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Archive for the ‘TEFL teaching forums’ Category

TEFL Insider Part Six- Nova and the CELTA

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

To prove that I am capable of not only the idle speculation of the average post on this blog (but then, isn’t that what a blog is for?) but also of getting down and dirty in the trenches of TEFL, I’ve been given my TEFL Press Card, a rusty old Remington typewriter and a pack of filterless French cigarettes and become what can almost be described as a journalist. Yes, those of you standing around outside the kiosks and corner shops of the world waiting for the latest edition of the EL Gazette hot off the press will have noticed not one, but two articles by Alex Case, direct from war torn Tokyo.

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MA= My A*se! Super CELTA is it, man!

Monday, August 27th, 2007

Hope that headline got your attention, but actually I have nothing to say about the MA today at all…

Right, now to talk about the CELTA. I have decided to trust a whole lot of people I have never met and take the PGCE (standard British 1 year postgraduate teaching qualification) to be totally superior to the CELTA and a whole lotta learning more than a DELTA. The only compensation for me as someone who has done the C and the D but not the P is to imagine that the PGCE powers that be have been ripping off the CELTA as they have introduced classroom teaching earlier and earlier in the course.

Anyhows, as few more people are likely to start using 5000 pounds of someone’s money and two years of their lives to do a PGCE before popping off to Spain for a year I think the only sensible thing to do is combine the best of the two. And here it is:

The Super CELTA (although Advanced CELTA might be a better name!) will be a combination of the CELTA just as it stands now and in-service training once you start your first job, which will be set by Cambridge and admininstered and run by the employers. The employers will be able to easily justify checking up on their first year teachers and making sure they continue their training, the teachers will be able to choose a good school simply by the fact that they offer support for this extended qualification, and Cambridge will be able to use it to spread good practice in teacher observations and what have you.

So that’s decided then. You can disagree with me, but then I will just edit your comment to make it look like you’ve been blabbering on about lobsters invading the earth…. Only joking! Bring it on! And there’s also a similar thread in D’s E C you can comment in as well/ instead.

Weekly speech from the TEFL President Part One-New rules for the ESL Au Lait forum

Monday, August 27th, 2007

As much as I hate to say anything positive about the British Upper classes, I think we could borrow something from them to make online debate about teaching a bit more civilised. When I am TEFL President, people will only be able to start or contribute to threads in the language of an RAF pilot in a British WWII film. You’ll know when things are getting really heated when people start to write “Steady on old chap!”, “I say!” or “I really dont think that is cricket!”