My Celta Experience Part 2: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words"
After I initially posted my Celta experience last week I automatically felt disappointed with what I had written. While the post might've captured the craziness of the 4 weeks, I didn't feel like I provided enough information about my experience even though that was my goal. However, self reflection is an important part of life, and an even more important part of being a good teacher. If you don't reflect on the mistakes that you have made, how can you improve? Also, it's incredibly cathartic to reflect about good things, and the things that you think you did well while teaching. Don't constantly beat yourself up!
WEEK 1:
The first day was kind of a shock to me. My course began on the 7th of January and I was still in Christmas holiday mode. In fact, I didn't finish the exercises and readings that were suggested by the school, and I didn't have any of the textbooks! I don't recommend adopting such a blasé attitude, it came back to bite me later.
Much of the first day was spent doing admin, and getting to know each other and our environment. Pay attention to the rules of the school, the schedule, and the deadlines. For example, we were not allowed to photocopy before 9AM as that's when the actual teachers needed the photocopier for their classes, and sometimes the starting and ending times of the course changed depending on what we were doing that day. We usually had the input (theory) sessions in the morning as a whole group of 12, and taught in two groups of 6 after lunch, but on some days the schedule was different, and different schools do things in different ways.
After we had been introduced an acclimatised we split into our teaching practice (TP) groups, and watched one of the tutors teach the group of volunteer students which were to be our students. The tutor's lesson was amazing, but also a little bit disheartening. I felt like I could never teach that well in my lifetime. Afterwards, we got to meet the students and interview them. The interviews are important for the Focus on the Learner assignment so be diligent! Then the gut-punch came... I was in the group of 3 people assigned to teach on the very next day!
They didn't just throw us to the lions, the tutor provided a list of suggestions to help us plan our classes that night. Our classes were 45 minutes long (beware: different Celta providers have different class teaching times). We had to submit our plans and materials to the tutor about an hour before the class (make a photocopy or two of your plans). The tutors use this in the marking process and send it to Cambridge for proof of completion so it is very important. You also need to make sure that you reference any materials that you use (e.g. if you take an exercise from a book, you need to cite the book at the bottom of the worksheet or photocopy. Get into the habit of doing this early).
My first class was...not bad, but it was not great either. Don't have incredibly high expectations for your first class because it is your first try and you are bound to make mistakes. I had to teach a class that was focused on the skill of writing, and we didn't have the input class about teaching writing yet. The tutors will not judge you too harshly if this happens to you so don't panic! At the end of every TP you reflect individually and as a group to consider what went well and what to improve on. As I mentioned earlier, reflection is a very important part of being a teacher so make sure that you are prepared to reflect on your performance and listen to suggestions. They gave us our teaching goals and textbook page numbers for us to prepare a plan to be discussed the next day.
On the next day we had to watch the other 3 people teach, but first we had about 15 minutes each with the tutor to discuss our plans for our second TP. This session is so brief, so I'd recommend preparing as much as possible beforehand so you can squeeze a lot of advice out or your tutor and feel more prepared. 'Winging it' is not a good idea. Thinking on your toes and being flexible in your classes is great, but a firm plan is the backbone of a good and successful lesson when you are being assessed.
During the first week we also discussed the assignments. We were set Language Related Tasks first and it was due on the first day of week 2. This is technically the second assignment, but as it is based on analysing English (think grammar, vocab, pronunciation etc.) it can often be the hardest. I think everyone in our group failed this assignment the first time and had to resubmit. I had a lot of troubles coming up with good contexts for the questions, so be wary of this element.
WEEK 2:
On the first day of week 2 we learned that two of the students had dropped the course, one from each teaching group of 6. Apparently, dropping out is not uncommon, but after paying about $3,000 AUD and waiting as long as I did (see part 1), I couldn't fathom dropping out. It had a knock-on effect for my TPs that week, as we had already been assigned our lesson goals and textbook pages for that week. I had to do a listening lesson, but the vocabulary was supposed to be introduced previously in the lesson of the person who dropped out. Therefore, I had to assimilate the vocab into my lesson. It was a lesson about adventuring and camping, and the students did not know a lot of the vocab, so it was lucky that I noticed the potential problem beforehand. I actually think that it turned out to be one of my best lessons. I managed to convey the meaning of 'pushing yourself' by using a context that the students knew (they had talked about going skydiving), and acting out pushing yourself with concept checking questions (is pushing yourself like this? *pushes hands forwards* I needed to see if the students understood that it was a metaphorical push, not a physical action).
Starting from this week, we had to fill in grammar or vocabulary sheets for our teaching plans, which means that planning lessons suddenly took longer. However, these sheets help you to plan how you might convey grammar or vocab, so they are actually useful!
WEEK 3:
I mentioned in my previous post that week 3 was a nightmare for me. I had 3 TPs and 2 assignments to submit. I don't think that this is the norm however, as we had to account for a public holiday in the schedule and I just drew the short straw. We also switched the level of the students we were teaching which added to the stress. I went from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate and it was kind of scary. I think I preferred teaching pre-intermediate!
The stress of the workload really got to me this week and as a result I had to resubmit both of the assignments, and I nearly failed a TP. TP 6 was a grammar class on quantifiers with countable and uncountable nouns and I nearly didn't meet my goals that I wrote in the lesson plan. I barely scraped by with my activities. I don't want to alarm anyone, but grammar is always going to be the hardest to teach, especially something like quantifiers or articles. I attribute my near miss here to the fact that I was lax in my pre-course preparations.
There was another blip on the Friday of that week which was my TP7. It was a functions class about responding to awkward situations, and the input session for functions was that morning. While we were being taught about functions, I could see the holes appearing in my lesson that I had to present that afternoon. Remember that the tutors don't mark you too harshly if this happens, but I was a little annoyed as it was my penultimate TP and still riddled with mistakes.
WEEK 4:
The pay off for having a crazy week 3 was a breezy final week. I only had one TP, and the Lessons from the Classroom assignment to submit, which is definitely the easiest! TP 8 was one of my favourites as it was about tickling, sneezing, and hiccupping! It was a functions and vocab class, therefore I looked at phrases like what you should say to someone when they sneeze! One of my activities was a quiz that activated the background knowledge of the students, and of the questions asked why we often say 'bless you' when someone sneezes (because sneezing was a near end of life symptom of the Bubonic Plague and meant that you were going to 'meet God' soon!) One of the students actually knew this and was able to tell the whole class. I think that the students explaining words to each other has so much more value than if I told them. Always open up the floor to the students if you get a question about a word meaning or grammar point, they might be able to explain it to each other.
During the final week the assessor from Cambridge visited. The assessor is not assessing you, but is making sure that the course lives up to the high standards of the Cambridge Celta. It is one of the most reliable and valued TEFL courses out there because of these standards. The assessor had to sit in on one of the TPs which is kind of nerve-wracking, but remember that they are not judging you. The assessor also asks you as a group without the tutors what could be improved about the course and infrastructure. For example, my gripes were infrastructure based. There were no desks suitable for left-handed people, and the classrooms got really hot and stuffy which made it difficult to learn and teach in the middle of the Australian summer. (The heat didn't stop me from getting a hot choccy one morning though!)
At the end of the week I was almost sad that the course was ending, even though it was super stressful at times. We had a little pizza party and played fun games with the students on the final day, and then we went to a local bar for a celebratory drink. I'm teetotal so I got lemon lime bitters with one of my new friends from my teaching group! While I was going to miss everyone, I also just couldn't wait to go home and sleep!
I had tons of experiences that I will never forget from the Celta. Some were not good, but some were absolutely hilarious!
(Google drive link if you can't read it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xpM6zhskbuEdAhw8DTmJUehdb7FKaFj9/view?usp=sharing)
WEEK 1:
The first day was kind of a shock to me. My course began on the 7th of January and I was still in Christmas holiday mode. In fact, I didn't finish the exercises and readings that were suggested by the school, and I didn't have any of the textbooks! I don't recommend adopting such a blasé attitude, it came back to bite me later.
Much of the first day was spent doing admin, and getting to know each other and our environment. Pay attention to the rules of the school, the schedule, and the deadlines. For example, we were not allowed to photocopy before 9AM as that's when the actual teachers needed the photocopier for their classes, and sometimes the starting and ending times of the course changed depending on what we were doing that day. We usually had the input (theory) sessions in the morning as a whole group of 12, and taught in two groups of 6 after lunch, but on some days the schedule was different, and different schools do things in different ways.
After we had been introduced an acclimatised we split into our teaching practice (TP) groups, and watched one of the tutors teach the group of volunteer students which were to be our students. The tutor's lesson was amazing, but also a little bit disheartening. I felt like I could never teach that well in my lifetime. Afterwards, we got to meet the students and interview them. The interviews are important for the Focus on the Learner assignment so be diligent! Then the gut-punch came... I was in the group of 3 people assigned to teach on the very next day!
They didn't just throw us to the lions, the tutor provided a list of suggestions to help us plan our classes that night. Our classes were 45 minutes long (beware: different Celta providers have different class teaching times). We had to submit our plans and materials to the tutor about an hour before the class (make a photocopy or two of your plans). The tutors use this in the marking process and send it to Cambridge for proof of completion so it is very important. You also need to make sure that you reference any materials that you use (e.g. if you take an exercise from a book, you need to cite the book at the bottom of the worksheet or photocopy. Get into the habit of doing this early).
My first class was...not bad, but it was not great either. Don't have incredibly high expectations for your first class because it is your first try and you are bound to make mistakes. I had to teach a class that was focused on the skill of writing, and we didn't have the input class about teaching writing yet. The tutors will not judge you too harshly if this happens to you so don't panic! At the end of every TP you reflect individually and as a group to consider what went well and what to improve on. As I mentioned earlier, reflection is a very important part of being a teacher so make sure that you are prepared to reflect on your performance and listen to suggestions. They gave us our teaching goals and textbook page numbers for us to prepare a plan to be discussed the next day.
On the next day we had to watch the other 3 people teach, but first we had about 15 minutes each with the tutor to discuss our plans for our second TP. This session is so brief, so I'd recommend preparing as much as possible beforehand so you can squeeze a lot of advice out or your tutor and feel more prepared. 'Winging it' is not a good idea. Thinking on your toes and being flexible in your classes is great, but a firm plan is the backbone of a good and successful lesson when you are being assessed.
During the first week we also discussed the assignments. We were set Language Related Tasks first and it was due on the first day of week 2. This is technically the second assignment, but as it is based on analysing English (think grammar, vocab, pronunciation etc.) it can often be the hardest. I think everyone in our group failed this assignment the first time and had to resubmit. I had a lot of troubles coming up with good contexts for the questions, so be wary of this element.
WEEK 2:
On the first day of week 2 we learned that two of the students had dropped the course, one from each teaching group of 6. Apparently, dropping out is not uncommon, but after paying about $3,000 AUD and waiting as long as I did (see part 1), I couldn't fathom dropping out. It had a knock-on effect for my TPs that week, as we had already been assigned our lesson goals and textbook pages for that week. I had to do a listening lesson, but the vocabulary was supposed to be introduced previously in the lesson of the person who dropped out. Therefore, I had to assimilate the vocab into my lesson. It was a lesson about adventuring and camping, and the students did not know a lot of the vocab, so it was lucky that I noticed the potential problem beforehand. I actually think that it turned out to be one of my best lessons. I managed to convey the meaning of 'pushing yourself' by using a context that the students knew (they had talked about going skydiving), and acting out pushing yourself with concept checking questions (is pushing yourself like this? *pushes hands forwards* I needed to see if the students understood that it was a metaphorical push, not a physical action).
Starting from this week, we had to fill in grammar or vocabulary sheets for our teaching plans, which means that planning lessons suddenly took longer. However, these sheets help you to plan how you might convey grammar or vocab, so they are actually useful!
WEEK 3:
I mentioned in my previous post that week 3 was a nightmare for me. I had 3 TPs and 2 assignments to submit. I don't think that this is the norm however, as we had to account for a public holiday in the schedule and I just drew the short straw. We also switched the level of the students we were teaching which added to the stress. I went from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate and it was kind of scary. I think I preferred teaching pre-intermediate!
The stress of the workload really got to me this week and as a result I had to resubmit both of the assignments, and I nearly failed a TP. TP 6 was a grammar class on quantifiers with countable and uncountable nouns and I nearly didn't meet my goals that I wrote in the lesson plan. I barely scraped by with my activities. I don't want to alarm anyone, but grammar is always going to be the hardest to teach, especially something like quantifiers or articles. I attribute my near miss here to the fact that I was lax in my pre-course preparations.
There was another blip on the Friday of that week which was my TP7. It was a functions class about responding to awkward situations, and the input session for functions was that morning. While we were being taught about functions, I could see the holes appearing in my lesson that I had to present that afternoon. Remember that the tutors don't mark you too harshly if this happens, but I was a little annoyed as it was my penultimate TP and still riddled with mistakes.
WEEK 4:
The pay off for having a crazy week 3 was a breezy final week. I only had one TP, and the Lessons from the Classroom assignment to submit, which is definitely the easiest! TP 8 was one of my favourites as it was about tickling, sneezing, and hiccupping! It was a functions and vocab class, therefore I looked at phrases like what you should say to someone when they sneeze! One of my activities was a quiz that activated the background knowledge of the students, and of the questions asked why we often say 'bless you' when someone sneezes (because sneezing was a near end of life symptom of the Bubonic Plague and meant that you were going to 'meet God' soon!) One of the students actually knew this and was able to tell the whole class. I think that the students explaining words to each other has so much more value than if I told them. Always open up the floor to the students if you get a question about a word meaning or grammar point, they might be able to explain it to each other.
During the final week the assessor from Cambridge visited. The assessor is not assessing you, but is making sure that the course lives up to the high standards of the Cambridge Celta. It is one of the most reliable and valued TEFL courses out there because of these standards. The assessor had to sit in on one of the TPs which is kind of nerve-wracking, but remember that they are not judging you. The assessor also asks you as a group without the tutors what could be improved about the course and infrastructure. For example, my gripes were infrastructure based. There were no desks suitable for left-handed people, and the classrooms got really hot and stuffy which made it difficult to learn and teach in the middle of the Australian summer. (The heat didn't stop me from getting a hot choccy one morning though!)
At the end of the week I was almost sad that the course was ending, even though it was super stressful at times. We had a little pizza party and played fun games with the students on the final day, and then we went to a local bar for a celebratory drink. I'm teetotal so I got lemon lime bitters with one of my new friends from my teaching group! While I was going to miss everyone, I also just couldn't wait to go home and sleep!
I had tons of experiences that I will never forget from the Celta. Some were not good, but some were absolutely hilarious!
- During one lesson I had the words and phrases: 'awkward', 'rash', and 'I'm fine, thank you' written on the board, which would have looked really odd if anyone walked in.
- I had an argument with one of the students about the Bee Gees (I'm British and moved to Australia like the Bee Gees, and I was trying to explain this to the student, but they were adamant that the Bee Gees were only Australian).
- When I got home after TP7, I sat down on the sofa and started hiccupping. I told my tutor the next day and they nearly cried with laughter!
I'm going to round out this post, and finish my Celta saga with an updated list of tips that I wrote out on my iPad, and as always, feel free to ask questions here, or on twitter (@WouldJenny).
(Google drive link if you can't read it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xpM6zhskbuEdAhw8DTmJUehdb7FKaFj9/view?usp=sharing)
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