CELTA Course
The CELTA course requires 120 contact hours to fully complete. If you choose the full-time version of the course you will attend a training center for 6 hours per day for 20 days. Successful trainees will need to:
- Attend and fully participate in the course
- Complete 6 hours of teaching practice
- Observe 6 hours of lessons taught by experienced teachers
- Submit 4 written assignments
- Maintain and submit a portfolio of course work (i.e. lesson plans, self-evaluations, etc.)
Course Content
The CELTA course covers the following subjects:
- Language Analysis and Awareness
- The Learner, the Teacher and the Learning/Teaching Context
- Planning for Effective Teaching
- Classroom Management Skills
- Teaching Procedures and Techniques
- Resources and Materials
- Professional Development
- Classroom Observation
- Teaching Practice
Observed Teaching Practice (OTP)
This essential part of the CELTA course is where trainees get to practice what they have learnt by teaching a real class of English language learners. Throughout the course, each trainee will teach a minimum of 6 hours of lessons while being observed by a tutor. Each lesson will be between 40 and 60 minutes duration and is followed by a feedback session with the observing tutor.
Written assignments
Another important component of the course is the 4 written assignments that must be completed. To complete the training, 3 of the written assignments need to reach a passing grade, although you will be allowed to re-submit any that do not pass the first time. The four assignments are:
- Focus on the Learner, which encourages you to find out about your learners’ backgrounds, needs and purposes in learning
- Language Related Task which is a review of your language awareness
- Language Skills Related Task where you consider how to use an authentic text in the classroom
- Lessons from the Classroom where you reflect on your strengths and weaknesses over the course
Observation of experienced teachers
As well as teaching their own lessons, CELTA trainees also get to observe their course tutors teaching in the classroom. This invaluable opportunity to gain tips and ideas for your own teaching involves four hours of live observation and two hours of video observations of specific lesson types.
Maintaining your portfolio
During the course each trainee will be responsible for maintaining their own portfolio of work. Documents that need to be kept as a record of the training include lesson plans from each OTP lesson, self-evaluation forms, trainer’s evaluation forms, the four written assignments, and the CELTA 5 booklet. This booklet is used to record details of the teaching practice sessions, observations of experienced teachers, and individual progress reports.
Trinity Course
Course Content
The Trinity course is made up of five individual units. Units 1, 2, 3 and 5 are assessed in-house by the course tutors, and also used for external moderation after the course by a member of the Trinity moderator’s panel. Unit 4 is sent to an external moderator for assessment.
The 5 course units are:
Unit 1: Teaching skills, assessed through:
- Tutors’ evaluation of six hours of teaching with real learners
- A journal including trainees’ own lesson plans, with self- and tutor-evaluation
- A journal covering trainees’ reflective comments following observation of four hours of ESOL teaching by experienced teachers
Unit 2: Language awareness including grammar and phonology, assessed through:
- A test or practical project
- Ongoing use of spoken and written English
Unit 3: Learner profile, assessed through:
- The preparation of a simple linguistic profile and needs analysis, including some basic phonemic transcription, of a single learner
- The planning of, and reflection on, a one-to-one lesson
- The preparation of recommendations for the learner’s future language development
Unit 4: Materials assignment, assessed through:
- Written rationale for the development of one piece of teaching material
- Written evaluation of use of this in classroom teaching
- Interview with a Trinity moderator to discuss the above and the ways in which materials development is beneficial to the development of teaching skills
Unit 5: Unknown language, assessed through:
- A journal covering trainees’ reflective comments on four hours’ tuition in an unknown language from the point of view of the beginner, including an analysis of the key aspects of methods and classroom management that affect the learner positively and negatively
The CertTESOL course covers many themes and topics, but professional awareness and development are two of the most important. Graduates will have demonstrated an awareness of the needs of others on the course in a wide range of teaching and non-teaching scenarios, as well as the importance of mutual support in an English language classroom environment.
Trainees are also expected to demonstrate an awareness of the need for professional development while taking the course, and the importance of continuing this development throughout their teaching career.
Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!
