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widespread123
Joined: 12 Jun 2007
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 Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:39 am Post subject: CELTA pre-interview task is HARD !!! |
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I am planning on doing the CELTA course for Language Link Vietnam in Hanoi or IH Thailand sometime in March when I finish my contract. I have a little bit of free-time at work and started to tackle the pre-task. It's pretty difficult actually and slightly daunting. The thing that really worries me is that their was a non-native speaker asking about some questions on the CELTA task and everyone told him to "reevaluate his ability to take the CELTA"
Now, I have been teaching in Korea for one year, but I think I seriously lack some grammer skill. I can read and write well but identfying exactly what tense the grammer corrections are has proven difficult.
All I have is the Michael Swan 3rd Edition "Practical English Usage."
Can I get some encouragement or am I just done for? Obviously, I want to figure this out myself. I want take the CELTA to improve my grammer knowledge but I am struggling with even the entrance tasks!!!
How much of the pre-test to you need to get correct? What are the CELTA instructors looking for in applicants? I am a native-speaker, I just slept through freshman English in high school.
eng blog. thanks. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:22 am Post subject: Re: CELTA pre-interview task is HARD !!! |
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| widespread123 wrote: |
I am planning on doing the CELTA course for Language Link Vietnam in Hanoi or IH Thailand sometime in March when I finish my contract. I have a little bit of free-time at work and started to tackle the pre-task. It's pretty difficult actually and slightly daunting. The thing that really worries me is that their was a non-native speaker asking about some questions on the CELTA task and everyone told him to "reevaluate his ability to take the CELTA"
Now, I have been teaching in Korea for one year, but I think I seriously lack some grammer skill. I can read and write well but identfying exactly what tense the grammer corrections are has proven difficult.
All I have is the Michael Swan 3rd Edition "Practical English Usage."
Can I get some encouragement or am I just done for? Obviously, I want to figure this out myself. I want take the CELTA to improve my grammer knowledge but I am struggling with even the entrance tasks!!!
How much of the pre-test to you need to get correct? What are the CELTA instructors looking for in applicants? I am a native-speaker, I just slept through freshman English in high school.
eng blog. thanks. |
1. I loathe grammar Nazis - we all make typos - but in this case it might be good to warn you politely that you're not spelling "grammar" anything close to correctly. Yes, the CELTA people will notice that.
2. You need to get enough of the pre-test correct to prove to them that you have a good foundation of sentence syntax, grammar, word functions... The purpose of the CELTA is not to teach you grammar. They presume you already have that foundation, and that's the reason for the test. They want you to be able to effectively teach what you should have mastered by now.
Honestly, if you are unable to pass the pre-test (it's ok to use the net or a good grammar book or two for guidance), the CELTA course itself will be difficult for you.
Merely being a native English speaker won't cut it for these people. After all, native English speakers like us learned our language skills when we were two years old. No one explained to us English grammatical rules - we absorbed them automatically.
This makes us less than ideal candidates for explaining certain functions of V1, V2 or V3, the difference between "I'm going to" and "I will"...
I'd hit a good language guide or two written in plain English (George Stern's "Learners' Grammar Dictionary" is a CELTA favourite) and nail down your *understanding* of the basics: verb tenses, clauses, sentence form... Knowing *how* to write a sentence correctly isn't the trick - we're all there by now - it's knowing *why* it's correct and being able to explain it.
Good luck. The CELTA isn't easy, but you'll be glad you did it. |
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widespread123
Joined: 12 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:41 am Post subject: |
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Ok, I had a little ESL "freak-out" and had a Korean teacher sit down and explain some things to me and it is actually not that hard. I feel kind of stupid for the rant BUT it opened my eyes to my weaknesses as an English-teacher.
The Lemon, I am glad you pointed out my grammAr mistakes  It makes me aware of some common mistakes in my everyday English. After a deep breath and some help from a Korean teacher, I feel better. I will be studying hard for the CELTA and the pre-task is a nice way to let you know what you are in for. |
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aarontendo
Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Location: Daegu-ish
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:42 am Post subject: |
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Most of the CELTA course doesn't focus on grammar. The pre-interview task is the most grammar intensive part of the entire process. Having said that, I think the 2nd (of 4) short assignments you will get are grammar intensive as well. I wouldn't stress too much, everyone gets it returned to them for re-work.
But yeah, I did my pre-interview task and my trainer said I'll just have to pay a more attention to grammar, said it was common for all his students that were Americans.
I think a good series is "English grammar in use" or something like that. Multi-volume set, was really helpful to one of the guys in our course. |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:49 am Post subject: |
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I did my CELTA with IH in Budapest. My interview was 45 minutes long at 7am for me in England. I remember having all my papers out in front of me ready and I got loads of the grammar. Present perfect, past continuous wrong. 4 out of 5 wrong. But sounded bright and breezy on the phone.
Yeh, the assignments get returned for resubmits, and you can just copy somebodies who passed as long as it isn't too obvious. Oops.
Gotta say one of the most full on experiences of my life. Well worth it but so so hectic. Learnt a hell of a lot. |
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Slaps
Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Location: Sitting on top of the world
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:52 am Post subject: |
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I would say you should order 'Grammar for English Language Teachers' by Martin Parrott. It is a far better book for teachers who are quite weak grammatically than Swan. I would advise you keep Swan for later use but I found Parrott to be much more useful on my CELTA course.
Your tutors won't expect you to know everything right away but by the end of the course they will expect you to be able to identify and name tenses. Don't worry about it though, just take whatever criticisms they give you and work on them.
The CELTA for me was invaluable and I think it should be a prerequisite like a degree for becoming a teacher. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:58 am Post subject: |
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| widespread123 wrote: |
| Ok, I had a little ESL "freak-out" and had a Korean teacher sit down and explain some things to me and it is actually not that hard. I feel kind of stupid for the rant BUT it opened my eyes to my weaknesses as an English-teacher. |
Being aware of what you need to improve is actually a good starting point for finding success in the CELTA (or any other teacher training program). Good luck to you.
| widespread123 wrote: |
| The Lemon, I am glad you pointed out my grammAr mistakes It makes me aware of some common mistakes in my everyday English. After a deep breath and some help from a Korean teacher, I feel better. I will be studying hard for the CELTA and the pre-task is a nice way to let you know what you are in for. |
Just as a mnemonic, the way to remember that it is 'grammAr' is that it is related to 'grammAtical'. |
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Whistleblower
Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Slaps wrote: |
I would say you should order 'Grammar for English Language Teachers' by Martin Parrott. It is a far better book for teachers who are quite weak grammatically than Swan. I would advise you keep Swan for later use but I found Parrott to be much more useful on my CELTA course.
Your tutors won't expect you to know everything right away but by the end of the course they will expect you to be able to identify and name tenses. Don't worry about it though, just take whatever criticisms they give you and work on them.
The CELTA for me was invaluable and I think it should be a prerequisite like a degree for becoming a teacher. |
Well said. I recommend you also buy "English Grammar in Use" by Murphy. It is great and I basically used that to teach me the grammar for the pre-test. Also expect in the interview several questions about how to teach particular grammar points. I also had a writing task to try to explain a point in the past about a good English teacher but also what things he made mistakes upon. Always, always suggest positive mistakes. I mentioned my famous teacher prepared things too well and didn't expect the unexpected. Very ambigious. But positive in a way and not critical. Also expect group interviews. Good luck, any questions with the CELTA pm me. |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 7:10 am Post subject: |
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Swan is more of an encyclopaedia. Good to cite in essays but for practical use quite thick.
Agree with Murphy book, very good book.
As crap as this sounds, it really depends on what grade you want from the CELTA. I went in with high hopes of a getting a good grade. And the course was excellent, I mean really good. BUt to cram it all into a month was hectic stuff. Kind of found difficult to keep up with the schedule. Upper intermediate hungarian adults are a daunting prospect. SOme of the questions they came up with would test even the best.
Only two teachers out of 12 got the Pass A's, 2 got Pass B's and the rest passes. Super bunch of people. As mentioned before really good and being able to stay in Budapest was a treat.
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| I mentioned my famous teacher prepared things too well and didn't expect the unexpected. Very ambigious. But positive in a way and not critical. |
Agree with this, they like to hear about different approaches to learning. Probably easy for them to pick out the bad applicants by the range of answers they get.
If I learned one important lesson from CELTA it is students based. My Ss in Korea do the work and I guide them. No spoon feeding, they know what to do so I help them with that.
Another thing knowing your phonemics comes in very very useful. Very good to show in your lesson planning even if you don't actually use it. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:10 am Post subject: |
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| widespread123 wrote: |
I feel kind of stupid for the rant BUT it opened my eyes to my weaknesses as an English-teacher.
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The fact that you can open your eyes to your weaknesses already makes you a better English teacher than many here 
The CELTA doesn't expect you to know them. It will expect you to research the grammar point you are teaching to explain it while preparing though. They won't start hitting you with things right on the spot unless you should have known about it beforehand. |
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artyom
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:23 am Post subject: |
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I have just completed my TrinityTESOL which is pretty similar to the CELTA. When I first got the pre-interview task I almost gave up straight away. But then when I went for the interview the instructor basically said that all they look for is the ability to speak English, and how good a teacher you will be. I have the Swan book as well and find it good enough but I think that there are better books out there as someone else has said above. On the course that I did I found that all the grammar that was needed for the test at the end was covered during the course. The main focus of these courses (so I am led to believe at least) is how well you can teach, not what you can teach.
Good luck |
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yingwenlaoshi
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Location: ... location, location!
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:24 am Post subject: |
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How hard could it be? I've never taken such a test.
One thing that baffled me the other night was my friend who asked me if I had ever taken a TOEIC test. I found him rude when he told me that I would find it difficult because I'm a conversation teacher. Whatever the hell that means. This consensus here that we don't teach grammar is ridiculous.
Are we talking about sentences with "will" and "going to" and the like? I don't get how it could be that hard. Maybe where there are multiple choice questions that have 2 or more answers that seem correct, but really... |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: |
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Dead one laogaiguk,
They mark on on being able to deal with relevant grammar, vocab points and issues in the lesson that you are teaching. They want to see that in your planning and that you can answer queries with it.
Our trainers told us that their grammar was bad until they started doing their plans, THEN they learnt it. Not before. This was DELTA teachers. You need to know your stuff for your lesson and have it writing.
Get ready for questions like 'why would you use past simple as opposed to past perfect?' I'm not going to hear this at my schools in Korea? Schwa, no chance here.
Taught me a lot. Well worth the money. If a slightly false representation of teaching because of the hectic schedule. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| yingwenlaoshi wrote: |
How hard could it be? I've never taken such a test.
One thing that baffled me the other night was my friend who asked me if I had ever taken a TOEIC test. I found him rude when he told me that I would find it difficult because I'm a conversation teacher. Whatever the hell that means. This consensus here that we don't teach grammar is ridiculous.
Are we talking about sentences with "will" and "going to" and the like? I don't get how it could be that hard. Maybe where there are multiple choice questions that have 2 or more answers that seem correct, but really... |
The TOEIC can be hard. I only got 960 on it (out of 990). But some questions they ask are obscure or not even used in everyday conversation. You friend isn't too bright, or is full of himself. We can teach any grammar we need to by looking it up. And unless they are studying really obscure grammar, they will do the same on the test as us. Then there is the issue of trick questions in which we sometimes say something which is technically grammatically incorrect but quite correct in the real world. |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: |
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| like 'I'm loving it' a famous slogan for some kind of fancy hamburger joint. |
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