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manxomejoe · Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 12 Location: The Woods

Buried somewhere between pages 10 and 40 on this forum is a short thread about recommended reading materials for the CELTA. I think the material might have even been in terms of ILA's or Apollo's teaching methodologies. I can't seem to find it again. Is there one text that anyone would recommend prior to starting a CELTA course with ILA?

CThomas · Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 380 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

"How English Works" by M. Swan & C. Walter or "Practical English Usage" by M. Swan

coloradofirefly · Joined: 24 Sep 2011 Posts: 3

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener
- CELTA follows a lot of Scrivener's ideas. One of my classmates read this book beforehand and felt it gave him a good foundation for the methodologies that the CELTA uses.

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer
- Harmer is referred to quite a bit, and this book is quite comprehensive. There was quite a bit of synergy between his ideas and CELTA.

I took my CELTA at Apollo in HCMC

toiyeuthitmeo · Joined: 21 May 2010 Posts: 213

Scrivener is good. The OUP series called "Resource Books for Teachers" is a good start, too. Most CELTA courses come with loads of handouts and worksheets, to the extent that it becomes a bit ridiculous. If your experience mirrors mine at all, you'll have plenty to read, gratis. A user-friendly grammar tome could be of use, such as Swan's "Practical English Usage" or Parrot's "Grammar for English Language Teachers." And it might be a good idea, if you haven't already, to be familiar with the phonemic chart.

kurtz · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 518 Location: Phaic Tan

"How to teach English" by Harmer is the only one you need I think.

It's good to know your tenses but you'll only be teaching one or two presenting language lessons so I wouldn't waste too much time on grammar.

Knowing all the jargon and getting your head around the phonetic table will put you in good stead.

generalgiap · Joined: 03 Sep 2011 Posts: 95

Check out the following book:

The CELTA course

it has both a trainee and trainers book.
It provides full coverage of the CELTA syllabus The CELTA Course book goes throughThe learners and their contexts, Classroom teaching Language awareness and Professional developmen, Teaching practice and Classroom observation and Written assiignments. Basically its the celta course in a book. I have the book in front of me and this book will give you a detailed understanding of the course. Its also a great book for teachers who dont have the celta, you can buy it at fahasa in hcmc. I have used this course book for teacher training- its great.

cheers

chatfouz · Joined: 25 Sep 2011 Posts: 3

I am finishing my CELTA.
read the handouts.
read the handouts
read the handouts.
practice your grammar with a grammar book
read the handouts

generalgiap · Joined: 03 Sep 2011 Posts: 95

kazpat · Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 140 Location: Kazakhstan

I taught for 2 years before taking the CELTA, Scrivener helped before and during the CELTA. I also found Rosemary Aitken's Teaching Tenses to be extremely helpful. I read Harmer's How to Teach English before the course and it helped as well. I didn't find The Practice of ELT to be that relevant to the CELTA course but it was an interesting read.

The local teachers at my school are still stuck in a Grammar Translation mindset and teach most lessons out of Murphy's Intermediate Grammar in Use, I know the book quite well and knew more than enough about grammar for CELTA.

manxomejoe · Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 12 Location: The Woods

Awesome! Thanks everyone! Mr Bezos (founder of Amazon if I'm not mistaken) will name one of his spacecraft after me once I start buying up all these.