What is a CELTA course like?

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Week 3

When we'd last met, Rob had had a couple of assignments to write. He'd met up with his group in a pub on the Saturday afternoon and they'd brainstormed ideas for it together, before writing it up individually on the Sunday, which made it "a lot easier" to write, Rob said.

They're not looking for perfect teachers after four weeks; they're looking for people who can see their own mistakes and learn from them .

What was it about? Well, they had to observe lessons given by other trainees and look out for things like how people corrected mistakes, gave instructions and other classroom management issues and then critique them; that was one part. The other part was a self-assessment of a lesson they'd given, and a question of looking at what had gone wrong, and what they'd do differently.

Learning from other people's mistakes

"It's surprising how much you learn from other people's mistakes," Rob says, "and it's quite hard to see your own while you're actually teaching." The trainees sit down after the lesson with the tutor and look at what might have gone wrong. The tutors also get them to do self-assessment, and that, plus large doses of constructive criticism from fellow-trainees, is a vital part of the learning process.

It's not a system suited to delicate egos, perhaps, but Rob says "no one takes it personally as we all know that four weeks ago we knew nothing about teaching."

But after just four weeks, will they know enough to be let loose in the classroom? "They're not looking for perfect teachers after four weeks," Rob replies. "They're looking for people who can see their own mistakes and learn from them."

An effective system

But as a system, one that to some extent focuses on errors, did he think it works? "It's very effective," Rob says. "You've got to make the mistakes before you can actually learn from them. At university, we got four years of theory; here, we get the theory in the morning and then get an opportunity to put it into practice in the afternoon - so there's equal emphasis on the practical side of things."

Teaching this week was with the Lower Intermediate class, where they were doing health problems. It had been fun, miming things like having a headache, the students role-playing being the doctors and patients. And hard work, too, eliciting suggestions as to what you do when you have one, and the appropriate vocabulary, checking meaning and pronunciation, getting the phonemic symbols up on the board.

Phonemic symbols, ugh! I hated them when I was a teacher! Had Rob been familiar with them before the course began? "Well, I knew that they existed but I'm still a bit iffy about using them," Rob admits. "They're definitely very useful, though, especially for a Spanish person learning English." Spanish is pronounced as it's written, you see, and when Spanish people start to speak English, they do the same thing, to comic effect. You remember Manuel, in Fawlty Towers?

Finding work in TEFL

There was one more week of the course to do; had Rob done anything about finding work? Well, he'd been looking on the Internet, at sites people had recommended for TEFL jobs, had made a couple of "contacts" here (very useful - everything in this part of the world comes through contacts!) but hadn't yet had time to start going round schools, something he planned to do next week. As part of the course, there was also a session on finding work, which was coming up next week, too.

So, did he think he was going to pass the course? Rob is quite frank about it: "I'll be shocked if I don't". After all, he'd put in a lot of hard work and, besides, the tutors had been very upbeat about how well things seemed to be going - for everyone in the group. "It would be nice to get a 'B', though, to put on my CV."

Light at the end of the tunnel

There were just two more classes to teach, only one of them assessed. "I'll be told what it is tomorrow," Rob says, "and will then have the whole weekend to prepare for it. There's light at the end of the tunnel!"

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