Job Discussion Forums

[Omeo]

Are all CELTA courses created equal? I'm starting to wonder if maybe it doesn't matter where I take the CELTA course or who I take it through because it kinda sounds like, regardless of where you take it, the course has to have met certain standards to be a CELTA course, so the quality of education is assured by virtue of it being a CELTA course. Am I way off? Is that true? Do all CELTA courses have minimium quality standards?

[fluffyhamster]

Training centres that offer the CELTA are meant to cover pretty much the same ground, have adequate facilities etc, but what will make or break the course are the tutors, their general style and the model plans, materials and techniques they use to get whatever their points are across. I also think location and mix of trainees has a lot to do with any appeal or success a course might have (somewhere cosmopolitan with an "international" mix would probably be better than doing it in Dullsville with mainly local boys and girls). I'd therefore try to get some word-of-mouth from recent (successful!) trainees, and go for the centre that seemed the more genuinely serious, interesting, motivating, enjoyable etc (put learning/guiding/pointing the way as the priority), but ultimately passing the CELTA could well just a matter of gritting your teeth and trying to nod politely yet not nod off wherever you end up doing it (see englishdroid.com's 'CELTA without tears' page).

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

It's like the Big Mac of the Teacher Training Certificates. There are regional defferences (in Japan, the lettuce in a Big Mac isn't shredded- it's in clumps. Big Macs in Japan are gross! gross! gross!) but everyone knows what it is, and even if they don't know about regional differences, there are CELTA institutional standards, which (other than its immense marketing machine) are probably why its name carries so much recognition .

In North America a CELTA isn't as much use as in Europe (where I'm from, Ontario, it isn't much use at all as far as getting a domestic job goes) but to work in Europe, it's much easier if you have an EU member country passport.

In Asia, a surprising number of people (outside of the post secondary systems) don't even know that you can get training to teach ESL- the theory is that all you need is to be able to speak the language (and have an undergraduate degree to work legally).

[Gregor]

[lucy lace]

I don't know about Ontario, or the US, but here in Vancouver, all the jobs I have applied for require at least a Celta, and would not accept a joe-bloe tesol course unless accompanied by some serious experience. Also, my job-hunting adventures thus far (which are limited - I've had my Celta for a few months, I've worked two short-term contracts, although I've pretty much been employed since I got the certificate) indicate that for a job at home, where your student mix is generally international, overseas experience is not as coveted as at-home experience...this is just what I've learned from some candid question-asking during interviews...for what it's worth...

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

In Ontario, colleges and universities offer one-year certificates in TESL (a BA is required to enter, or to exit). There's TESL Ontario, which accepts pretty much only those types of certificates, but BC TEAL (as far as I know) does not put any more requirements than TESL Canada, which means that the CELTA is accepted.

It's not that TESL Ontario membership is all that awesome or anything, but there are so many colleges and universities spitting out these graduates (and all of us have work placements that take up a significant period of time, and IME many of us stay on with our placements until the end of term, so an extra few months after meeting requirements for the university or college programme) that the market is flooded. Given the choice between someone with a CELTA only and a TESL Certificate from UofT or wherever only, most employers will take the UofT person- with nothing else, they have about six to nine months placement experience in Canada.

In Ontario, a lot of employers seem to want a mix of both overseas and domestic experience. Domestic because, well, it's experience in doing the same type of job that they are hiring for. Overseas because experience living in foreign cultures surrounded by a foreign language all the time will enable teachers to understand better their own students' situations in Canada (although it's a little artificial- if you are in any mid to large city then you are bound to find other English speakers. Short of living in Toronto or, I imagine, Vancouver etc most immigrants in Canada are isolated from other speakers of their L1). Plus, as far as for profit schools go, it gives them soemthing to say in their advertising "So and So teacher has lived in countries X, Y and Z" People who travel internationally like to talk to other people who travel internationally.