Job Discussion Forums

[snooti_agouti]

Hi everyone. I found this course on the Cactus website http://www.cactustefl.com/ela/index.php?course_id=2827 and would be grateful for your opinions on it as preparation for CELTA. Thank you.

[naturegirl321]

It's online, not good for a stand alone course, but if you're looking for a CELTA prep, shoudl be ok.

[nickpellatt]

I would say avoid it ... its quite expensive at �75 and its probably not really needed in order to prepare for your course. Pre-course prep is a good idea, but not at that price in my opinion. At the end of the day, its not going to teach you everything, because there is simply too much ... its takes a long time, and a lot of teaching hours, to be aware of language from the perspective of a language learner.

Rather than spending �75 on a course, I would recommend spending less than �20 on a book called 'learning teaching' by Jim Scrivener. It doesnt deal with LA issues only, but is a good book to use pre-course, and indeed, post course!

Dont worry if your grammar isnt great before the course. No one will expect you to be a grammar whizz, and none of your peers will be either.

[snooti_agouti]

Hi, and thank you both for your replies.

�75 does seem rather a lot, and it's difficult to judge how useful it might be from the example pages provided.

I have just bought a grammar book that was recommended to me, 'Practical English Usage' by Michael Swan, but will also look for 'Learning Teaching'.

[fluffyhamster]

Yes, for �75, you could buy three or four books on grammar. (Swan isn't bad, by the way. Make sure you take a look at the 'Language terminology' (glossary) section at the front! It's easy to miss). Plus it is possible to discuss grammar and make contacts on sites such as Dave's here. But I don't think �75 is too much, if the ELA course (which is more or less the contents page of a typical grammar book) is as well-supported (with exercises, feedback etc) as it appears to be (compared to some books), and the author seems intelligent, honest and sincere enough. My main concern would be that if you were to do the ELA shortly before the CELTA, you could have used up some valuable "study energy" that you'd need for the CELTA itself (not that I think the ELA would be too demanding, it's just that it would obviously take some time to complete - and perhaps not at quite the pace that you would like to get it done and dusted?); that being said, being more prepared for the CELTA than you might otherwise have been could be very motivating and help you zip through a fair number tasks with comparative ease. It all comes down ultimately to whether you are the type who can use your own initiative to identify and absorb what is useful from potentially a variety of sources, or if you are a bit timorous (at least intellectually) and need lots of assurance, encouragement and progress reports to get through anything! (What would help is if the CELTA would provide better pre-course guidance and actually ensure that it taught things properly - some centers of course do a better job than others, but doubtless quite a lot of time is wasted wherever one might choose to "study"; the defense of course is always that the CELTA is and needs to be a "practical" qualification, as if deeper subject knowledge and an appreciation for theory couldn't possibly help).

[snooti_agouti]

Hi fluffyhamster and thank you for your reply: some useful points there for me to consider.

[coledavis]

And Jeremy Harmer's How to Teach English is rather good. (Not, however, his other book, re 'Practice'.)