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CELTA? What do you compare it with?

Submitted by aminn on 25 September, 2008 - 19:55.

To do the course, I first got some sheets to fill up! well, it actually came along with a pre-interview questions sheet which I had to talk about on the interview day to approve my eligiblity to enter the course.

A nice question on one of these sheets was:

Learning to teach English on the CELTA programme will, I think, be like:

# Parachute jumping # Following a recipe

# Learning to drive # Learning your mother tongue

What do you colleagues think? ? ?

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Heath

Interesting Question

Submitted on 27 September, 2008 - 03:15

Hmm, interesting choices. TeachingEnglish.Org.UK should do this as a Poll.

I suppose you could justify any of them if you think about it and word it carefully enough. But I'd go for:

Learning to Drive

In Driving:

There are underlying rules that everyone should obey.
Even if you do follow the rules, everyone is free to go where they like, and different people have their own routes and shortcuts...
And on top of this people regularly bend (or blatantly break) the rules if it makes things more convenient for them.
Doing it requires theoretical knowledge and awareness of various areas (how the controls affect the cars movement; traffic rules; driver and pedestrian psychology, etc) as well as physical ability and practical skill
It involves interaction with other drivers, turn-taking, signalling, etc...

So in teaching/learning driving:

Rules help
But rules are far from everything and it's important to help learners develop their own habits and skills and to encourage them to explore the roads on their own
Understand that 'incorrect' driving isn't always a mistake, it's often very intentional, and at times can be useful
Combine theory, awareness raising, and practice
It's important to provide practice interacting with others

But I bet we can draw some interesting parallels between the other types of learning and language learning too!

tohweiee

Parachute jumping. It was

Submitted on 27 September, 2008 - 10:29

Parachute jumping. It was fast-paced (hectic and stressful at times) but also fun and exciting and every bit as adrenalin-pumping. So definitely parachute jumping.

Heath

I can't read...

Submitted on 4 November, 2008 - 07:21

Oh, yeah, of course... Stupid me - I wasn't thinking about 'learning on the CELTA course', I was thinking about 'learning a language'.

If the CELTA course was like learning to drive, I think there'd be a lot of car crashes. You don't even know where you're going at first, and even when you do, you don't feel in control until the last lesson - if that. Definitely parachute jumping (with all the safety gear, of course).