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[travelgoddess]

Found these tonight from the end of my CELTA class in Vietnam about a year ago. Still believe every word and am very glad I went through every moment. Steph
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Nov 22, 2006

Eating my words (loudly, hey thats an adverb!)

Oh, we were SO cocky.

Sitting around having drinks at a rooftop bar a few days before our CELTA course started.

If I remember correctly the conversation went something like this:

Cocky pre-celta student #1:

�So, what do you think about this class? Can it be THAT stressful?�

(cause the rumor had it that this class would overtake EVERY aspect of our lives for the duration)

Cocky pre-celta student #2:

�No way, I did all the pre-course material and have read a little of the books they recommended. All the stress buzz MUST be about folks who cant manage their time.�

#1
�Yeah, thats what I was thinking.�

(both #1 and #2 breathe a huge sigh of relief and take a BIG gulp from their drinks)

#2

�Besides, there are weekends to catch up or get ahead on assignments. How hard can this be?�

#1

�Yeah, I bet it will be time consuming but not hard at all. I am looking forward to it, actually.�

#2

�Yeah, me too. �

(more gulps.)

WE WERE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WRONG!

It really IS that stressful.

I will, now that we are more than 1/2 way through, admit one thing. And this time there is no speculation, this is the reality of Celta.

IT�s not that any one task is hard or stressful. Its the fact that we are students for most of the day and then teachers in the remaining time. AND THEN, there are the written assignments, and the evaluating your peers (daily), and being evaluated (every other day), and switching between two learning levels (elementary and intermediate). And if that isnt enough, there is evening planning AFTER your 8-10 hours at school 5 days a week.

Lesson planning would never take this long outside of this environment, but to follow the methods and steps drilled into us, it seriously takes anywhere from 6-8 hours PER LESSON. We have been teaching 2-3 lessons per week. This time includes research time (pics, activities, etc), writing the detailed lesson plan they advise, fighting with the printer and copying machine and working with the other teachers that day (cause we shared grammar points on our teaching days for the first 3 weeks). And I havent covered it all. Oh no! But I will stop there.

Basically, I am beat, worn out, and until I actually had a �good� lesson today, thought that I was the worst teacher, not to mention human being for not being able to follow such detailed instructions to a T.

All the comparisons to boot camp are true.

All of the �get sleep, eat well, and dont travel until its over� advice are well spoken.

[tedkarma]

This situation is true of regular TEFL Certification courses also.

Just a matter of getting proficient at lesson planning. It is VERY time consuming until you get it down.

The idea of "stress" is up to you, but generally there are things in life more stressful . . .

I taught a TEFL Cert course that was stretched to six weeks and just Monday through Thursday and people still worked all weekend.

As you know by now - once you get the hang of it - no problem at all.

[naturegirl321]

[Otterman Ollie]

At the moment a group of us are going through the "ınhouse" version of this. We are nearing the 1/2 mark and I can empthaise with you. İts not the stress levels that tear you up its the fact that it takes over your life. This is not just a monthly intensive one,it goes on 4 the WHOLE academic year. Already two have dropped out, both native speakers, both experienced, and I seriously doubt if they are not going to be the only ones. As you said the time spent on lesson plans alone is just plain crazy. If you had to spend this much time on prep every time you went into the classroom you'd hardly ever teach. It has been written on a certain website that most of the paperwork you are going to end up with will be neatly put away in a cupboard never to be looked at again. But then what do we know? We're just celta trainees right !

[mcsam]

I remember going through mine. I did mine in the UK. The advantage of this, for me, was that I was the only one of my group of friends doing the course. Two of my friends in particular were great. One evening a week for a couple of hours they would come over and we would have a couple (never more than 2) beers and talk about everything except the course. It really helped put everything into perspective for me. Yes, it is stressful, and it can consume your entire life and yes I did have to make up the couple of hours I took off but it was totally worth it. To be able to relax and just talk about "normal" things not related to the course was a life saver

[coffeedrinker]

I saw the point of the extensive lesson plans as getting you to think about things like teacher talk time, interaction, the purpose of doing an activity. So while it certainly did take time, I thought that kind of justified it.

I thought it was both useful and hard to get feedback. I think it's not so common today for people in any line of work or training to sit in a group and critique someone's performance. It is useful, but I think the pressure of knowing that will happen is a big part of the stress.

And then when I started teaching and didn't have that feedback...I missed it!