Job Discussion Forums

[nomad soul]

For starters, Cambridge ESOL states the following:

[golsa]

[fluffyhamster]

A large part of the problem is right there in the first paragraph of the quote you've given, Nomad Soul. They won't admit anyone with what they judge are "too-academic" MAs (though I'm not sure it's possible to be admitted onto say UK MAs without any practical experience, and getting practical experience in the UK will probably have required at least a cert, and so on and so forth), but it's perfectly fine to have no MA and just the DELTA.

Of course, admitting only "repeat customers", those who have definitely been through and are therefore more with the programme than not, is a very easy way to straightforwardly run a "tight" ship, but there is an obvious risk of indoctrination and inbreeding, a problem exacerbated by potentially training at then staying within the same center forever.

Imagine how rich and interesting the training could become though if the windows were open even a crack and some fresh air allowed in. Keeping them firmly shut can lead to starved brains and stunted or even mistaken (erroneous) ideas developing. People should get out a bit more.

The very least some trainers if not UCLES itself could do is actually read (positively seek out) the complaints and admit that there may be a problem or two. But what usually then happens is that there isn't even an acknowledgement that professional ideas and development can occur outside the confines of "Cambridge". HOW DARE anyone impugn the intelligence and standards of our trainers with absolutely no cause or justification, etc etc. As if no words of complaint much less constructive criticism could even exist (or be allowed to). Whitewashing is the term, I believe. Still, the desire to develop and protect something of a monopoly is understandable from a business if not educational point of view.

[mmcmorrow]

Like almost everything else in teaching, the type and amount of professional development that teacher trainers engage in varies a lot. It mainly depends on individual trainers' personal motivations and on the requirements and opportunities of whatever institution they're employed by. Assessors don't sit in on input sessions (except at new centres), but do see quite a bit of indirect evidence of the tutors' practice in course documentation and, in particular, in the performance of the trainees in their teaching practice. In addition, the meetings between tutors and assessor are a useful opportunity for discussion and sharing of ideas.

When I was in a language school environment, our team used to have pretty regular meetings and we did some peer evaluation. And most years, there were staff involved in some kind of research or studies, presenting at conferences or writing books and articles. I think this is a fairly typical scenario that I see in the centres that I visit here in NZ.

At the recent national conference,CLESOL, there were several Celta trainers attending and / or presenting. I was co-presenting a workshop on learning outside the classroom, together with a teacher who works in migrant education. I went to a great workshop by another trainer who works at a local language school. It was about a training programme for volunteers at a residential home for the elderly. Many of the volunteers come from non English speaking backgrounds and quite a few of the residents have communication difficulties and the programme they developed seems to have been a great success. I might well use that as an example of programme development the next time I work as a Delta tutor.

I think most people there will also have picked up some ideas about the teaching of vocabulary and reading from the plenary speakers. The next time I work on a Celta (or Delta), I'll definitely be incorporating activities for automatic word recognition in reading which I saw demonstrated in William Grabe and Fredericke Stoller's workshops, as well as some more 'killer' vocabulary learning facts from the ever-reliable Paul Nation.

So those are a couple of examples of picking up ideas at conferences which can feed into teacher education. The same goes for reading, of course.

Just a couple of points about complaints. You might assume that if there were hundreds of complaints a year about a programme, it would have to have some fundamental flaws. On the other hand, if 19 out of 20 trainees on a programme were satisfied, you'd probably feel the programme was doing a great job overall. With Celta, because it has over 14, 000 candidates per year, both of these could potentially be true at the same time.

I get the impression from my own experience of working on and visiting courses, that most trainees are satisfied with their trainers and the course overall. Complaints are, I've found, more commonly directed at resources, like copying and wi-fi. But again, in my experience, any complaints are taken pretty seriously.

Martin McMorrow, Massey University, New Zealand

[fluffyhamster]

I don't think anyone could accuse you or the Antipodes generally of not taking languages a bit more seriously than say the UK has(n't), Martin!

As I've already got the cert and have little ultimate intention of ever doing the DELTA, I can't say I've been looking at UCLES training centers that much and checking what sort of "faculty"/academic bio info (if any) is given for the trainers (the more junior of which may come and go a bit too frequently!), but I guess there is always at least something along the lines of "All our CELTA and DELTA trainers have at least a DELTA". Which will satisfy most punters but isn't exactly a demonstration, to the more academically-inclined, of ongoing cerebral involvement or CPD.

I just know that when I was checking out say the New School's MA (vastly overpriced for a start) a couple of years ago, I thought "Harmer and Thornbury, all well and good~great, and have found out with a little digging that they both have MAs in AL from Reading, no DELTAs though <GASP, SOB etc> even though Thornbury at least has been a DELTA trainer...but wait, what's this, there's a junior tutor here who only has a DELTA!", if you see what I mean/am driving at.

One thing that would help resolve the more cerebral or "theoretical" of the complaints would be an admission that yes, there may in fact be better ways to teach some things. But just insisting (as some seem wont to do) that the titular CELTA trainer's way or views were and are the only way then and forevermore, and for no other apparent reason other than (then) trainees, some of whom aren't always so green behind the ears or short on perceptiveness and intelligence, should('ve) know(n) their place to the utmost, makes a mockery of the very idea of CPD, not least among the trainers themselves (who seem to be saying they can't and never will learn anything from their "lessers"). Not to mince words, but that's very much a one-way arrogance and hubris, plain and simple. And I'm not even really talking about "confrontations" on the very certs themselves, but more just about discussions on these forums!

Only if these very steadfast trainer types wouldn't mind stepping in and teaching the eternal trainee's each and every future class would their insistence that they're always so right make any sort of (perverse) sense. But I guess some partly make up for that by doing quite unconstructive~destructive observations as DOS(ser)s.

Ultimately I can only really get an idea of a trainer type if they've published a few articles, or better, a book or two. Those who have nothing other than a DELTA to their name will remain a bit of an unknown quantity until one's enrolled under them (but by then it may be too late LOL).

[Shroob]

One of your criticisms of the CELTA course, that it's prescriptive, I think is actually one of its foundations. Employers want to know a candidate is able to perform to a certain standard, which the CELTA creates.

It's an entry level qualification to be built upon. My CELTA course definitely introduced me to the main methodologies of teaching during the input sessions. It would be impossible to create a 'perfect teacher' in such a short space of time, but what it does achieve is a predictable outcome, which employers value.

[spiral78]

[fluffyhamster]

[Shroob]

[nomad soul]

Hopefully, this thread will stray back to the topic of the tutors/trainers...

[baa_baa]

I REALLY don't care what they have written. They make it seem that way. As far as I'm concern my brit so called celta trainer doesn't even know what a gerund is. She calls it phrase + ing. I was like WHAT? there are many examples like this. I bet thats the reason why I failed.

In front of the assessor she made another error. She actually said that PAST PARTICIPLE verbs have several names such as V3, past participle Verb and infinitive verb. INFINITIVE VERB??? SERIOUS??? to those who dont know its verb infinitive is to + verb. These are simple explanations. The assessor did not say anything not even look her way. Can you believe it? I know the British study well and know their grammar well.

She didnt know the phonemic chart nor transcribing the letters. I figured it out on my own well with some help of course.

I completely forgot this. I don't know how she passed her celta and delta. She was an aerobics teacher. I would say she must have showed some stretches during the interview but how did she get the celta and delta IF really they follow the procedure posted in the first post.

[baa_baa]

[fluffyhamster]

Golsa and Martin have sort of answered your first two questions, Nomad Soul. (If there are any other takers, please feel free tho LOL). Yet despite those "reassuring" answers, there is obviously and unfortunately no absolute guarantee that the training then delivered will be that good (to say nothing of the teaching that's then supposed to be based on that training). "Personal" factors and variables and all that. So I guess I and others have been more running with your third question and its implications, if that's OK. IMHO the methodology generally (training as well as teaching) could do with a bit of fixing, but others will argue "If it ain't broke...".

Personally I don't see much point in complaining or becoming even remotely "confrontational" on or shortly after these courses. I'd be sceptical of anything more happening than wrists getting a token slap (or if anyone really did get slapped down, I think we can guess who it would likely be first and foremost!). The paramount thing is to keep your head down and pass, then move on. This is of course a quite different matter from having or sometime later forming opinions about one's experiences and teaching generally, and seeing in the training a chance to rectify or change things for the better in at least an abstract (discursive) sense. At the very least I don't see what is so objectionable about abstractedly wanting to spare others any negative things and/or improve their overall experience for the better. In my case I would've liked to see more sophisticated and realistic language input and interaction generally, but I realize that's a tall order for language training (irony alert).

Anyway, obviously many people develop beyond (indeed, in many respects in spite of) the training. I just feel sorry for those who don't (or rather, for their students), those whose conception of what "successful" teaching if not learning looks like is so predefined (limited). Requiem for yet another ELTer. There's definitely a bit of shortchanging going on, but hey, that's just my opinion (as ever!). The CELTA indeed carries on regardless, and I doubt mere forum opinions will ever really change that status quo that much either way!

@Shroob: I think there's a difference between simply being "greenlit" and being genuinely confident (i.e. it's one thing to be hired, but quite another to then actually do a good job). I too had the "confidence" to do CELTA-style lessons, but they weren't necessarily my preference, it's just I knew that trying to doing things too differently would be a sure way to attract the attention and possible ire of observers. And when starting to do things a bit differently, I was obviously looking to stuff that wasn't much if any part of the cert certainly. You are right of course that a cert allows employers (those who even demand a cert LOL) a bit more confidence in hiring, but the bonus truth is that nobody really cares what you teach, just as long as it looks the part. Still, who wants an employer too closely involved with the materials and methods, eh! That's just another kind of "Don't care (what YOU think)", though to be fair the more clueless or lazier teachers won't really mind that.

Tasks are now invariably mentioned in general guides to ELT, and are thus at least recognized as a potential component of broadly communicative approaches and syllabuses. I don't think it's advisable that tasks be or become the primary or sole means of describing the syllabus, though. Like notions and functions, I find them a little bit too hazy still. I'm more a bottom-up guy, and believe in specifying the necessary linguistic items and exponents in quite some detail (plus they help suggest functions, activities, tasks, whatever we might call them really!). Keyword: lexical syllabuses LOL. (Though the "imposition" of that and then all the task-based stuff in the COBUILD course seemed to kill its chances of commercial success).

@baa-baa: -ing form is actually a well-established umbrella term in ELT and its grammars for gerunds "versus" participles. Even huge stuffy more theoretically-inclined modern grammars like Huddleston & Pullum's umpteen-thousand-page CambridgeGEL don't see the point in making much of a distinction (they call 'em gerund-participles). But I'd agree that certainly the clearer cases shouldn't be too much of a mystery to trainers or trainees. And I definitely agree that calling the past participle or third form of the verb an infinitive is a bit iffy LOL (perhaps it was just a one-off slip of the tongue, or the trainer said or meant to say 'non-finite'?). As for the IPA, well only the actual students really need to learn and know those symbols, eh! Native speakers can just read the actual centuries-old orthography and wing it.

[golsa]

[Sashadroogie]

Here's a little nugget from the inside for those with a chip on their shoulders regarding Celta trainers.

Sure, there is a range in experience and abilities in the trainers on any given course. How could there not be? But they should all meet a minimum standard, and are approved by Cambridge. Intake of trainees, on the other hand, does not have much of a filter at all. So long as a course applicant has the required level of English, most Celta centres have no option but to admit ANYONE onto the course. They cannot discriminate against an applicant because they are not suited to teaching or have no teaching knowledge: it is a pre-service course after all. They cannot discriminate based on intelligence either. All they can do is assess likelihood of finishing the course successfully, and advise applicants that they may be asked to withdraw.

The result is there can be some courses which are populated with the most cretinous collection of know-it-alls who steadfastly refuse to listen to the most basic feedback, and then mount some seriously high horses when they are told to withdraw, or fail outright, after a few weeks of the most unbelievably idiotic attempts at teaching language learners... anything.

Strangely enough, despite not having much of a clue about ELT, or even just basic professionalism, they then deflect all responsibilities to their long-suffering trainers and blame the trainers' lack of training and expertise. Clearly, it is ALL their fault.