Job Discussion Forums

[Denim-Maniac]

[fluffyhamster]

[mmcmorrow]

As I think I suggested in my previous posting in this thread, I believe that the value of CELTA depends almost entirely on the quality of the institutions that run the programme, including, in particular, the people involved as trainers and assessors.

Here in New Zealand, for instance, the programme is run in 10 centres across the country, most of which are either closely associated with Universities (e.g. ELA with the University of Auckland, Waikato Pathways College with the University of Waikato etc) or have high reputations in the field, gaining prestigious awards, Government contracts etc (e.g. Languages International & Christchurch College of English). Trainers here in Auckland include Craig Thaine and Jill Hadfield, who are authors of widely-used language teaching and training materials. They and other Celta trainers can be seen at conferences giving presentations and are also well-represented in the language teaching associations. So, I think it's fair to say that the institutions and personnel involved in Celta programmes in NZ are representative of best practice in English language centres across the country.

The basic idea of CELTA is to initiate new or inexperienced teachers into the profession in the company of experienced and knowledgeable people and within these well-resourced and well-run institutions. They learn some basics about how to assess learner needs and wants, how to analyse language and discourse, how to plan and teach English language in a scaffolded environment, receiving feedback on their performance and guidance on how they can improve upon it. And they do this in the company of other motivated teachers against a background of standards against which the performance of over 100, 000 other teachers worldwide has been assessed. That is what the credibility of the programme is based upon - and credibility is the lifeblood of any form of accreditation.

This is clearly not the only way in which initial training / professional development could be done. But critics of the Celta programme, I think, need to be clear about what aspect(s) of the programme they are targeting and what alternatives they are putting forward.

One criticism would be to say that the course essentially has no value and teachers would be just as well off with no training at all, learning what they need to know through reading and experience. While this may be possible for some teachers, I'm not convinced it has much general validity. Personallly speaking, I benefited a good deal from training, despite already having a relatively strong linguistics and educational background. I've witnessed hundreds of other trainees developing their knowledge, awareness and practice through the programme. And I've also seen some highly intelligent people without any training teach, in my view, poorly. After all, if they are unwilling to invest in any initial training, how likely is it that they're going to turn out to be self-critical and motivated enough to do it all by themselves?

Another criticism regards the length and/or scope of the course. Some people feel it should be a Master's or nothing, for instance. I don't think any of us would disagree that teachers would benefit from further studies. But many initial teachers are unsure about how long they want to stay in the profession and are therefore, naturally, unwilling to invest a year or two in a qualification, when they might end up only teaching for six months or a year. What's more, MA courses, as I pointed out before, are very difficult to assess in terms of their relevance to classroom language teaching. For many of us, the value of an MA is enhanced by a couple of years of practical experience after an initial training course.

Finally, people might accept the principle of a short training course, but criticise aspects of the content, delivery or assessment of Celta. But I haven't seen any really specific criticisms of this type in this thread. Which, if any, of the assessment criteria would they change? How about the written assignments? More one-to-one tutorial, perhaps? More observation of experienced teachers? Or a more task / text based methodology? The problem for this last criticism is that the Celta programme as it is already allows for a range of approaches to methodology. The methodology that teachers pick up in courses really says more about the values and norms within the community of practice of English language teaching in a particular country or field than it does about the Celta programme per se. But I also think that over the last 25 years in which I've been involved in the profession, there's been a growing awareness of the need for a diversity of learning experiences in the classroom and that has been reflected in the Celta courses I've worked on or assessed.

To finish off, 'fluffyhamster' refers to a 16-year old interview with the then Head of TEFL courses in Cambridge (Lynette Murphy O'Dwyer). In Fluffyhamster's view, "one nevertheless got the slight impression that UCLES fingers were being stuck in ears somewhat". This struck me as a pretty vague criticism - one which most of the readers of this thread would be in no position at all to assess. Since I have the book, I've included below some extracts from the interview relevant to CELTA (the interview seems to have taken place just before the CELTA was launched - the CELTA was the result of a two-year review of the previous RSA Cert TEFLA course, which Lynette was managing at the time) . Maybe readers can make up their own minds about whether it represents a 'fingers-in-ears' approach to criticism - bearing in mind, this interview dates from a time before this forum existed, when today's high school graduates were still in romper suits!

"I think that one has to look at the certificate being aimed at pre-service teachers. They don't have the basic tools of the trade. That means that the aims and objectives of that certificate are to introduce people to the profession. They are not in a position to review their established practice and learn from it ... But at the same time it is a real dilemma for course tutors as to whether they should confuse the issue and present to all candidates fifty different ways of teaching or whether they should restrict it. There is a view that the CTEFLA has restricted the experience of candidates to the PPP model. Now, again it reflects that fact that on most courses the PPP model has been used as the model that introduced the candidates to their professional skills. But this doesn't mean they have no experience of any other models. It is important to show that PPP isn't the only answer to teaching.

But there is still a dilemma. When you're preparing a teacher in such a short time, you have to enable them to go into the classroom feeling relatively secure. But you must also encourage them to question if it's the only way. I would suggest, or would hope, that through our system of checks and balances and monitoring the courses and course approval and reapproval, the training provided on certificate courses is not stagnant. The training must be supportive, but by the end of the course, participants must realise that they don't know everything about teaching. They should recognise that what has happened is that they have been introduced to one or two models and that they have a lot to learn

... we need to provide an initial incentive towards making teachers into questioning professionals. We don't want teachers or teacher trainers or anybody involved in the field to start with the CTEFLA and do nothing else at all - do no other professional training, have no other professional discussions or insights, never ever pick up a book. What we need to do is to encourage them to think about what they're doing. We shouldn't just give them recipes, but that's a start. You need to go beyond that, of course. If we truly represent the profession, the profession is not going to allow us to encourage people to do teaching by numbers and leave it at that ...

Murphy-O'Dwyer, L., & Willis, D. (1996). Assessing the practice of teaching: A view from UCLES. In J. Willis & D. Willis, Challenge and change in language teaching (pp. 149-154). Oxford, England: Heinemann

Martin McMorrow, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

[artemisia]

[fluffyhamster]

Jill Hadfield?! <Gush> I owe my expertise with scissors to her! </Gush>

Unfortunately I couldn't actually re-read and perhaps quite reassess the O'Dwyer interview, Mmcmorrow, as my copy of the book back here in the UK got flogged by somebody when I was off in Asia. But the flip side of your apparent reading of O'Dwyer as so very sincere and credible is obviously my recollection (and "my" reading) of Willis as a slightly "hostile" and unbelieving/unconvinced interviewer (he asked the same questions a few times, in slightly differing ways, right? Like, "Yes, but..."), and the undeniable fact is that the interview was conducted against a backdrop of quite a few ELT writers' (some of whom e.g. Michael Lewis, an influential figure to say the least, contributed papers to the book) dissatisfaction with and criticisms of the CTEFLA, and their scepticism that UCLES and the new CELTA etc were going to improve matters. So it's not as if there has never been cracks (and presumably aren't ever cracks appearing still) in the supposedly solid monolith.

I've tried in this thread and many others to give some indication of what I think would make for more effective teaching~learning methodology as regards conversation at least, and I guess one way of assessing that would be to use observation schemes based in no small part on conversation analysis. Just a thought!

[LongShiKong]

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Aha! I'm left alone in the field! Therefore dialectical victory is MINE to claim! It was historically determined all along, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si7mD2HMB5U

Ura!

[LongShiKong]

McMorrow, Spiral78, CELTA grads, tell me:
Has Denim-maniac raised a valid criticism of CELTA--that it fails to address the methods required to counter years of teacher/text/test centric language study, particularly here in Asia? You'll note the Chinese alias of the OP who started this thread with the criticism that CELTA methodology was 'childlike'.

Not one minute of my 100 hr TESL cert course in Vancouver was spent on this but I'm sure all of us ended up teaching Asians. The closest we came to the issue was a brief section on false beginners. That's principally why I question the experience and credentials of those who ran and accredited that course.

[spiral78]

Ok, I'm back, but only for a cameo appearance.
After all, Sasha has rightfully declared victory and I'm not about to rain on the parade!

Yes, there are cultural differences between different regions of the world, and thus different challenges faced by newly-certified teachers.

I'd argue that the CELTA/equivalent courses COULD be tailored to fit the geographical goals of trainees - but this would be difficult in many/most locations.

If anyone were to open a training centre(s) specifically focusing on 'Getting Started in Asia,' for example, then the training could include a strong focus on how ELT research findings can be applied in that region (and the challenges involved).

However, I"m not sure this is feasible, though, in most locations - where trainees may have disparate geographical goals

Also, many people earn a CELTA/equivalent, start out somewhere, and then want that cert to be considered valid in other parts of the world. A tailored training course would lose its portability to some degree.

Good idea, but probably not viable.

I did hear recently of someone who took a 5-day course in China about teaching Chinese students. This could be quite useful and more widely applicable - I could easily imagine a 5-day intensive specialised course on the ins and outs of teaching in North America or another one on teaching in Europe.
Could be a useful addendum to a basic cert.

Now, back to Sasha's victory parade....

[fluffyhamster]

Another cameo...

Victories involve casualties no matter who "wins". Thankfully, I can report that Lord Katsumoto's village held off hordes of ninjas that just kept on coming, tripping up, falling on their swords, shurikening themselves in the forehead, etc etc.

Anyway, improvements, research findings etc can be applied anywhere, given the wherewithal and will, but whether the CELTA and similar is the thing to provide all that that is another matter. As for tailoring courses so that trainees can "counter" e.g. Asian students' expectations, I think Denim-Maniac's got that covered with what he <GASP> managed to work out for himself </GASP> and posted on pg 7: "I was a salesman for about 10 years in another life. I never found the phrase, 'the customer is always right' to be true. It was always more like 'let the customer THINK he is right, and sell him what works best anyway'." Who'd've thought?!

[LongShiKong]

[Sashadroogie]

This conflict is all over bar the shouting. Victory is mine. Just quietly settle down into your seats at the post-war conference table and learn to love your new Great Leader - some scraps from the spoils of war may be thrown your way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFML2fAqHD0&feature=related

[fluffyhamster]

Comrade Sasha, the poll (public opinion) doesn't seem to be quite reflecting your trumpeting of total victory. Time to rethink the policy on referendums?

[Sashadroogie]

How many divisions do they have? So what's the point of these plebicites? In the new order that I am constructing, there will be no need for these processes. By the way, I'm seizing a few northern islands off your coastline too.