How to survive the CELTA course

CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) is a teacher training qualification required for those who love teaching English as a second or foreign language. This certificate has been one of the most influential and profound characteristics of a professional teacher of English.

The one who owns such a world wide recognizable certificate possesses not only high skilled teaching techniques but also outstanding authority among students, employers, teachers. «How to survive the CELTA course?» — it’s a common question for those interested in Pass A, Pass B or just PASS. A full time CELTA course will take ALL your time within a month — days and NIGHTS, all your thoughts are going to be about Written Assignments (WA), Language Analysis (LA), Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP), Controlled and Freer Practice (CP, FP), Testing, Assessment, Lesson Plans (LP), grammar, vocabulary, reading, speaking, listening, writing, pronunciation and phonology, etc… So be ready to be totally absorbed with the CELTA course.

CELTA course: General Overview

«I started CELTA as a face-to-face course. However, due to COVID-19 we had to put the course on hold for about 2 months. It is worth mentioning that although our center offered us to move to a fully online course, the trainees declined the proposal. We were only able to resume the course in mid-June. I guess it was one of the longest courses ever. But I really enjoyed it. I had plenty of time for extra reading, video observations, consultations, reflection, as well as, lesson planning and completing written assignments.

By and large, the course was a formative, valuable, enjoyable and just a little bit painful experience for me. I definitely managed to improve my skills in the area of teaching. I recommend CELTA to everybody who wants to learn ins and outs of communicative methodology. We practised various teaching methods that can be used in classroom. Words like ICQs, CCQs, TTT, PPP, DEC, drilling, elicitation, and classroom management do not scary/confuse me anymore. In fact, the major benefit of the course is that it is practical. I mean all the concepts and methods under discussion during the input or feedback sessions are put into practice immediately.

CELTA course: Practical Tips

Full-time or Part-time, Offline or Online

I recommend everybody who is considering doing the course think carefully if you are able to do it full-time, since it’s fairly intensive.

Preliminary CELTA Preparation

It’d be also a good idea to do some observations. Luckily there are plenty of CELTA lessons on YouTube. If possible, visit the center, meet your tutors, talk to them. It’s not only the center that selects the candidates. The latter can also choose where to study. Especially nowadays, when CELTA goes online and quite a lot of centers offer a fully online course.

Positive Attitude

Make sure you feel comfortable working with your tutors and learning from them. And stay positive! You’ll definitely meet nice and professional people. You’ll have lovely lunch breaks and chats. You’ll be laughing and dreading your TPs. But in the end, you’ll be rewarded.

It’s not a test

You take a course to learn the methodology, some approaches, etc. — tutors do not check your background knowledge. Their primary aim is not to ‘crucify’ you for doing wrong things, but to teach you how to do right things.

Learn the criteria

Another piece of advice would be to familiarize yourself with CELTA criteria before the course. Make sure you will be able to comply with the requirements. Make sure there is nothing you strongly disagree with. Otherwise, you’ll be suffering twice as much as others will.»

It’s an incredible experience. Enjoy the ride!)