At around this time of year, I am always looking for a nice holiday lesson to send everyone off for their Christmas break, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. For the past couple of years I have been just about to jet off somewhere exotic for a few weeks to get away from the dreaded flu season. Unfortunately that won’t be the case this year.
Is there a difference between classroom teaching and online teaching?
At the beginning of March 2020 I wouldn’t have been qualified to write about teaching (English) online but with grim thanks to a pandemic I was forced into becoming au fait with the online world a lot quicker than I might have wanted to. Is there much of a difference?
Here in our CELTA Centre in Munich we are about to start our first fully face-to-face CELTA course since Covid-19 put us all into lockdown. Amanda and I have had to think carefully about how to do this safely for all involved.
There may only be a small number of people who fail CELTA but don’t let yourself be one of the minority. Read on to find out some of the reasons for people failing the course so that you can avoid these pitfalls.
In our centre in Munich our fail rate is particularly low but, as with many centres, we do have our share of fail candidates. But why?
When I decided to do the CELTA course many years ago, I was living in Germany at the time but looking for a way to return to the UK. I did some research and decided to apply to International House in Newcastle. I had never been to Newcastle before but relished the opportunity to embark on what turned out to be a very challenging four weeks in a place where I would be alone and have no distractions. I wasn’t disappointed.
Have you taught a CELTA teaching practice lesson and the grade was not to standard (NTS)? Are you concerned as to what this might mean? Let me put your mind at ease.
Do everything you can to get ready for the CELTA course to ensure it is a good experience.
We often get asked by CELTA candidates what they should do to prepare for the course. This was one of the reasons we decided to write The Ultimate Guide to CELTA so of course our first answer is to buy the book but for those of you who can’t wait for the book to arrive here are some pointers to help you get started.
Written assignments form a major part of the CELTA assessment process and are a compulsory part of the course. There are 4 written assignments in total but some centres conflate two of them to make one larger assignment. In this series we will look at each individual assignment and provide you with some advice and guidance as well as highlight some of the common pitfalls.
Disclaimer: All centres create their own written assignment rubrics, make sure you check with your centre exactly what is required. We can only provide general information here, rather than specific. With this in mind, do you think it would be wise to pay for other peoples’ assignments to help you write your own?
Written assignments form a major part of the CELTA assessment process and are a compulsory part of the course. There are 4 written assignments in total but some centres conflate two of them to make one larger assignment. In this series we will look at each individual assignment and provide you with some advice and guidance as well as highlight some of the common pitfalls.
Disclaimer: All centres create their own written assignment rubrics, make sure you check with your centre exactly what is required. We can only provide general information here, rather than specific. With this in mind, do you think it would be wise to pay for other peoples’ assignments to help you write your own?