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[TheFonz]

Good evening all! It is Wed night, and I can hear the overbearing sounds of the local carnival outside my window as I write this to any who may be interested. I moved to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico to take my CELTA course through International House here in Riviera Maya (IHRM). I wanted to transcribe some of my experiences for anyone looking to get into the field.

Everything you hear about the tremendous workload is 100% true. However, as you progress through the course, you should begin to start adapting to it, and the lesson plans that took hours to write when you began start to reduce to about an hour, give or take. I am a salesman by nature, selling IT to the government for the past 10 years. As such, I am not used to such rigid preparation practices - I'm best thinking on my feet. The detail that Cambridge wants instilled in their graduates is thorough to put it lightly.

Let me now comment on their grading scales. Unless you are currently a teacher, you have zero chance of receiving anything over a pass - don't expect, or even hope to receive a grade of CELTA B, let alone CELTA A. Hard work, and you will pass. Half assed work, and you might squeak by. Work your butt off, pouring hours into your work, and you will still merely pass (so the lesson here is don't kill yourself - work the system). Every assignment I have handed in, no matter how accurate, if it was less than perfect, which they surely were, I was required to resubmit. The minutiae that Cambridge picks through is at times is nothing less than utterly maddening.

We had a relatively small class. We started with 7 people - we were down to 6 after the start of week 2. The 6 remaining students are all in the same boat, happy that the end is nearing and to merely receive a pass. We have ALL had to resubmit nearly everything. At first I took offense, thinking I was far too intelligent to not pass a pass/fail paper on the first try, but it is all part of their methodology of breaking you down to build you back up. I've come to accept it as an inevitability, and now actually use it to pad my due dates. Most recently I handed in a nearly perfect paper, but since I had forgotten to cite the source of my audio clip, even though I took an hour typing out a transcript, I have to do a resubmit. This entails adding the source, and since I need to do that, they want me to add a few more quotes from the experts as well... Sigh.

My courseload is almost over, and I couldn't be more elated about it. I've been in this tropical paradise and have had ZERO time to tan other than on the weekends, which can be fairly demoralizing given the one day per week we get clouds has fallen on either a Sat or Sun the past two weeks. But now the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel, and it is approaching rapidly. I have one more paper to do, and two more lessons to give, one tomorrow, but they are both basically planned already so all I have to do is the teaching.

Its been a great experience coming from the perspective of someone who has never taught before. I did find my sales ability to translate well into the classroom in establishing a good rapport with my students. I have also found working with them to be by far the best and most rewarding aspect of this class. I will feel far more prepared to face the world of an English language teacher once I graduate...if I don't go into timeshare sales here in Playa first that is... Point being, I feel the course has done a great job in preparing me, even though I am going to abandon 80% of what they taught me come next Wed when my last assignment has been submitted. But for some less "wing-it" type of people, I feel they will retain far more (I've always asked my mother why she still bothers writing lesson plans after 30 yrs of teaching - don't you know it cold by now?) But that is me and my style, and I doubt I embody the typical teacher. My best lessons were the ones which I breezed through way too quickly and had to ad lib the rest of the way.

Anyhow, just wanted to throw my two cents about my experience out there. Best luck to any newbies out there; I am still green, but I'm not the FNG any longer!

Fonz

Ps Life here in Playa is nothing shy of magical, I highly recommend this locale, though the teaching jobs are extremely sparse once you graduate...

[naturegirl321]

Thanks for the info. It's a good summary for new teachers, espeically the part about little free time

[rafaella]

Thanks for your post. It made interesting reading and should be useful for those thinking of taking the course.

[Captain_Fil]

Congratulations!

I am a newbie and I now know all the hard work I can look forward to.

Success to you and your career.

[ls650]

This would make a good post for the Newbie Forum...

[JonnyBBad]

Hi, thanks for the write-up. Very useful and interesting as I am doing my CELTA next month.

Jonny

[nickpellatt]

Nice little review. Im not sure I agree with all the points raised though to be honest. I took a Trinity course, and they follow a similar enough pattern for me to add a few observations.

I dont think its true to say that you need to be a teacher already to get more than a pass. I was a teacher (of sorts) and had a B grade pass, but my regular teaching partner had no experience, and she scored an A. Some of the other people on the course had some experience, and one lady had taught at senior school for in excess of 20 years and only passed. I dont feel people with teaching experience are at any advantage to be honest.

I also dont think tutors fail trainees just to 'knock em down and build em up'. I feel (and perhaps teacher trainers could chip in) that tutors really are looking for every excuse to pass an assignment, rather than looking for ways to trip students up and force resubmissions. This definitely wasnt my experience.

I do agree that working with the students is the best part of training. The good news is its often the best part of the job too! (although not all students are likeable unfortunately).

Dont knock the lesson planning though I dont mean this as a flame, but rather an observation, but I would be interested to know how much more the students learnt or practised during the 'winged lessons'. TBH, I can wing it through a lesson and it makes it easier for me, but I normally find a planned lesson is better for the students. Dont discard all the things you learnt too quickly is I guess the moral of my post. You may find some of those things useful, more useful than you currently think!

Congrats on the pass, and good luck on the job hunt and subsequent employment. Ill add a little of my advice re-workload for any other newbie. I just feel if you are organised, and really get stuck into things asap, then it ends up being quite manageable. The students on my course who struggled tended to be the ones who wanted to go for a group meal on a friday night, and start the assignments a few days before they were due in, rather than knocking them out a few days after getting them. Being organised and disciplined goes a long way on the course, and a long way on the job truth be told!

Another tip for anyone else is to keep things simple, especially when planning your own lessons. Yes, you can spend hours planning a new amazing lessons to teach present perfect, and spend hours cutting out and printing off this and that .... but someone 1000 times more experienced than you have already taught the language point, has written books about it, and has print and teach lessons for it. Nothing wrong with using someone elses idea and putting your spin on it. No need to re-invent the wheel etc.

[Rt]

It's very reassuring to get advice. I'm going to do CELTA in May & I already have the jitters. I'll keep all these tips in mind--especially the one about being disciplined. Also, I've just started volunteering as a teacher for young kids and it's definitely not easy!

[TheFonz]

[quote="nickpellatt"]Dont knock the lesson planning though I dont mean this as a flame, but rather an observation, but I would be interested to know how much more the students learnt or practised during the 'winged lessons'. TBH, I can wing it through a lesson and it makes it easier for me, but I normally find a planned lesson is better for the students. Dont discard all the things you learnt too quickly is I guess the moral of my post. You may find some of those things useful, more useful than you currently think!
quote]

Thanks for the reply and your take on the experiences. As I already stated, I know I am not the A-typical teacher, which can be both a good and a bad thing for my students. By no means do I totally discount lesson plans - of course it is beneficial to the students for you to come prepared to teach. However, stating the main aim, and subsidiary aims, and anticipated problems, and how you will over come them, and the 50 other things that they want which are completely frivilous to an outline of what one is to teach the students is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose - its just plain overkill. The more I put into the lesson plan, the less I actually follow it. And (Ps Cambridge frowns upon this starting of a sentence with and or but, though I find it to be a useful tool for emphasizing a point) I get that they want to be able to pick up the lesson and teach it themselves, but still, does anyone out there who is teaching actually take the 5 hours to write this sort of detail into a one hour lesson? Somehow I doubt it, and if there are people that do it, Im certain they are the minority.

Regarding what my students take away from the lesson, and why I thought what I ad libbed was the most beneficial, I was referring to intermediate students, who were already very familiar with a relatively easy lesson. They knew the stuff so cold, we blew threw a 40 minute lesson in 20. But, I was able to incorporate that lesson into something a bit more challenging for them, and hence my point. Sometimes a book lesson that you are supposed to give simply isn't challenging enough, but being able to think on your feet and evolve that lesson to the next level is a skill I find to be invaluable. But that's just me, I could be wrong

Best of luck to the newbies that are starting CELTA soon... When I pledged a fraternity in college, they called it the most fun you will never want to do again... I wouldn't describe CELTA as fun by any stretch, but I certainly NEVER want to do it again!!!

Fonz

[nickpellatt]

Agree with the OTT lesson planning by the minute. I dont think I have ever written a plan like that since my course. I do plan quite intensively, but generally this plan now ends up as rough notes on a A4 sheet of paper. I still have stages written down, notes on how to groups students, some phonetical spellings and word stresses incase I forget them. If there is a grammar point I normally have that written down too.

What I tend to do (and this might be something to consider as you start your teaching career) is 95% of my lessons come from prepared material. Books, course books, subscription websites and print and teach worksheets. I prepare very very little. What I do instead is use that prep time as planning time. I plan how to use the material for my class, my students and my situation. What should I omit (if anything) what can I add (if anything).

I figure course book authors have a lot more experience than me, so can prepare decent material. My skill lies in knowing my students, their needs, the setting and situation I work in, and so I expend my energy in tailoring their materials to my students and their needs.

I think that can be some useful advice to take on board for new teachers. I have worked with new teachers before and seen them spend hours writing, preparing and copying authentic or original material to deliver half baked classes. Far wiser (IMO) to spend half that time using proven material with a track record and learn how to make it work in your classroom and with your teaching style.

[TeresaLopez]

[Captain_Fil]