The CELTA course
CELTA is an acronym.
What does it mean?
Literally it means 'Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults' (although if we spoke English properly we would call it a 'Certificate in Teaching Adults the English Language', but CTAEL doesn't look so good and we must remember that it's the aesthetics and not the language that count.)
By implication CELTA means so much more than this though, CELTA is an acronym burned onto the damaged hearts of many a young and aspiring globe-trotter.
Why?
Stop interrupting with this annoying question/answer format: all shall be revealed.
Stress-Based Learning[edit]
The CELTA course advocates a wide range of teaching techniques, from PPP (Program/Patronise/Push) to TTT (Teachy/Teachy/Teach) via TBL (Teacher/Being/Lazy), but the most advocated technique of the lot is taught subliminally and is known as Stress-Based Learning.
I love you!
Stress-Based Learning[edit]
I already put that title, didn't I? Oh, well. Stress-based Learning is the preferred technique of the modern teacher. The theory behind it is simple: give your student 17 major tasks to do at once, don't let them eat or sleep, and allot them... let's say... half a day to do it all. On top of that require them for most of that time to be giving or receiving lessons, give them extra duties and harrass them with reams of administration. If they show any signs of having a hard time coping then make snide comments suggesting that they are lazy and don't listen. Mark all their essays as harshly as possible, picking obscure reasons why they cannot pass. If that doesn't teach the bastard nothing will.
Bad Cop/Pernickity Cop[edit]
The CELTA course utilises a tag-team method. Two tutors run the course, one of which takes the role of bad cop, the other pernickity cop.
With the bad cop it is possible for a student to get a good mark, especially if they have a vagina, but it is more likely that the bad cop will tell the student to do something over the weekend, and then when they come back having put all their effort into the task, proceed to shout at them for doing it. The well-trained bad cop will do this quarter of an hour before the student teacher has a lesson, putting them completely ill at ease and undermining their confidence.
The pernickity cop will, on the other hand, employ an almost laconic approach. If the student does extremely well in a lesson it will still only be marked 'meets requirements' and their success will be ignored. If a student gets all the grammar wrong and tells the learners to go and fuck themselves they will also get a 'meets requirements', thereby undermining the student teacher's confidence in the grading scheme and making them feel that it is futile to attempt to achieve anything. The pernickity cop really comes into his own when marking assignments. The brief of the pernickity cop is to find the most obscure reason why an assignment cannot pass first time, although whatever is handed in for resubmission will automatically pass.
Job opportunities[edit]
CELTA trainees expect that when they are qualified they will be able to find a reputable job anywhere in the world.
ha ha.
The truth is that when CELTA trainees are qualified they find that anywhere reputable wants 3 years experience on top of a CELTA qualification. This means that CELTA teachers have to spend a number of years in a toilet teaching bochelism to mormons, receiving only mouldy beans for payment, living in the pant draw of a Puerta Rican flange smuggler along with his 8 children just to get the experience required to move up into the wardrobe of a Prussian widget seller and his flatulent wife.
Things what you should had to know[edit]
If you are thinking of doing a CELTA then there are a few things to be aware of:
- Grammar is not the thing most touched up by grampa.
- The 4th conditional is expressed in this phrase: 'I did wouldn't have be a teacher if you never will want to have been teached me, tutor.'
- When asked for phonemic script, this works in most cases: /hʊːðəfʌkənriːdðɪsʃɪt/
- Always have concept checking questions readily available. Here are some to get you started: 'why am I doing this to myself?' 'What is the point?' 'Can I really go on?'
- The extreme edges of a temperature scale are not 'fucking hot' and 'fucking cold'.
- The word 'breast' does not belong anywhere on a timeline, and if you wrote it you need to stop eyeing up your students.
- An enema is above a CELTA on an 'enjoyable activities' cline.
- Students find it very difficult to comprehend phrasal adverbs such as 'swimmingly up' 'goingly off' etc.
- The mark 'T->SS' in your lesson plan means that you will be talking to the students. It is NOT the cue for you to fall asleep.