The post discusses the importance of appropriate questioning techniques in CELTA courses to meet Cambridge’s criteria. Key distinctions between eliciting questions and Instruction Checking Questions (ICQs) are highlighted, emphasizing that eliciting questions uncover students’ prior knowledge, while ICQs verify students’ understanding of newly presented content. The common mistake of attempting to elicit unfamiliar subject matter is also addressed.
If you are currently doing a CELTA course or have already completed one, you may already be familiar with criteria reference number 5g:
5g using a range of questions effectively for the purpose of elicitation and checking of understanding
I’m sorry to say that EFL teaching is not going to make you a millionaire! Having said that, most of us do not do it (just) for the money but get huge satisfaction from helping our learners. It seems obvious, therefore, that these learners should be at the forefront of our minds when planning and delivering lessons. Indeed, on the CELTA course, one of the criteria for a Pass A is that the candidate has a very good awareness of their learners but what exactly do we need to know about them and why?
On LinkedIn last week I spotted a series of webinars by Delta Publishing called “Speaking Globally”. The webinars included speakers such as David Crystal, Nicky Hockly and Scott Thornbury so I decided to sign up for what I could fit into my teaching schedule and Tuesday early evening found me sitting comfortably on my sofa with my laptop.
I have seen Scott Thornbury speak several times on the topic of Dogme teaching but if it’s new to you, here are the basic principles:
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.
The Ultimate Guide to CELTA author and CELTA tutor Emma Jones was interviewed by CELTA helper recently. Watch the 20 minute video for her thoughts on CELTA …
Listening, like reading, is a passive skill but this does not make it any less important than the active skills of speaking or writing. After all, we cannot have a conversation if we can’t follow what the other person is saying. Think about the following questions related to teaching listening skills and then read on for the answers:
What types of listening skills do we use?
Is listening in the classroom more difficult than listening in the real world or vice versa?
We’ve just started a new CELTA course in Munich so instruction-giving is very much on my mind! This is something trainees should try to get sorted out asap but do sometimes struggle with, especially when teaching lower levels. So here are my “golden rules”.
The American athlete, Hank Stram’s philosophy of “Simplicity plus variety” is certainly one that could be applied to introducing new lexical items to students. Some traditional ways of presenting lexis are still very useful, after all, do we really need to reinvent the wheel? Here we have a selection of new as well as old methods for introducing new lexis .. Continue reading “13 Ways to Present Lexis”