The real scoop on CELTA

[tbknown]

The joke that is CELTA.

The course doesn't give you the skills needed to develop a lesson plan and teach English without a textbook. The course teaches how to use a textbook and understand how to organize lesson plans for different parts of the textbook (Productive Skills: speaking, writing, and Receptive Skills: reading, listening)

CELTA is a gimmick driven teaching method using cheesy classroom exercises and games to 'engage' the students. Small children might respond well to this parlor trick teaching style, but the 14+ year old student's eyes glaze over as they watch CELTA trainees perform for the tutors that grade the trainee by an arbitrary lesson plan format in the corner of the room. The guinea pig students that CELTA uses to practice teaching on are never asked or polled by questionnaire and assessment for the sake of integrating their experience into the grading process of the CELTA enrollees. The CELTA course has no interest and no regard for how much these 'guinea pig' students have garnered from the teaching method. CELTA and its tutors assume they know best no matter what the students being taught English by the CELTA method experience.

CELTA promotes a European notion of English having many different pronunciations and this results in poor quality control of graduates that represent the CELTA brand, as a lot of inconsistency in word meaning and pronunciation makes its way into the world classroom. There are non-native speaking CELTA graduates that graduate not being able to pronounce crucial phonemes in the English language. Some of the assessors also, who have a cushy job only coming two days out of the course and flying to all kinds of novel places in the world to "quality check" that the tutors grading the course are using the arbitrary lesson plan system to CELTA standards, can't even pronounce English words in an intelligible way. CELTA assumes that this is eclectic, inclusive and an accurate representation of English in the world. And yet it amounts to inconsistent teaching, without standards, that the students being taught English suffer as a result of.

CELTA is a brand, plain and simple, backed by the 'Cambridge prestige'. It is the epitome of non-innovative British arrogance and any other TEFL course will provide you with equal teaching knowledge at less cost and less monotony of arbitrary and redundant exclusively-lesson-plan driven criteria.

[Briona]

I take it you failed then.

[tbknown]

I take it you failed then.

Your curt response and lack of addressing the substance of what was laid out in my post is a perfect example of the incompetence and superficiality of the CELTA assessment process. If that is what you 'took' from what was posted, you are arrogantly missing the point.

No critical thinking person would be wise to spend money on CELTA. There are plenty of other legitimate options beyond CELTA, and I'm sure plenty more options will crop up in the future that will challenge the price and legitimacy of the CELTA myth.

[Briona]

Your curt response and lack of addressing the substance of what was laid out in my post is a perfect example of the incompetence and superficiality of the CELTA assessment process. If that is what you 'took' from what was posted, you are arrogantly missing the point.

The only thing your post was a perfect example of was how bitter a person who failed the CELTA can be. I didn’t address the so-called ‘substance’ because it was nothing more than a one-sided rant. I’m sorry that you felt that the course was not worthwhile, and that it didn’t teach you anything, but that is not the experience of most people. It certainly wasn’t my experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my course and I learned a lot from it. I certainly would not have wanted to step into a classroom without having first done the CELTA.

The course doesn't give you the skills needed to develop a lesson plan and teach English without a textbook. The course teaches how to use a textbook and understand how to organize lesson plans for different parts of the textbook (Productive Skills: speaking, writing, and Receptive Skills: reading, listening).

CELTA is a gimmick driven teaching method using cheesy classroom exercises and games to 'engage' the students. Small children might respond well to this parlor trick teaching style, but the 14+ year old student's eyes glaze over as they watch CELTA trainees perform for the tutors that grade the trainee by an arbitrary lesson plan format in the corner of the room.

Didn’t you realise that the CELTA is simply a crash course? Were you really daft enough to believe that at the end of a four-week course you would be a model teacher; that you would never need to use your initiative or be selective about the materials and activities you use? There is no one-size-fits-all lesson plan or teaching method. It is up to you as the teacher to use your common sense to design and adapt plans accordingly and to use materials selectively.

CELTA promotes a European notion of English having many different pronunciations and this results in poor quality control of graduates that represent the CELTA brand, as a lot of inconsistency in word meaning and pronunciation makes its way into the world classroom.

Your complaint about the “European notion of English having many different pronunciations” is utterly ridiculous. In native English-speaking countries, such as the UK or the USA, different regions pronounce things differently. That said, English does not belong to the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc – it’s a global language and as such is spoken by people all over the world. This in turn leads to an even greater variation in pronunciation. If you have a problem with that I respectfully suggest that TEFL was never going to be a great career for you.

There are non-native speaking CELTA graduates that graduate not being able to pronounce crucial phonemes in the English language.

I suspect that you aren’t aware of the fact that there are certain sounds that are almost impossible for some learners to make. In some cases they can’t distinguish between two similar sounds, or they simply can’t hear the sounds. In other cases they cannot get their tongues in position to form them. This is the case for me when it comes to learning Polish – there are some sounds that, with the best will in the world, I will simply never be able to make. A good teacher would recognise and understand this, regardless of whether he/she is dealing with a student or a colleague.

Contrary to popular opinion, TEFL isn't for everyone. Thankfully, the CELTA separates the wheat from the chaff.

Briona

[kaithegreene]

You do sound as if you've had a bad experience - please consider that no course of study gives skills as such. We, as trainees, have to work at learning/acquiring those skills. Learning is a process, not an event - it takes time and practice. It is certainly true, in my experience, that some trainees do better on an extensive course than on the standard four week intensive - some of us need more time to process information.

Your comment that "The course teaches how to use a textbook and understand how to organize lesson plans for different parts of the textbook (Productive Skills: speaking, writing, and Receptive Skills: reading, listening)" seems to suggest that you think we should be doing otherwise. The reality is that most CELTA graduates will go to work in schools which use a course book as the foundation of their class syllabi. In this case being able to exploit the course book effectively is very useful. It is also a lot less demanding that creating all your own materials from scratch - especially if you are new to the job and have gone from 6 hours assessed teaching in four weeks to 24 hours contact time every week.

I was interested in the comment "...cheesy classroom exercises and games to 'engage' the students. Small children might respond well to this parlor trick teaching style, but the 14+ year old student's eyes glaze over...", because the A in CELTA clearly stands for adults - what are you basing this comment on? Have you actually done a CELTA course?

I also noted the comment "The guinea pig students that CELTA uses to practice teaching on are never asked or polled by questionnaire and assessment for the sake of integrating their experience into the grading process of the CELTA enrollees" - this is totally unfounded. I have worked on a number of CELTA courses where the TP SS are asked to give feedback. Again, I wonder what if anything other than your own unfortunate experience, you are basing this on...?

I'm sorry you (appear to) have had a negative experience - perhaps a short period of quiet reflection would help you to find your way past this and consider whether you contributed to it in any way, and how best to avoid such negativity in the future.

Good luck!

[tbknown]

Again, the point of the post is not about my personal experience. That is what you want to focus on.

I posted an accurate depiction of what the course is and isn't for those that might be thinking about spending the money. There is no edge that CELTA graduates possess, other than the prestige of the name. It is an overly-hyped money maker.

Any other TEFL course would be just as adequate. Because at the end of the day, like you pointed out, the schools use their own textbooks and that only requires common sense to organize around a textbook. The rest of becoming a teacher is garnering experience overtime, not in four weeks of participating in the CELTA circus.

[kaithegreene]

No tbknown, you did not post an accurate description of either the CELTA course that I trained on or any of the CELTA courses I have tutored on.

[Jascol]

I'm really interested in doing the CELTA. Mostly because I want to teach in Central/Eastern Europe and it seems the CELTA is almost a necessity to do this. I already have a Ba (hons) English Language & Linguistics and if I do the CELTA I understand I shouldn't have too much problem getting a job. I'm British so there would be no visa issues either.

However there seem to be two types of people, those who think CELTA is great and those who think it's a total waste of time. Can anyone enlighten me as to why there are such polarised views about this course?

[Briona]

However there seem to be two types of people, those who think CELTA is great and those who think it's a total waste of time. Can anyone enlighten me as to why there are such polarised views about this course?

Simply put, people's experiences of the CELTA are different and this is reflected in their views. If you took the course and failed it you probably would think it was a total waste of time (and money) but if, like me, you took the course and got a Pass A, your opinions would be completely different.

FWIW I thoroughly enjoyed my course, but then I had great colleagues and very supportive tutors. Having done an online TEFL course as a sort of taster beforehand, I was already familiar with some of the terminology and methodology which undoubtedly gave me an edge over my fellow trainees. Nonetheless, I had to work incredibly hard, particularly when it came to the actual teaching practice and to managing the workload.

I cannot imagine attempting to teach without having first done a CELTA (or equivalent), and I would happily recommend both the course and my particular provider.

[tbknown]

Can anyone enlighten me as to why there are such polarised views about this course?

Look, it breaks down to this for the polarization. People who have common sense will find the course work redundant and silly with sporadic flashes of insight about teaching in between. There is a certain point past the 2nd week of the course in which it becomes an unnecessary grind and all of the information the course has to offer has pretty much been presented. The cherry on top of the ridiculous nature of CELTA is the fact, as has been stated, that it is almost a requirement in certain regions of the world. This is because of the lobbying and branding that Cambridge has done with those country's academic institutions.

People who are a little shy, or slow to catch on to the density of material in the first 2 weeks will find the rest of the time on the course a great investment to get over their nerves and really drill the teaching methodology into their heads. But as far as value for the money and time spent on the course, the more intuitive and intelligent students on the course will find the final stretch of time after the first two weeks lacking in substance. It would be great if that time was devoted to more intense grammar and verb tenses. But the average population of people that take the course would find that way too overwhelming.

So bottom line is, if you are intuitive, confident and have a very high aptitude don't waste your money on the redundancy of the CELTA teaching method. Take a basic TEFL course and start networking to find a job. The only problem is, as i said, Cambridge has a lock on a perceived 'pedigree' status and those with the CELTA diploma will have preferential treatment.

By the way, for those naysayers to my depiction of the course; it doesn't come down to failing or passing that makes someone speak against CELTA and towards an alternative. That assumption and mentality is akin to some kind of club where those who passed love it and are in the club and those who fail can't be minded because their perspective on the course doesn't count. I didn't fail, I just used critical thinking while I was involved with it and documented where the weak points in the CELTA hype reside.

To each their own.

[kaithegreene]

Jascol asks "...why are there such polarised views about this course?"

There do seem to be instances of polarisation, but mostly I think we all have our various shades of opinion. CELTA isn't a religion, it's a training course - and the four week version is a very intensive one. Intensive experiences often do raise intense emotions, as we have seen. All CELTA tutors are individual with a profile of strengths and weaknesses just like every other human being; and so are CELTA trainees. This is one of the reasons why CELTA courses, whilst conforming to the syllabus as laid down by Cambridge, are all a little different. This may also contribute to the different experiences we have of CELTA courses - both for trainers and trainees.

The bottom line is that the EFL industry is not regulated by any governing body but does have widely recognised basic entry qualifications - CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL. It is also true that a number of immigration departments throughout the world require a degree and/or professional qualification in order to issue a work permit/visa. Rightly or wrongly, if one wishes to work in EFL one will have to either go along with this or be limited in one's choice of employers and locations.

Personally, I don't think many of us would survive the hurly-burly of the EFL classroom without some idea of how to do it.

I am also wondering how tbknown has managed to develop a view of all CELTA courses. How many CELTA courses has s/he observed and/or participated in, in order to form such an overarching view?