CELTA Preparation

First, let me take you through the application process. I applied to do my Celta in 2015 through Target Language Services in Sao Paulo (I highly recommend this center). My coordinator, at the time, decided that she wanted all of the English teachers to participate in this course and arranged for TLS to come to Americana and deliver the CELTA. To start, we needed to go through the application process, which I imagine is different for each candidate depending on the training location that you're going to. For our application process, we needed to fill out a form with our basic information and there was an additional “test”. There were some language topics that we needed to either do language analysis on or complete an activity. It wasn't anything major in terms of being overly difficult. I think that the testing centers usually need that as a reference so they know how much knowledge you have about the language. After that, I had an interview with someone from the training center and we had about a 20-minute conversation on the phone. It was very relaxed and not stressful at all. We discussed a couple of topics: I talked a little bit about myself and my background, what I wanted from the course, and there was an opportunity to ask questions about the delivery of the course if you have any concerns.

All in all, the process was relatively stress-free. It was easy to follow all the documentation that you needed to fill out as well. The training center that delivered my course, TLS, did a really good job in terms of onboarding all of the candidates in my opinion. The coordinator of my school was responsible for getting volunteers for our teaching practice, so she offered a free intensive course for both Elementary and Intermediate students. That was a way for us to guarantee that people would show up for the course and that we had sufficient numbers in our teaching practice.

 To be honest, I did not prepare very much for CELTA. I did not read any books or prepare myself in an organized way. In my defense, I was teaching full-time and didn't have much time... I think I had about two months from when I did the application process to when the course was starting, and it was the end of the semester so, I had to grade papers, finish testing, finish units, and I was pretty overwhelmed with just regular work. Though I did not get a chance to prepare as much as I would have liked for my CELTA course, everything worked out in the end.

 The CELTA course I did was the Intensive 1-month course. I had to do 8 teaching practices and 4 written assignments within the month. Now, that may not sound like too much but we also, during the day, needed to watch input sessions, do lesson observations, and prepare all of our materials for our lessons. It turned out to be quite a bit of work, so the name “intensive” was very much reflected during that month for me.

 What I can say, as far as recommendations go, is that if you have the opportunity to read a couple of books it would be beneficial for you to have a bit of information when you attend the input sessions from your tutors. Having background knowledge would be helpful because there's so much information being thrown at you during the course sometimes you miss things. If you're already familiar with some ideas and some terminology, it will help facilitate your participation in input sessions and writing your assignments. I don't know the set of criteria that the University of Cambridge sends to the training centers in terms of what the content is for the input sessions, however, I do know that they have some standards that they need to adhere to. So, my input sessions are more than likely going to be slightly different from what you experience in your CELTA course; however, there are some books that I would recommend reading before taking the course to feel more prepared to deal with some of the issues and some of the assignments. 

These are some books that would definitely help a future CELTA candidate get more out of the course (they aren’t in any specific order):

1)  Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener                            

2) Grammar for English Language Teachers by Martin Parrot

3) The New A-Z of ELT by Scott Thornbury

4) Practical English Usage by Michael Swan

5) How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer

6) Sound Foundations by Adrian Underhill                         

7) Learner English by Swan/Smith                          

8) The Book of Pronunciation by Jonathan Marks and Tim Bowen

9) English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy                                    

10) ABC of Common Grammatical Errors: For Learners and Teachers of English by Nigel D. Turton

I hope that this helps any teacher who is thinking about enrolling in the CELTA course. Though it’s a lot of work, it is definitely worth the time and effort in my opinion. Feel free to send me a message via email or social media if you would like more information.