
  • Take risks and try out new things, new ideas that you have learnt in your input sessions.
  • Expect to stay in your comfort zone and do the bare minimum to scrape through.
  • Pace yourself: your study schedule should allow for some “me time”, essential to unwind and recharge your batteries.
  • Devote every waking minute to your CELTA studies, stay up all night, eating badly, depriving yourself of sleep; you need your energy!
  • Collaborate well with all your fellow trainees be they less or more experienced than you, be they more or less proficient in the English language than yourself. The bonds you create during your course will last you for a long time and are the beginning of your PLN (Personal Learning Network)
  • Be a lone wolf, someone who discourages collaboration and sharing of ideas with others. Learning is a social activity and we learn better together. Avoiding others will rob you of the opportunity to experience collaborative learning – something your course hopes to teach you to be able to do.
  • Enjoy your course! Rest assured that, even if you think you are suffering and you believe it’s hard, once finished, you will remember even the hardest moments with a great nostalgia, as many of our trainees so far have proved! It’s the experience of a lifetime!
  • Keep complaining about the work load, your grades, other people’s comments, the students who are not responding to you in the perfect way you thought they would! Moaning and groaning never got anyone anywhere near the energy and enthusiasm needed for great results!

 Haven’t discouraged you?

Join the good race, then, and happy TEFLing!

Sun runners
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Michał Koralewski via Compfight

More advice

If you need more information and advice, here are two possible websites to browse through.

The official Cambridge English website 

The CELT Athens Cambridge CELTA Wiki 

Do your CELTA & DELTA with us
CELT

 

Unknown's avatarCELT ATHENS

lost in the mistThis short guide is by no-means comprehensive, but I do hope it is practical and to-the-point. It is based on my experience as a CELTA trainer, so one might say I have seen the course form the inside J So here goes!

What is the CELTA?

The Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages formerly ‘Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults’ (CELTA, /seltə/) is an initial credential ( pre-service qualification) for teachers of English as a foreign language, a well known requirement for those entering the field of English language teaching. Since it is recognised internationally, it is a particularly popular credential among both new teachers as well as amongst more experienced colleagues who see it as a passport to teaching English around the world as well as amongst teachers who teach locally.

(adapted from WIkipedia)      …

View original post 1,322 more words

Achieve Excellence on Your CELTA

Great post by someone like you 🙂Image Enjoy and follow the advice – sometimes it works best if you hear it from some who has been through the experience and come out aces.

Sam's avatarThe Celta FAQ

CELTA has three pass marks. Pass, B pass and an A pass. For some qualifications, passing is all you need to do. Well, for CELTA that is different. Some schools won’t even hire people who only achieve a pass. Let’s look at what you can do to secure a B pass or higher.

When I started the CELTA course I was a little confused as to how the course worked and didn’t really work things out until after my second lesson. You are evaluated each time you teach and your tutor will score you on around 20 or so categories. Each category is graded with a N/A, S and S+. You need a certain amount of S+ scores to gain an overall S+ grade. Depending on how many of those you have at the end of the course determines what mark you get. The categories can range from, rapport, planning…

View original post 496 more words

Concept Checking Revisited

Great post revisiting those pesky Concept Checking Questions you all worry about 🙂

Read on!

jonnyingham's avatarRecipes for the EFL Classroom

This is the first (hopefully) in a series of posts going Back to Basics, re-examining techniques and ideas introduced on teacher training courses.

Concept checking questionsMany teachers are introduced to the idea of concept checking in their initial teacher training courses, try it out for a bit, and then forget about it. Sound familiar?

What is concept checking?
The British Council Teaching English website defines concept checking simply as

finding out if a learner has understood a new item.

With concrete items, this could be as simple as asking a learner to point to an object in the room. With more abstract ideas, this could be targeted questions to explore the parameters of meaning.

Why is it useful?
Concept checking can help the teacher to see beyond doubt that the student has understood. Asking the class ‘do you understand?’ is not so useful as it doesn’t demonstrate the learners’ understanding.

What…

View original post 745 more words

Growing

I hope you find this post useful. It includes many ways to help you keep developing as a teacher after your CELTA course.

nathanghall's avatarELT Reflections

9499843032_a9c054ec96_b (1)

Image courtesy of Nicholas A. Tonelli

One of the unique things about becoming a teenager in the Canadian province of Alberta is you can get your learner’s driving permit on your fourteenth birthday, and that is exactly what I did. Just as with most young people, the opportunity to move behind the wheel is a thrill and one that you can’t wait to do on you own. In order to obtain your learner’s permit, all you have to do is to pass the written part of the exam. I remember the first time behind the wheel. My dad took me to a remote parking lot in a empty city park and had me start and start in first gear (I learned to drive on a manual transmission car). I loved it, but I desperately wanted to get out on the road. That opportunity came weeks later and only around some…

View original post 2,482 more words

Two Weeks @ Cambridge CELTA

Two weeks have passed since my first day as a CELTA trainee at CELT Athens. Other than my personal reflections on my performance, I think it would be a good idea to share some of my views regarding the course:
(image from: http://entrance-exam.net/teachers-back-to-learning/)

Experience vs Inexperience

Teaching experience is not an admission requirement. The Cambridge English website describes CELTA as an entry qualification for new teachers. In my opinion, no matter how experienced one might be, if s/he has not received proper teacher training, attending a Cambridge CELTA course should be his/her immediate decision.
Being an experienced teacher myself, I must admit that I had various concerns before the beginning of the course. At some point, I even thought that the course would be very easy for me and that there was not much to learn. Needless to say, I guess, that during these past two weeks I have learned more things than during my last 8 years of teaching.
Contrary to my false preconceptions, experience could be a serious drawback. One needs to forget his/her “way of teaching” once and for all; and this is not an easy thing to do. S/he must take for granted that whatever practice s/he might have followed, in order to survive the CELTA, one must follow the tutors’ recommendations. After all, if one’s practice was fine, s/he wouldn’t have applied in the first place.
For the inexperienced teachers, on the other hand, the CELTA seems easier, at first, in the sense that they learn something for the first time (no objections, no preconceptions, no comparisons). However, they do have to overcome anxiety, lack of confidence, stage fright, uncertainty, and any other first-time-teacher feelings on day two, the latest.
Eventually, experience doesn’t make a difference. What matters is one’s motive and his/her willingness to learn and improve.

FT v PT Mode

One of the things one learns as a CELTA trainee is how to do a needs analysis. I think it would be a good idea if candidates did a needs analysis on themselves first, before deciding which mode to follow. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t do it on a PT basis. It is Monday, 1.08 am, week 3 is on its way, and I am still working on an assignments and my TPs; yet, this is the thing that makes me love it that much: its intensity.
However, there are others who cannot follow a FT mode. This doesn’t mean that they will receive less quality education. If one feels that a FT programme will not allow him/her to meet the course requirements, s/he should not try it. PT has its benefits, as well. For one thing, one has more time to reflect, study, and prepare for assignments, TPs, input sessions, etc.
Truth be told: When the British say “intensive”, they do mean it; be prepared to devote one month (24/7) to this cause. You may have hard days, you may struggle, you may cry, but it’s worth your time and energy; at the end of the day, you will feel stronger.

Individual vs Team Work

For me, this is the most important aspect and the key to make your life easier: your trainers and fellow trainees. These people:
a. are the ones with whom you will spend 9 hours per day sharing everything from attending classes to crying for no reason,
b. will say – to your face – everything that went wrong with your TP, (If they don’t, do not trust them) and
c. are the only ones who know what you are going through.
Respect and understand them.

2.00 am, Week 3 has already started!

 

If you are thinking of pursuing a career in teaching, or if you are a teacher that hasn’t received training, do sign up for a Cambridge CELTA course. There are many training centres around the world. This is an opportunity for all of us to step back, reflect, and become better professionals.

About the author

 

My Photo
Angelos Bollas is a teacher and admissions consultant for a foreign language centre in Athens Greece. At the time of writing this post which we are reposting here with his kind permission from his blog Learning Lover, he was a trainee on our CELTA course. He is @angelos_bollas on Twitter

Pre-CELTA Thoughts

Sharing this great first post by Angelos Bollas – @angelos_bollas on Twitter, where he has already created an account and is becoming an active and engaged user !!!!

 

Twitter angelos_bollas Pre CELTA thoughts ...

I shall only post a few lines here and encourage you to visit his new blog, leave a comment and connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.

Hello world!
My name is Angelos Bollas and I am about to start a CELTA course at CELT International Teacher Development Centre.
Even though I have been working for 8 years as an on and offline English Language Teacher in Greece and the UK, I realised that I was in need of formal teacher training. Not only have I faced difficulties in my job all these years, but also I have just come up with a very serious issue: when I decided to start a blog about language education, I had nothing to write about. or so I thought.
For the last two weeks, I have been preparing for my CELTA course. Other than grammar revisions and clarifications, I have started studying books and journals on methodology, classroom management, teacher development, and so many other issues the names of which I did not know even though I was “using” some of them.

Continue reading here