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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| Ben Round de Bloc wrote: |
| I agree with what Gordon wrote more or less (see my previous post,) but it really goes against my grain as an educator that students (be they high school grads or MA holders) should be expected to believe their trainers and do what they're supposed to do. To me that is not education. And, again, this may all go back to the difference between educating and training; I don't know. If I were teaching a course, from my perspective as an educator (learning facilitator,) I wouldn't feel intimidated by students who had different experiences from my own or more knowledge in some areas than I had or had a higher university degree than mine. With all those resources and experiences to draw from and learn from |
I agree with you. I had 2 excellent trainers, very knowledgeable and experienced. However, if I was to deviate from what they were teaching me to do, I would have gotten nailed. It's almost like there is only one way to do something and it is their way. The 2 trainers themselves were different and so I had to teach in a style that each one was looking for. I can see how a Masters student with 15 + years would have a problem with the CELTA. After all, it is an introduction to teaching English. Why would this person do this in the first place?
Last edited by Gordon on Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ben Round de Bloc
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1946
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| Rice Paddy Daddy wrote: |
Ben Round de Bloc & Moonraven, all 4 of my CELTA trainers had the following qualifications:
M.A. TESOL / Applied Linguistics
DELTA
CELTA
15 - 20 years EFL experience
* ALL of my CELTA trainers had taught / managed with British Council at some time in their career as EFL teachers and had taught around the Globe.
*All of my CELTA trainers spoke a second language (Russian, Spanish and French). |
If they actually told you students/trainees "that it's normally the M.A. TESOL trainees that come to CELTA who have the most problems in the course - for a variety of reasons," and I don't doubt your word that they said that, then they failed to pick up one important trait throughout all of their degrees, certificates, and experience, that trait being educational professionalism. Just my humble opinion. |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:50 am Post subject: |
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| Rice Paddy Daddy: If you paid as much for a CELTA as you would have for an MA, you were ripped off. IMNSHO, of course. |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:53 am Post subject: |
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| Rice Paddy Daddy: If you paid as much for a CELTA as you would have for an MA, you were ripped off. IMNSHO, of course. |
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Sheep-Goats
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 527
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:25 am Post subject: Re: CELTA versus MA |
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| crstarlette wrote: |
| Are there contries that would not hire someone with a MA if they didn't have a CELTA? In essence, is a CELTA more important than an MA? No matter what I will be finishing the MA I am working on; I am just trying to get a clue about how important the CELTA is. |
In general an MA is more valuable to an employer. The most valuable MAs are MA TESOL, Applied Linguistics and MEd. The MA TESOL is the most valuable qualification for employers (in general) and can trump up to (I'd say) 12 years of EFL experience, given that you have at least one year yourself. MA Applied Ling or a MEd can probably trump 5 or 6 years of experience. CELTA one, maybe two.
Some of the better schools (which almost always coincides with better pay -- in Japan a "better school" often means a university, in Thailand it means an "international" school) often have strict requirements for their faculty that experience can't trump. MA TESOL is getting closer and closer to an unavoidable requirement to teach at Japanese universities (or in European universities if you're not an EU member), and international schools here in Thailand generally need BEds over anything else as that certification helps them uphold their American/British licences -- maybe it's even required, I don't know.
This varies a bit depending on the region. Korea and China love degrees and don't care about CELTAs (relatively speaking). Japan is very very similar, to a slightly lesser degree. Latin America and Europe may be more interested in experience than certificates -- and therefore a CELTA is worth more there.
As far as actually preparing you for the classroom, a CELTA is worth far far more than any MA apart from a MA TESOL, MA Applied Linguistics, or MEd. It will also be more helpful than any of those certifications (apart from the MA TESOL) for your first year of teaching as it covers practical issues like how to explain the difference between flame and fire to students who can't say "my name is" very well yet. If teaching is a carreer for you you'll eventually have to do things like pick textbooks for your kids, develop curriculum, or do academic research (either for journals or a book), or write textbooks/materials for use by a teaching team -- and in those situations the advanced degrees will be more helpful -- but that's a good 3 to 5 years down the road.
If you have an MA in something other than those I've mentioned above, a CELTA will be very desireable to employees and helpful to you and I'd reccomend getting both -- the CELTA usually runs about a month and a 1000-1400 USD (depending largely on if you take it at home or abroad, abroad being cheaper) so, compared to the money/time investment it takes to get an MA (at least in America -- they're often easier and cheaper outside of the states) it's not too bad. |
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danielb
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 490
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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| What about an MEd (TESOL)? |
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Sheep-Goats
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 527
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| danielb wrote: |
| What about an MEd (TESOL)? |
That will confuse some people as a MA TESOL is the usual jumble of letters, but I'd say an MEd TESOL is basically an equivalent degree as far as employers are conerned: eg: the best you could possible have. We can argue about whether an MEd TESOL or a MA TESOL is better but that's really niggling as far as 99% of top-level employers are concerned.
(I'd prefer the MA TESOL for esoteric resons of my own, but if I were hiring I'd not be able to choose between two identical applicants based on whether they had an MA or MEd in TESOL. If I were hiring for a business I'd probably want an MA, for a school a MEd, unless it was a university, then I'd want an MA, but depending on the department, etc etc.) |
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shmooj
Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1758
Location: Seoul, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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| moonraven wrote: |
| Hmmm. In all my classroom observations of teachers I have yet to observe a CELTA-qualified person give what I would consider to be a complete class. |
unless you're a CELTA trainer, how are you qualified to make this statement? Why should the world 'rise' to your standard? A CELTA is basically a driving test - it gets you on the road. The DELTA is what hones you. |
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Rice Paddy Daddy
Joined: 11 Jul 2004
Posts: 425
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Moonraven's statement is so general that it'd be difficult to say whether he knows what a good classroom language teacher is or not.
I think CELTA teachers are generally superior to untrained English teachers
Personality plays a big part also.
My CELTA trainers all had CELTA, DELTA and M.A. TESOL degrees as well as many years of overseas teaching experience.
I was impressed with these people and have never seen teachers who could do so much in the classroom and who knew so much about language learning and teaching. |
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Teacher in Rome
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 1286
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| Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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To pick up on Shmooj's point, how does having a DELTA compare to an MA?
My Delta was part-time and took 9 months. Is this comparable to the average length of study for an MA? The Delta had both practical and theoretical components, and as I learnt so much of use from it, I have never really considered also studying for an MA. Am I making a grave mistake here? |
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dmb
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 8397
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| Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| shmooj wrote: |
| moonraven wrote: |
| Hmmm. In all my classroom observations of teachers I have yet to observe a CELTA-qualified person give what I would consider to be a complete class. |
unless you're a CELTA trainer, how are you qualified to make this statement? Why should the world 'rise' to your standard? A CELTA is basically a driving test - it gets you on the road. The DELTA is what hones you. |
I agree with Moonraven( I what???) I've done CELTA and DELTA teacher training. There is no such thing as a perfect lesson. |
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shmooj
Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1758
Location: Seoul, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Teacher in Rome wrote: |
To pick up on Shmooj's point, how does having a DELTA compare to an MA?
My Delta was part-time and took 9 months. Is this comparable to the average length of study for an MA? The Delta had both practical and theoretical components, and as I learnt so much of use from it, I have never really considered also studying for an MA. Am I making a grave mistake here? |
In short, it depends engtirely on where you are headed. Both the MA and DELTA are essential to me. One down and one to go shortly. Both are invaluable stepping stonest o me. My MA took me three years so, no, the time is not comparable. My MA was both theoretical and practical but I had to work to make it so. Personally, I think the two qualifications complement each other very well. |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:13 am Post subject: |
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| shmooj wrote: |
| Teacher in Rome wrote: |
To pick up on Shmooj's point, how does having a DELTA compare to an MA?
My Delta was part-time and took 9 months. Is this comparable to the average length of study for an MA? The Delta had both practical and theoretical components, and as I learnt so much of use from it, I have never really considered also studying for an MA. Am I making a grave mistake here? |
In short, it depends engtirely on where you are headed. Both the MA and DELTA are essential to me. One down and one to go shortly. Both are invaluable stepping stonest o me. My MA took me three years so, no, the time is not comparable. My MA was both theoretical and practical but I had to work to make it so. Personally, I think the two qualifications complement each other very well. |
I agree with Shmooj. Good to see you back BTW. The DELTA is very practical, whereas many MAs are very theoretical (not all). They do go together very well and if one was to do them both, I'd say do the DELTA after the MA. |
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Aramas
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 874
Location: Slightly left of Centre
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| Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:42 am Post subject: |
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| moonraven wrote: |
| I find that usually it's the CELTA folks who try to make themselves feel better by attacking folks like myself who are academically well-prepared and have very extensive experience as teachers and trainers of teachers--which tells me that they feel very insecure about their skills, and are probably not going to take advantage of life's learning opportunities. Sad. |
Either that or they find your pompous and abrasive manner excessively irritating. A decade or two in academia can inure people to the insufferable conceit of the sensibly-shod tie-dribblers who are known to occasionally litter the cloisters of institutions of higher learning. Perhaps it's only the myopic tolerance of unacceptable behaviour that you're confusing with professionalism. It's always amusing to see a pretentious, belligerent, self-proclaimed member of the cognoscenti fail miserably when attempting the transition to the corporate world, although I doubt that such creatures see the humour in it.  |
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hamel
Joined: 03 May 2004
Posts: 95
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| Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 7:22 am Post subject: |
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welcome back shmooj--i missed your posts and even your avatar.
i get turned off by the mtesol folks who seem to not be very well (broadly)prepared academically/in the liberal arts. they seem like mere technicians with a superior attitude who often make grammatical mistakes and sometimes can't even make out (read) higher-level english. creativity and lots of experience has helped me a lot--but i do lack confidence sometimes (unlike some of my western peer teachers).
i have an ma (which took several years of full time study) and lots of experience with different age groups and settings. i find the decision so hard between trying for a teacher's certificate or an ma tesol (though the matesol can be done in as little as one year and looks interesting)--but in korea the pay is so low and in my humble opinion esl work is not that complicated.
so i continue to put off further training as i get older. |
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