Job Discussion Forums

[LongShiKong]

In preface to 'Problems with the CELTA', let me add:

Although I did a generic TESOL in 2001, after years of teaching mostly kids I decided to take the CELTA:
a) as a refresher--It's been years since I taught intermediate and above;
c) to expand my employment options;
b) as a confidence booster--I prefer to learn from mistakes in training;
c) for the level of feedback and prof'l support I've seldom had in China;
d) as a personal challenge--how well will I respond to critical feedback;
e) as the prerequisite toward other qual's;
f) out of curiosity---those who think it strange that a critic of credentialism and ELT would sign up for the CELTA might think it even stranger that I do so while copy/pasting comments such as this:

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Problems with the CELTA
by Jonny G, Sept 9 2011 as posted on this site.

I have to admit that, reflecting on my CELTA and CELT-YL extension courses after three years post qual experience, I can't help but feel let down by many aspects of the courses.I never really enjoyed the intensity of the CELTA or YL extension. I felt that, whilst I improved my teaching during the course in the teaching practices, this improvement didn't necessarily transfer over to the classroom after the course, because the TP practice was so unrealistic (4 hours planning for 40 minutes teaching!- like thats going to happen on a 25 hour a week schedule!). By the end of the courses, in the last TPs, I felt like I was teaching much better than the first TPs and like I'd suddenly become a super-teacher - but this feeling quickly subsided when I got back to work and started teaching in a real classroom.

I got frustrated after both courses, expecting my classroom teaching to be as good as it was on the courses, and failing. I quickly slid back in to old ways of teaching (like playing far too many games with young learners, going through the textbook with adults). It took me years of reading and classroom practice to build back up to teaching lessons like the ones I taught on the cambridge courses.

Essentially, although there was a great deal of classroom practice, I feel like they barely deserved the label of being practical teaching courses. Impractical teaching courses seems to be a better label.I also felt like I didn't have time to absorb the massive amounts of theory in such a short time, and that subsequently many of the things I was taught were lost along the way.

I also don't really buy some of the theory. For one example, the emphasis on top-down reading. It seems clear to me, after a lot more experience, that learners need to understand the words and grammar more than they need to understand the context. Predicting content seems a very limited tool with little value outside of the classroom (apart from for EFL exams).

All the focus on not having to understand all of a text seems silly - in the real world, when having a conversation, we don't get a load of general questions before we listen to each other. We have to understand every word being said to respond appropriatly. Learners need to do a similar thing!

I later found out that this is a matter of active debate in the ESL world, but on the CELTA they teach it like its gospel. I feel they should have been clearer that there were different approaches / points of view on this issue and encourage teaachers to read and develop thier own style/approach.

Finally, I still feel like there's a lot in the CELTA-style of teaching that I'm not convinced by.

I've seen a few teachers teach young learners who don't have CELTAs, but actual teacher's qualifications, and I felt like thier lessons were much better. They didn't really minimize thier TTT at all, didn't stage thier lessons CELTA style and didn't really use many CELTA techniques, but the children responded much better to them, and seemed to learn more / know more English than all the CELTA style teachers I've seen. I learnt a lot from watching the way they interect naturally with children and encourage similar interation between children.

One teacher, for example, refuses to drill his students because he considers it 'inhumane', yet his students have the best pronunciation of any set of students I've seen. He corrected them natrually and taught them via repeated exposure, rather than repitition drills.

CELTA teachers often seem to believe that they've learnt the 'correct' way and that non-CELTA style teachers are doing it all wrong, even when thier students are learning more from thier non-CELTA approach. I feel like in some ways, the CELTA encouraged narrow mindedness in a field where (with so much ongoing research / things that haven't been researced) there can't really be said to be a 'correct' way to teach.

Anyone else feel all these frustrations with CELTA methodology?

Text separation into paragraphs, courtesy LongShiKong.
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I'll reserve my own comments on this until I complete the CELTA and 'join the club', but I welcome grad comments.

PS: I attempted to post this on the Teacher Training Forum but got a 'naughty language' error.

[fluffyhamster]

I posted about the same thing a while back (but no worries!), not sure it'll generate that much discussion this time round either LOL.
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=101998

[Sashadroogie]

He makes a couple of interesting points, but in the main he is whinging that an entry-level course helped him to teach better lessons, but then left to his own devices he regressed to his previous sloppy habits.

As for the time spent planning, there is some truth that this does not reflect real-life teaching. But then again, an assessed TP is not billed as a real-life teaching context,so this criticism seems a little off.

Again criticising reading skills because they do not reflect real life is again missing the point. Reading in an EFL classroom lesson is not the same as reading in our own language. Pre-teaching, prediction exercises etc. are employed to lesson the cognitive and lexical load on learners who will certainly struggle with English language texts, especially at lower levels.

As for Celta being gospel, it may be true that various trainees come away thinking that, but that is hardly a charge that can be levelled at Cambrdige. And few in Cambridge would claim that they and they alone have the only insight into ELT that matters. But for such a short course, it is obvious that one cannot cover the multiplicity of approaches that could be taken in a language classroom.

Any claims made about 'best kids' pron I have every heard' are worthless, needless to say. It is akin to the best EFL teacher I ever saw didn't have any quals. Best? Says who? And why?

While there may not be one single way to teach 'correctly', there are quite few ways to teach appallingly, excessive TTT being top of the list. Celta will at least root some of them out.

It is worth it for that alone.

[nomad soul]

[fat_chris]

[santi84]

I wouldn't say people go on about CELTA like it is gospel. I personally feel like a mother telling her teenager "Well, if you're going to do it anyways, please, use a condom!"

If you want to teach without solid teaching qualifications, please, at least take this CELTA and keep yourself out of too much trouble!