CELTA - the interview

Application forms in, interviews were arranged. Let's face it, CELTA centres want your cash so it's hard to fail this interview. That said, they also want you to pass the course as it reflects badly on them if you fail plus of course you could start asking difficult questions after parting with a large chunk of dosh.

So, I had two interviews and actually made my decision about which offer to accept based on this. There are no CELTA courses in my now 'home' country so I couldn't attend a face-to-face interview. The first centre was extremely accommodating, offering me different dates and times when I could call. The second was extremely difficult, offering me one day and one time. As I work full-time, and this qualification isn't necessary for my job, my employers were not too happy about a) finding me cover for an hour so that b) I could make an international phone call from the office lasting for an hour. I was a bit sceptical then when the second centre refused to be flexible in offering times, especially as they day started later then mine!

Back to the interviews. They were very different, but for both a pen and paper to hand were essential and I also needed a crib sheet in front of me with tenses and basic grammar constructions. The first one was supposed to last an hour, but I think it ended up being about 35 minutes and, it has to be said, most of that was the interviewer giving advice on the course. It consisted of a lot of basic questions on tenses and parts of speech. If you wanted to be really prepared you could look at the pre-course task here BUT don't look at any answer keys - the idea of this is to do some revision before you start the course and it's a bit pointless to just go ahead and read the answers without understanding them. More of that later. A quick look through any basic grammar book should be fine. Some of it was on vocabulary and how to explain it, which you can't really read up on anyway.
I should add here that I have teaching experience. The candidates who did not have teaching experience were asked how they would teach something - whether a face to face interview was compulsory, I don't know. I should also add that I know of someone who did this course who does not have English as a first language and, despite making a lot of mistakes, still managed to pass.

Centre number two was a whole different experience. Comical in fact. I was granted a phone interview only as my teaching was so strong... clearly, they weren't used to doing this and the fact that they really weren't geared up to international students put me off. The interview itself consisted of having to write down sentences then explain how I would show/draw/mime different vocabulary. I explained I would mime it very well...! I was even told at one point to turn over card B. Tricky, as no cards were before me. I was even told that the interviewer was imagining what what I was doing with my hands to explain a word. I said she was imagining correctly!!

So.... no stress, it's not difficult to pass. Remember, they want your cash!