07/09/2009 - 02/10/2009 CELTA

Well, here I am sitting in my room a week after I finished my CELTA course at International House (Bangkok) and I am seriously enjoying my leisure time. I am yet to receive my actual grade but I have secured a teaching position at a government school in Bangkok and will start teaching there in the last week of October. Much to the displeasure of E, I have a couple weeks of guilt free time off. We’re off to Pattaya this weekend and we will be trekking to Cambodia the week after (watch this space). I have a few more grey hairs but have since managed to get some sun, a Thai massage and am working away the bags under my eyes - although I absolutely loved the course. There was a joke towards the end of the course where the trainees were saying we should design a t-shirt saying ‘I survived CELTA’. If you’re a prospective CELTA or TESOL trainee then this post will try and provide some answers I was searching for prior to the start of the course. I remember spending a good few hours researching what exactly I could expect from the course: the certificate’s credentials, job prospects, having a nervous breakdown during the first teaching practice, you know – the usual. I realized that after Googling “CELTA Thailand” and Youtubing “CELTA teaching practice” there was no point in digging to deep ahead of the course. In the wise words of a famous shoe maker: ‘just do it’. Your experience of the course will be your own and no amount of advice will make it any easier.

Before you start searching for which course to take, here’s a quick note to outline what all these acronyms actually stand for.

TEFL – this is not a course in itself but is simply an abbreviation for ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language’. A lot of people will say ‘I’m doing a TEFL course’ but the certificate they receive (if it’s legitimate) will be accredited by varying educational bodies in the US or UK. This is also called TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and ELT (English Language Teaching).

CELTA – Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults. This is the course I have just completed and I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to teach English as you travel. It is accredited by the University of Cambridge and is recognized all over the world.

CertTESOL – Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Much the same as the CELTA in that it’s widely recognized around the world and is accredited by Trinity College. It’s slightly cheaper than a CELTA course but then you don’t have the esteemed ‘Cambridge’ stamped on that piece of paper, do you?

Other courses available? Look, unless you can’t do the above for financial or geographical reasons, don’t bother with anything that doesn’t have the Cambridge or Trinity stamp. In my humble opinion, and the opinion of 99% of employers out there, the Cambridge CELTA and the Trinity TESOL are the qualifications held in the highest esteem. Sure you can take a random TEFL course available to you (and there are many) and you may even find employment through these. Hell, you’re probably a ‘real’ teacher who started his/her life with one of these TEFL’s and you’re now doing very well for your self. But times have changed – more people are traveling the world these days. More people are teaching and competition is rife. If you don’t mind teaching in the middle of nowhere with a poor salary, go for it. These courses are cheaper after all. But if you seriously want to have a certificate that gives you a better opportunity in teaching English as you travel the world in the best cities…need I say more?

Ok, so here’s a brief description of what to expect. CELTA is a four week intensive course. Say goodbye to your weekends and your partner. He/she will love you and hate you for doing this course all at the same time. For four weeks your whole life will be dedicated to assignments, lesson plans, teaching practice and observations. The day officially starts at 9am however you’ve probably been up since 6am working on that lesson that you have to prepare for your teaching practice at 2pm. Oh and that assignment that you had to redo that was due yesterday. Between 9am and 12pm, your tutor’s will be giving you an input session. These range from teaching language systems (Lexis, Pronunciation and Grammar) to language skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing). These are workshop based lessons and tend to be more fun than demanding but you do learn valuable stuff – take notes whenever you can. 12pm to 1pm is ‘Assisted Lesson Planning’. This is when your group (normally numbering six people or thereabouts) will meet with your respective tutor to discuss your genius lesson plan you have devised, only to find out that it’s a pile of rubbish and you have to amend some stages before you teach. Don’t be defensive – who are you going to trust, yourself or an experienced and qualified CELTA trainee? Lunch is between 1pm and 2pm. Good luck if you find the time to eat that sandwich. 2pm to 4pm is Teaching Practice. This is where you teach and observe your peers teaching. You will teach eight lessons throughout the four weeks – the first six lessons are forty minutes and the last two are one hour each. Don’t worry, the lessons fly by. But the lesson planning doesn’t.  Oh, and you teach your first lesson on day 2. Yes, that’s right. In between starting your course on Monday, knowing jack squat about teaching and having no experience whatsoever, to the following Tuesday at 2pm, you will have to devise a forty minute lesson and deliver this to a classroom of EFL learners, your peers and your tutor. But don’t worry; everyone is in the same boat. I didn’t sleep the night before and was a nervous wreck before my teaching slot. But, just like that roller coaster ride you didn’t want to go, you will want to do it again as soon as you finish. It was in that moment I realized that I would love teaching. The students calm your nerves simply by being receptive to your teaching. 4pm to 4:30pm you have a quick break but then it’s back for an hour of feedback from your tutor and peers. This is where you give and receive feedback about the lessons taught. You are expected to note down and discuss good and bad points about your peers and submit a self evaluation form of your lesson. Once again, don’t be offended by any criticism from anyone – it’s constructive and will only help you prepare for future lessons and to improve. 5:30 pm – so it must be home time, right? Nope. I made the mistake of not moving to temporary accommodation during the four weeks (see my trip to CELTA post below). I woke up at 6am every morning to get to class for 8am and didn’t get home most nights until 9pm. If you live further than 45 minutes away, especially in a busy city like Bangkok, just move next to the center. You don’t see your partner anyway and the money you spend on traveling may as well help support the guest houses surrounding the school. Oh, and you’ll have more of that precious commodity we call ‘sleep’.  You will have a total of four written assignments to hand in – one each week. Each assignment only has a word count request of 1000 but everything you include has to be spot on. Expect a request to resubmit some of these from your tutor.

CELTA is stressful. Fellow trainees on my course said the stress they endured whilst doing their university exams was nothing compared to this. You need to find time to relax. My method was to give your self one or two hours after class to just eat, drink and be merry. Then you can carry on working till midnight. At the weekends, sleep in if you can. Give yourself Saturday morning and early afternoon off to relax, soak in some rays and get some exercise. Then you can spend the rest of the weekend working. Just remember, it’s only four weeks and three weekends. Also, it’s well worth the effort (and money) to buy the book ‘Learning Teaching’ by Jim Scrivener ahead of the course. This will give you a good idea on the methods taught and what you can expect to experience during your teaching practice. Also, get a decent grammar book and revise it. You won’t find yourself teaching a whole lesson on the grammar itself but your students will expect you to know about the tense, form, etc that you are teaching (be prepared for some challenging questions!).

The best thing about this course, apart from your improved job prospects, is meeting some fantastic people along the way and realizing that teaching English as a foreign language is a great way to earn money and travel at the same time. Ultimately, however, you realize that you’re making a difference to someone’s life. Yes, that statement is a cliché – but for a very good reason. It’s during the teaching practice that you realize why you’re doing this in the first place – the reward outweighs the struggle. Many of the students need to study English to pass exams, to help them in the workplace or to help them emigrate to a better life. The students’ backgrounds vary greatly and, more often than not, they don’t have the same opportunities most of us have. What better way is there to make a real difference while you enjoy experiencing other cultures? On a personal level, my main achievement on this course was to overcome my fear of public speaking. Prior to this I had developed a phobia and would avoid situations where I had to speak to groups of people. This affected my working life a great deal and the thought of having to present or teach people would fill me with utter dread. Now, however, I feel I can do it. I’m by no means an after dinner speaker - not by any stretch of the imagination. But after this course I feel that a few more doors have opened for me and I feel a lot better for it. Ok, I’ll teach more lessons in my first week of employment than the whole four weeks of CELTA, but I do feel prepared for it and that is the whole point of this course: to provide you with as much relevant knowledge and skill as they can within a short period of time. So, for whatever personal or professional reasons you have for doing a TEFL, the best of luck to you!

My CELTA group on our last day. Pale, forlorn, stressed but ultimately happy and looking forward to that drink...

If you have any questions you’d like to ask me, feel free to email us at ohmytravels (at) gmail (dot) com.