CELTA - ways to take it

4 years after my CELTA experience, I am adding to this blog.

First of all, I have to say my CELTA experience wasn't particularly positive. For example, all CELTA courses have to have a minimum of 120 contact hours. The course I attended had closer to 140, if not 150 as we were expected to stay from at least 9 to 5 every day. This was mainly because the school offered students free (reduced) lessons - i.e. the lessons the CELTA students taught - and told us they could only get students at certain times of day. In reality, they were trying to get these students to sign up to full-time courses, This led to an awful lot of wasted time, which could have been spent on preparation time. We also had to do a lot of observing our peers, then feeding back. Again, far too much time was spent on this as feedback lasted at most 20 minutes whereas we had to sit through around 3 hours plus of lessons each day. I had finished my teaching time by Tuesday of the last week but still had to sit through other students' lessons for two days. It would have been far better to timetable us so that we were staggered in giving feedback rather than a 'round robin' approach.

Some of the tasks of the last week were gap-fillers and very questionable. One session we had to write down everything we liked and appreciated about our fellow students, and  decorate our paper so that they would have a positive memory to take away with them. Really?! I am not at primary school and this really wasn't appropriate. It was a time-waster as they needed to keep us there so that lessons would take place in the afternoons. Another questionable task was writing a letter of thanks to the teachers who we had to observe as part of our course. As I professional, I thanked those teachers on leaving their classrooms. I also have been observed many, many times at the request of management. It's part of teaching life and you do this because your line-manager tells you. It is not usually as a 'favour'. As this CELTA school is OBLIGED to provide staff for us to observe, and as we had paid MONEY to take part in the course, I am not sure a handwritten note of thanks was at all appropriate. 

Long story short: check the number of contact hours you will be doing BEFORE you part with your cash and ask for a typical timetable.  If it's way over 120, avoid, as they do not have your interests at heart.

I don't know anything about the on-line version of CELTA, but I have to say it looks much improved. 6 hours of teaching in 8 sessions looks good. One would hope that would also mean they would be able to stick to the required hours 'virtually' as the are not tied to classrooms. Perhaps!
On-line CELTA info is here

Interestingly, my course centre doesn't offer it - no doubt because they will lose their free student teacher time, and might actually have to pay teachers!

CELTA: choosing where

So, after surviving the CELTA course, here are my top tips for all you CELTA-to-bes.


Do your homework.
No, I'm not talking about pointless lesson plans, I'm talking about the centre you choose. Remember: you are the paying customer and whilst CELTA is supposed to be a standardised course, a quick bit of research shows that centres vary wildly.
Firstly, locate a centre that interests you. All centres are listed here: celta centres

I was advised to find a centre close to where I lived, so that I wouldn't be wondering about where to eat, where to stay etc. There may be some logic to that, but I really think other factors should be considered too.

The cost is the first one. I went for a course that was almost double the price than that of a friend's. I mistakenly thought that would mean the overall instruction would be better, but on reflection I don't think this was the case at all. My friend managed to have a month abroad and still spent less on his course and accommodation combined than I did on the course alone. Plus he was given help finding accommodation and as it was close to his centre of choice his travelling time was reduced too.

Commuting time  is a must to consider. There is homework, so spending more than an hour travelling each way is a bit tiring. Unless you can put the time to good use of course!

Reviews  - yes, I know views vary widely but if I had googled a little bit more, I probably would have chosen somewhere else, or at least been a little more aware of the lack of resources I was about to face! A few reviews are here but of course it's best if you google the centre you are interested in.

Dates  I'm lucky enough to be a full-time teacher, so this one was important to me - it's only during August I have the full 4 weeks free that are needed to take a CELTA course. Quite a few centres don't run courses in the summer, so you need to look around.

UPDATE: make sure you ask for a typical daily/weekly timetable. Course are supposed to be a minimum of 120 hours contact time. My course ended up being closer to 150 hours, with the same assignment requirements. This was mainly due to time-wasting. If they are considerably over 120 hours avoid - they don't have your interests at heart and are likely just using your English skills for free!