Job Discussion Forums

[Whisky4]

I'm brand(y) new at this and not sure if this is the right area to say what I want to say. I've applied for a CELTA course in Sth America and am awaiting THE INTERVIEW with much trepidation. I'm 55 and have no formal qualifications. Get stuck with writing a shopping list of more than four items let alone an essay of 1,000 words. I'm wondering if I'll be like the proverbial duck out of water as most of these posts seem to come from the bright young 20 to 30 year olds. Seriously, is my lack of tertiary study going to be a big disadvantage? Maybe I'm kidding myself with this whole thing-----

[stillnosheep]

Relax. Breathe. Check out some of Rhonda Plaice (spelling?) 's posts if you feel the need of reassurance. Enjoy.

[Twisting in the Wind]

Are you saying you have no BA? NO MA? Or no additional ESL Training? I'm 43. I have a BA, which I finished later in life due to life circumstances. I have no formal ESL certifications. Just experience and workshops and the occasional TESOL circus, I mean TESOL convention that would come to town. For years I was teaching ESL with not even a BA (I was working on finishing it)

If I ever go back and do a CELTA or get a MA in TESOL, I, too, will be older. I think it's a state of mind. You can do it if you put your mind to it. Don't think "old." Think "I can do it. I will do it."

To allay some of your fears, why don't you start studying some grammar books now before the course. I would be happy to look over your essay, once you have it finished--just PM it to me. Yes, Rhonda Place, another poster on Daves is a single lady who went to China with only, I believe, a 10th grade education, and she is now teaching in a primary school and helping out in an orphanage. I am in contact with her by email. If you would like, I can ask her if it would be ok if you PM'd or emailed her about some of your concerns.

Don't worry. You'll be fine.

[Whisky4]

Thank you to both of you for gentle replies. No, I have no degrees but I do have a part dingo dog. Funnily enough it is not the actual TEACHING which I find daunting as I enjoy young people hugely, especially those with passion - before the cynicism sets in. It is the THOUGHT of doing a course with colleagues who are intellectually miles ahead and from what I glean on posts re the actual course there is quite a lot of group work. Goodness, this is starting to sound like one with a large inferiority complex. And I have found posts by Rhonda Place. It makes me smile - there must be something in the water in Australia that makes mothers want to bolt from their families. Mine are giving me such a heavo it is not funny. Mmm. I am going to the library today to borrow any book that has more than two characters in it and resolve to FINISH reading it! Oh, yes, I have copies of Jim Scrivener's "Learning Teaching" and Michael Swan's "Practical English Usage". I am totally flummoxed by the latter. I shall now go and have a cup of tea and THINK about writing and submitting SOME words to the Twisting Person. Thanks again-----

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[Twisting in the Wind]

"Twisting Person" (LOL) Here!

May I ask, just curious, if you are male or female?

And what country you're in?

Just curious so I can visualize you better

Thanks

Twisted Person

[Twisting in the Wind]

A dingo, hmmm? Australia?

[Twisting in the Wind]

It would be helpful to know why you are "totally flummoxed" by the Swan book. Is it the language he uses? The ideas? The ESL terminology? I am not familiar with the book.

In my opinion, and other posters may disagree with me here, all you need to start teaching ESL/EFL (not to be a good teacher or a great teacher, just to start teaching) is a high school diploma, and better than average English language skills. A lot you pick up along the way. I learned a lot by listening to colleagues, attending workshops, symposiums, conventions, etc., reading books on ESL theory and practice.

Don't be put off by being the oldest or one of the oldest possibly students in your certificate course. On the first day when your teacher may go around asking everyone why they're taking this course, what they want out of it, etc...I'd be open with the class and just say what you've voiced to us here. I think the other younger ss will probably be sympathetic and help you.

Looking forward to your PM!

Twisted person

[Whisky4]

I've just been off on a frolic looking at previous posts. What a motley crue teachers are! The Sunbeam person is a challenge! I think I could nearly fall in love with Paulie. (Oh dear, he IS a bloke, isn't he?) It's the "ie" on the end of the name which is quite endearing.

Re the CELTA thing, I've been thinking. Again. If I "get in" - oops, should that be "am accepted" - and survive the four weeks I think I should be given a gold-plated certificate and THEY should pay ME the money, not the other way around. It's a bit like people who pay to lurch across and up mountains carrying their lives on their backs, all the time wearing miserable expressions, and they actually PAY for such privilege. I'd expect to be carried in a sedan chair, thank you very much.

Yes, the part dingo dog is a deadset giveaway. I am Australian. And I am not a mid-life bolter because I have a job which I really enjoy! It's court reporting and therefore I get to attend theatre every day - the flotsam and jetsam of life plus barristers and judges using (mostly) wonderful English and the odd bit of Latin and French just to keep this one on one's toes. But sitting courtside, as I do, is like being a bit of a voyeur. Sort of like a student in class. I see the performers (the judges/barristers) as the teachers. And in a simplistic fashion I figure that's how people are - there are the performers/directors/teachers and then there's the audience/students. We're all a bit co-dependent. And I'm on the verge of clambering from the audience across the footlights on to the stage - to learn teaching. More mmmm-----.

I'm not mentioning the city to which I've applied for the CELTA other than it's in SA. I suspect Twisted Sister has had some fun and games with students from there. It's all part of the grand plan, you see, because ultimately I want to live in a country where delicious young men offer their seats to older women when travelling on public transport and a place where the sun is not fierce and temperatures are quite cool so one can wear black all year round.

And now I'm going to loiter near the telephone with Michael Swan in hand. Waiting-----

[Guy Courchesne]

My 2 cents into the pot...

Don't worry about your colleagues in the course. From my experience training TEFLers, everyone comes to the table the same...with strengths and weaknesses that help and hinder in the coursework and subsequent teaching.

Twisity made some good suggestions regarding reading up before you go. What you'll find in the end that learning grammar and its presentation in the class is part what you know (knowing the rules) and part drawing from your own personality and experiences in providing examples as to its use (showing how the rules work - and don't work).

Going into the CELTA, you are going to be working more on this than anything else: CCQ's. You will get sick of the term CCQ. Concept Comprehension Questions. It is however, the most important part.

From the way that you write your posts, I think you are going to do just fine in this area. Think lucid.

Santiago or Buenos Aires...hmm. Both will give you what you are looking for, m'lady.

[Whisky4]

One thing I think you'll discover about TEFL is that there's great job variety in this field. There seems to be a niche for almost anybody who seriously wants to give it a go.

I like that! Thank you.

Guy, do you have the Learning Teaching book? Is what you're saying about CCQ on pages 126-128, Analyzing language: meaning? It gives the notion of "reading into things" a whole new meaning. It is, dare I say it, really interesting. Good grief, am I going to get excited about phrasal verbs, subordinate clauses et al?

I have decided if "they" do not accept me (i.e. I fall over on the phone interview) I shall sulk for 6 days and 3 hours then do the bridge building thing - like, get over it.

Thanks for all the responses. I've enjoyed this whole exercise!

[Guy Courchesne]

[OzBurn]

One piece of advice before you take the plunge: go visit a CELTA course and see one of these self-styled experts "teach," and ask yourself if it is worth $1400 and a month of your life to learn to do what you just saw him or her do. Failing that, ask for a tape of a CELTA master teacher. Try to stay awake as you watch. Coffee helps; it's usually free.

The CELTA's I met were a mixed bag. For the most part, the dumber they were, the more the faculty liked them. The smarter, older, and more experienced types were always doing things "wrong," like explaining things rather than playing tapes (in the CELTA world, playing a tape for five minutes is good teaching, but talking yourself for 30 seconds is bad -- "teacher talking time," you see), or repeating something in a drill format, or working on correct pronunciation, or...

CELTA is an immersion in the CLT religion. Like all religions, CLT is largely impervious to data, and neither collects any nor wants any. You will learn many things on the CELTA, but few of them will be useful in the classroom. However, most people who spend $1400 and some 200 hours on one of these courses will nevertheless emerge spouting the line and claiming that the course is and was useful. Of course: a solid finding in social psychology is that people who spend money on an ideological conversion (and the CELTA is an ideological conversion, don't kid yourself) and are made to say something that expresses a certain philosophy later will claim that they *believe* that philosophy. This process has nothing to do with demonstrated evidence, and indeed, CELTA courses offer no evidence that their graduates or the approaches they favor are more effective than (or even as effective as) non-graduates or different approaches. However, the CELTA tycoons have done a brilliant job of convincing people that their silly course is just what is needed to go out in the world and "teach" someone English. Hence all the people on this list wondering if it makes any difference where they take this course, and all the expensive ads for CELTA courses with their sweet-light photographs of stone arches in a Latin sunset, and all the people who pay huge amounts for them despite a thousand posts on this board and every other board attesting explicitly or implicitly to the fact that you don't need a CELTA to get a job in ESL.

This is why despite the many posts claiming that a CELTA course was great stuff, you will be hard-pressed to find one CELTA grad who actually specifically explains something they learned to do on the course, or one that talks about the time a whole class learned something on their CELTA course (by "class" I mean students of English, not teachers), or one that claims that a CELTA student learned how to effectively teach pronunciation, or one that explains how a CELTA course offered a practical solution to a real problem, or one that offers an appropriate solution to a problem and claims that this solution was learned on a CELTA course.

People used to believe in leeches. Now they believe in CELTA courses. Nothing I write here will change that belief. Only remember this: when your students are failing, and you have tried for the fiftieth time to "elicit" a point from a student who is supposed to be "noticing" a linguistic pattern, and you have failed for the fiftieth time, then give up on the CELTA stuff and start to think for yourself.

Of course, failing that, you can always pay these same people 2000 or more dollars for a DELTA.

Finally, don't worry about getting on the course. Everyone gets in; they just want your money.

[gambasbo]

I think you could just about get by with Swans and nothing else for English Grammar. However it's not a book that you read through. But if a student asks a question that you find difficult to answer, it's brilliant. In five years it's only failed me once and I then found the answer in a small English/English dictionary!!

Mike

[moonraven]

The maremoto MUST have shifted the earth's axis: I actually agree with 90% of what OzBurn posted!