What is a CELTA course like?

Usoa Sol is one of the fair number of non-native speakers who take the CELTA course nowadays. Usoa was born and brought up in Barcelona, recently finished a degree in translating and interpreting and is currently working part time teaching English and German.

Like many Spanish people, Usoa learnt her English in a private language school, though she also spent a month in Cambridge on a language course, another in Dublin and later two summers working as a freelance translator in New York (listen carefully, and you can pick up tiny traces of each of those stays in her pretty much perfect English).

I wanted a course that really helped me when I was teaching.

Before she decided to do the CELTA course, Usoa already had some experience of teaching English, which she'd really enjoyed, but she felt she'd like to know more about the whole business: "I wanted to learn how to reflect on what I did - why I did it, what I did wrong and so on."

She already had the CAP (the Certificado de Aptitud Pedogógica), the qualification required to teach in a state school in Spain but, she says, "I wanted a course that really helped me when I was teaching". Not CAP, in other words, which is "pure bureaucracy".

We thought it would be interesting to talk to Usoa partly because of her being a non-native teacher. In fact, she's not the only one on the current extensive course, as there is another Spanish girl doing it too, as well as an Italian, a Dutch girl and someone from the Philippines (well, it is International House!), making it five out of 15 people on the current course who are non-natives.

Advantage in being a non-native speaker

Did being a non-native speaker make the course in any way harder? "Well, in fact I maybe have an advantage over the native speakers," Usoa says. "I've already reflected on the English language, having had to learn it myself ­ so I had to go through the whole process the students go through. Grammatical terms like 'present perfect' and so on ­ they already make sense to me." And, being Spanish herself, Usoa knows exactly what problems her students are going to have ­ why, she once had them herself, didn't she?

True, Usoa admits, there are nuances of vocabulary at higher levels, for example, that can crop up where she occasionally has to say "Hm... I'd have to check that out" but, let's face it, all teachers of however much experience, native or otherwise, will find themselves in that situation. "So, what is the difference between 'hope' and 'expect'?" for example.

A question of confidence, as much as knowledge

So how good does your English have to be before you can teach it? "Well, you probably need to have been exposed to the culture," Usoa says, "and exposed to native use of the language, not just books." Cambridge Proficiency level, she suggested, sounding slightly hesitant to say that ­ knowing that having a Proficiency certificate, like CAP, is no guarantee that you can speak it, let alone teach it.

"Your English has got to be at a level where you feel really comfortable speaking it," Usoa says, so to a considerable extent, yes, it's a question of confidence. "You've got to be able to communicate naturally in it." But it's not just that, of course. You've also got to be able to teach it: "It's not just having the language itself, it's being able to convey it." That's the acid test, whether you're native or not.

So what did Usoa feel she'd got out of the course? The first thing she mentioned was the fact that it led to reflection, "not so much on the language as on the way we teach it."

There was a practical side to that, too. Take doing a song, for example. It's not just a question of turning on the tape and filling in the gaps; "there's the pre-, during- and post-task thing," Usoa says. "If you prepare them properly for it, by helping them predict things for example, they understand more, and that makes them feel much better - 'I got that!' ­ it boosts their self-esteem." It's that confidence thing again.

Applying it all to teaching kids

But, like many English teachers here in Spain, Usoa ends up teaching kids, in her case currently mainly 5-year-olds, as well as some 12-15 year olds ("two completely different worlds", Usoa says). Was what she doing on the CELTA course (which is really intended for adults) useful, and readily applicable in her classes?

If you treat them like adults, sometimes it just doesn't work. If you treat them like kids, they hate it.

Usoa feels that it definitely is. That's partly because of one of the fundamental lessons that the CELTA course seems to have taught all the trainees we've talked to: that you have got to be constantly thinking about your learners, that they are the centre of things. "It sounds really obvious," Usoa says, "but it really makes all the difference."

That's probably particularly true of teenagers, who can be tough. "They're not kids, and they're not adults - they're just kind of 'in-betweens'. If you treat them like adults, sometimes it just doesn't work. If you treat them like kids, they hate it."

So what's the secret of teaching them? "I haven't found out yet!" Usoa laughs, though she comes across as the sort of person who really intends to suss that one out, and enjoy doing it, into the bargain.

"I try to have a really good atmosphere in class," she says. "I have the advantage that they can see that I'm young and know they must think 'She can't be that much older than us!' but at the same time you want them to take you seriously. You've got to get the good vibes going in class but at the same time they need to know who's boss."

"I don't wear jeans in the first week," she says. "In fact, you should see me: I normally dress as if I was going to a wedding. Otherwise, they'd say 'Hey, come on: look at you! You're supposed to teach us ?'." But it's not really the clothes, she says, it's being young - that really helps - "and more than anything it's a question of attitude", how you treat them as learners, as people, albeit people in a sort of limbo.

The business of the clothes, did she learn that on the course, or what? "No, I just kind of learnt it by doing it, I guess." Now, no course can teach you everything!