Guest piece- Doing the YL Extension to the CELTA
Apparently many prospective TEFL teachers nowadays think that 4 weeks is too long to study to become a teacher. Luckily, there are also the dedicated few like Jo Gillespie who decide to make the whole CELTA thing longer while also properly learning how to control, and maybe even teach, the shorter of our students (in both height and attention spans). Is that as hard as it sounds? Is it all worth it? Here are her experiences, musings and advice:
“I’m writing about the two-week intensive course, and when they say “intensive”, they mean EXACTLY that. Cambridge have taken about two-thirds of what was the four-week CELTYL and compressed it into a two-week course. So you can expect Assignments, Tasks, and Teaching Practice (TP) to come in a continuous wave once you’ve begun.
What’s it really like?
It is FULL ON!
Our course began on a Friday, which gave us an orientation day. We got to know our TP group a little, and after a morning of housekeeping, had guided lesson planning with our key tutor to prepare us for our first Teaching Practice on the Monday morning. After that first relatively gentle day the rest of the time passed in a blur, and it was helpful to have a GREAT support team at home. There were some on the course who even had their partners cutting and pasting well past midnight before a TP day.
The course focused on the mid-age range. One week we worked with a group of 8 to 10 year-olds and the next week, 11 to 13 year olds. Each TP group taught every morning for two hours, then had feedback with their key tutor and TP group. I found this the most useful part of the whole course. Reflecting on the lesson just presented allowed us to focus on what went well, and really clarified our personal challenges. Our tutors were very direct and specific in their recommendations, and we finished each TP session with action points to work on. (I especially enjoyed one tutor’s way of saying “So, your NEXT challenge is….”).
After feedback, we had time for lesson planning in our groups and a quick lunch, then there were seminars as a whole group. These covered some of the theory, but were mainly of a practical nature, ranging from learning styles and multiple intelligences, through to ideas for teaching skills, and maintaining discipline in the classroom. There was one session on Very Young Learners (pre-schoolers) and teenagers.
It seemed to me that the people who got the most out of the course were the ones able to work well as part of their TP group. As we were teaching a 40 minute slot in a two-hour lesson, it was important to be able to liaise with the other teachers, so as to present a coherent whole.
Another thing I noted was that the people in the group who had only recently finished their CELTA (or a DELTA module) seemed to find the actual writing up of lesson plans (in the correct format) easier than those of us for whom initial training was a distant memory.
One thing I would have liked was a specific reading list before the course began. I had read some useful books, but not the key one they recommended on the first day of the course. If you can, read “How Languages Are Learned” by Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada, and also “Children’s Minds” by Margaret Donaldson, and “Children Learning English” by Jayne Moon (my personal favourite because it contains ideas for reflecting on lessons, which you’ll need to do during the course). Once you are actually doing the course, you’ll need something more practical, and the one I used the most was “500 Activities For The Primary Classroom” by Carol Read. We were provided with a lot of course books to draw on, but usually found ourselves preparing our own materials (which was also a positive aspect of the course).
And is it really worth it?
It depends. If you were thrown in the deep end teaching young learners soon after completing your initial TESOL qualification, you’ve probably managed to gain enough experience that this qualification would be “just a piece of paper”, especially if you’ve been studying the theory and keeping up with the research.
However, if you have NO experience teaching children, or if you have only a little experience, and need a confidence boost (this was my case!), I would say that the YL Extension to the CELTA is well worth doing.”
Jo Gillespie is a New Zealander now living in Italy. She got the Trinity Cert. TESOL back in 1996, but didn’t get into teaching until 1999. After a year in the Czech Republic (Mladà Boleslav), she moved first to Thiene in the north of Italy, and then to a small village just north of Rome. She teaches all levels and ages, and has just finished the YL Extension to the CELTA. She welcomes questions and comments, and also blogs (randomly) at www.jogillespie.blogspot.com
Tags: guest writers
