FAQs
What types of people take the
course at IH Bangkok?
Perhaps because of its location, IH Bangkok
and its two provincial branches attract a very wide range
of trainees, which makes for a stimulating and mutually
informative learning environment. Characteristically,
a course will be a mix of English speakers from at least
three or four different English-speaking countries, with
usually one or two from somewhere else in Europe or Asia
too. A big range of ages is also typical, clustering around
the late 20’s to early 30’s but with its extremes
anywhere from 19 to 69! There will normally be a fairly
even split between those with no previous teaching experience
at all and those who already have some teaching behind
them.
How many trainees will
there be on the course?
CELTA regulations set a ratio of 6 trainees
to 1 trainer. During the rainy season (May-October), courses
at IH Bangkok usually run with not more than 12 trainees,
but at more popular times, the class size can often exceed
this and we have 3 trainers working on the course. At
our Chiang Mai branch we do not run courses with more
than 2 trainers, so the maximum trainee intake for any
one course is always 12.
I don’t have any
teaching experience. Is that a problem?
No. Indeed, the course was originally
designed as a pre-service training course for people with
no teaching experience. In all probability, there will
be people attending your course who do have some teaching
experience but there is no need to compare yourself unfavourably
with them in your early teaching practice because you
feel more nervous. Your tutors will take your inexperience
into account and, in any case, experienced teachers may
find themselves with some unlearning of bad habits to
do while you have the decided advantage of being a clean
slate.
I'm not a university graduate.
Is that a problem?
Not for the course. It is a strong recommendation
that applicants should at least have educational qualifications
that would allow entry into higher education in their
own country, but the centre is allowed to exercise their
discretion in respect to this if a convincing case can
be made for your suitability to the course. Please bear
in mind, however, that to work legally as an English teacher
in Thailand and many other Asian countries, a degree or
its equivalent is required.
I’m not a native
speaker. Is that a problem?
No. The course is open to non-native
speakers and around the world an ever increasing number
of non-native speakers become CELTA-qualified each year.
No formal academic requirements are set, but you must
demonstrate in your application and in your interview
that you have sufficient competence in both spoken and
written English to cope with the demands of the course
and the needs of your prospective students. In practice,
this means you need a near-native-speaker competence,
but it will be no barrier to you if you have acquired
your present competence in the language through living
in a native-speaker country, for example, without taking
any examinations. It’s also worth remembering that
as someone who has almost certainly studied the language
formally yourself at some point, you will actually have
an advantage over native speakers in some areas such as
grammar knowledge and you will probably also be more sensitive
to your students’ needs.
Is age a factor?
All over the world, many people in their
50’s and even 60’s have successfully completed
the CELTA course. (Here at IH Bangkok, our oldest successful
candidate so far was actually 69, though we’re not
quite sure if she deserves a place in the Guiness Book
of Records.) However, the longer you have been away from
a learning environment, the harder you will find the steep
learning curve expected of you. You may also find that
you have a lot of unlearning to do with regard to teaching
methodology and ideas about “correct” English.
Particularly if you are a more mature male candidate,
you may have become, let’s say, unused to being
told how to do things better, so it is vital that you
approach the course with genuine modesty and an open mind.
It is also crucially important not to underestimate just
how tiring the workload can be – even for the young
things!
Do I need to be able to
speak a foreign language?
No. This is not a course requirement.
Nor are you expected to know anything in advance about
the language of the country where you are taking the course
as the CELTA is designed to equip you to start teaching
English through the medium of English anywhere in the
world. However, you will find later that knowing something
about your students’ native language helps you to
understand their difficulties and the experience of learning
any foreign language is enormously helpful to a language
teacher. Having gone through this will certainly be counted
in your favour in your initial application.
Is lack of grammatical
knowledge a problem?
The kind of grammar that is relevant
to a language learner is not the kind of “grammar”
you may have been taught at school and may feel you’ve
now forgotten. This will have been mostly information
about formal written style, in fact, which is a different
thing entirely. As a native speaker, you already have
a perfect knowledge of the grammar of your own language.
However, what you are not able to do is to explain it
and you probably don’t know the terms to describe
it either. Most people are in this situation when they
apply for a CELTA course and before accepting you, we
need to see at least that your mind works in such a way
that you notice grammatical differences, you can make
a reasonable attempt at explaining them and you will improve
quickly with some help. Before the course begins, working
your way through the pre-course task which you will receive
on acceptance and having a look at one of the recommended
grammar books will be enough to give you the grounding
you need. If you are not a native speaker, you actually
have a huge advantage over native speakers in this area!
Do I need to have an interview?
CELTA centres are obliged by the terms
of their agreement with Cambridge ESOL only to accept
trainees whom they confidently expect to pass the course,
which is why the application process is quite rigorous.
This application process follows the same procedure at
every centre and applications are routinely vetted by
Cambridge-appointed assessors. The written application
is designed primarily to give the centre a clear idea
of your current level of language awareness and your existing
knowledge about teaching. The main aim of the interview
is to assess your potential to build on this and your
ability to handle the demands of the course. A secondary
aim is to ensure that you understand how the course is
organised and what you will be committing yourself to,
and finally, it is an opportunity for you to ask any questions
you have. Whenever possible, IH Bangkok prefers to interview
applicants face-to-face but because most of our applicants
come from abroad, we will normally have to ask you to
phone us or (preferably) conduct the interview using Skype.
For the whole application process, please see Apply.
Can I work during the
course?
For an idea of what a typical day on
the course might look like, click here.
The course will keep you busy ten or twelve hours a day,
six days a week or more. It really is no exaggeration
to say that it will take over your entire life for those
four weeks, so it is essential to keep them totally free.
Trying to combine the course with any kind of professional
commitment or even personal commitments will not just
seriously jeopardise your chances of passing but will
end up a source of enormous stress for you.
Is the course as intensive
as people say? Will I have time for sightseeing?
Well, yes, is intensive. No matter how
much this gets emphasised, some trainees are still surprised
by the amount of time and energy it consumes. This is
basically because it squeezes so much into 4 short weeks,
but then it’s also worth remembering that it is
just 4 weeks and will soon be over! The course
runs Monday to Friday all day, and in the evening and
during the weekends you will find yourself planning lessons,
completing written assignments, catching up with background
reading and so on. So combining the course with anything
resembling a holiday/vacation is out but on the other
hand, you will benefit from allowing yourself a break
occasionally. In fact, it is crucial to plan your time
sensibly so that you do get adequate rest. On weekends
at least you will find yourself with some hours free and
also towards the end of the course your planning load
will gradually lighten.
What visa should I get
to take the course?
All you need to attend the course is a normal tourist
visa. The free visa available on arrival for the citizens
of many countries only entitles you to a stay of 30 days,
a very tight squeeze for a course lasting 4 weeks. (For
a list of nationalities entitled to the free 30-day visa,
see www.thaiembdc.org/consular/visa/visa.htm)
A much better idea is to apply for a 60-day tourist visa
at a Thai embassy or consulate before you leave home.
The fee for this varies from country to country. This
type of visa can also be extended within Thailand for
a further 30 days on payment of another fee. If you want
to stay on to work in Thailand, the school employing you
will need to provide you with the necessary documentation
to apply for a non-immigrant B visa. If you are making
the application within 21 days of the expiry date on a
60-day tourist visa, you will not have to leave the country
to do this, but in all other situations you will have
to make a journey to a Thai embassy or consulate in a
neighbouring country to apply. You will need to have the
original of your university degree, your transcripts (or
in the case of British universities, any similar official
record of what you actually studied) and your actual CELTA
certificate in order to make the application.
Are the course fees
refundable?
The deposit once paid is non-refundable.
Failure to complete full payment of the course fee four
weeks before the course starts may mean the applicant
forfeits their place on the course and their deposit.
Provided the applicant informs the centre more than one
month before the courses starts, the balance of the course
fee (minus the deposit) may be refunded but no refund
will be made later than one month before the course start
date without proof of sudden illness or injury or a similar
emergency.
Do you provide accommodation?
Please click here.
How much will I need
for living costs in Bangkok during the course?
Thailand is no longer as cheap as it
once was and how much you spend will depend very much
on your lifestyle. If you stick to eating Thai food in
inexpensive restaurants, you would have difficulty in
spending much more than 300 baht on food in a day. But
if you want to eat western food (including junk food),
you could easily find yourself spending twice that. The
same will be true if you eat regularly in air-conditioned
Thai restaurants with more elaborate menus while places
specifically geared towards tourists can be very expensive.
You will also find that any kind of ‘partying’
can quickly burn a hole in your wallet with most alcoholic
drinks having a starting price of 160 baht and in some
places costing much more. Public transport in Bangkok
is still comparatively cheap. The highest fare you might
need to pay on the skytrain or the underground is 35 baht
and a taxi journey of a few kilometres will rarely be
more than twice this outside of rush hours. The public
bus system can be slow and difficult to negotiate but
a fare even from one side of the city to the other will
not exceed 20 baht.
Will I have to buy a
course textbook?
There is no CELTA course textbook as
such. During the course, you will receive a very large
number of handouts from your trainers in input sessions
which will effectively comprise one, and if you are accepted,
before the course begins you will receive the Pre-Course
Learning Task, a booklet which introduces clearly and
readably the content of the entire CELTA syllabus and
is accompanied by exercises on each topic with an answer
key. This is the most useful single piece of background
reading you can do. However, we recommend you also have
a look at one of the teaching methodology books recommended
on the Application page and purchase one of the recommended
grammar books to use as a reference during the course
and beyond. IH has a library from which you can borrow
other books on specific topics while you are taking the
course.
Should I bring my laptop?
If you’re used to having your laptop
with you, you’ll almost certainly miss it if you
don’t bring it and in IH Bangkok you can already
connect to the internet in the trainees’ coffee
room and we will shortly have wifi. However, to print
you’ll need to save your work to a flashdrive/USB.
We do provide 6 computers and a printer exclusively for
trainee use, although obviously these can come under pressure
at busy times in the course. It’s worth remembering
that there is no obligation on you to produce typewritten
assignments and lesson plans if you prefer not to.
Who runs the course?
There will be at least two trainers on each course, one
of whom will act as the ‘Main Course Tutor’.
All CELTA trainers worldwide, including those recruited
by International House Bangkok, have to be approved by
Cambridge ESOL. The requirements to become a CELTA trainer
are set very high, much higher than those for the trainers
on most EFL training courses, in fact. Before undertaking
the training necessary to become a trainer, your tutors
will have acquired the Cambridge DELTA (a diploma requiring
a year of intensive study, assessed by dissertations,
examinations and observations of teaching) and will have
taught for at least 7 or 8 years in at least two different
countries. In practice, they have usually taught for longer
than this and in more than two countries and often have
some experience of administration in language schools
too. For specific information on the trainers at IH, click
here.
Can you describe a typical
day on the course?
Please refer to course
content.
What do the input sessions
and workshops involve?
Input session topics include: the language
itself (grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation); the language
learner; teaching methodology (for example, classroom
management, ways of clarifying and checking meaning, ways
of providing practice for students, ways of responding
to student errors, etc.); how to structure different lessons
so that they meet different aims (i.e. “lesson types”);
the selection and exploitation of resources and materials;
teaching for specific purposes (for example, teaching
young learners or teaching one-to-one) . Sessions usually
last 75 – 90 minutes each and are led by a trainer
but typically require a lot of active involvement by trainees,
discussing answers, solving problems and analysing what
you have been shown. Though there are one or two sessions
that do take the format of a ‘lecture' to which
you are invited to contribute, these tend to be the exceptions
rather than the rule.
Will the input sessions
‘teach English grammar' to the trainees?
Not all of it! That would be impossible in just four
weeks. What the course does aim to do, however, is to
equip trainees with the knowledge and ability to shed
light on grammatical problems in the future for themselves.
One of our main tasks is actually to encourage trainees
to see grammatical questions as interesting rather than
threatening. The journey into the complexities of the
grammar (and the pronunciation) of the language you’ve
been speaking all your life can be a fascinating and revealing
one. We also hope to lead you to see that there is no
reason why students should not find learning about grammar
exciting rather than boring if they are taught in a way
that enables them.
How is teaching practice
(TP) organized?
TP is a two-hour block and takes place every day. Trainees
are divided into two TP groups (with a maximum size of
6 trainees), and each TP group, with one trainer, is responsible
for a particular class of students for a two-week period.
Halfway through the course, the group changes to a different
class at a different level. Trainees teach initially for
periods of about 40 minutes more or less every other day,
then towards the end of the course, give two 60-minute
lessons with longer gaps between. While you are not teaching
yourself, you are required to observe each other.
There is a considerable amount of lesson planning guidance
from the trainers in the early stages of the course. As
the course progresses however, the formal support decreases,
since you are expected to be able to plan independently
by the end of the course. Trainers will still make themselves
available to answer questions and give advice, however,
even at this later stage.
The students you teach are fully aware that they are being
taught by unqualified teachers and will have paid only
a nominal sum to attend, although this does not mean that
they are not motivated. Most, but not all, of the students
will be Thai. The minimum age of the students is 16 and
most are in their twenties. Class sizes will vary but
will not normally exceed 15.
What is TP feedback?
TP feedback follows TP, shortly after the end of TP in
Bangkok but the next day in Chiang Mai. Immediately after
you have taught, you are asked to write a short self-evaluation
of your own lesson and very often you will be given time
to discuss each other’s lessons first as a group
without the trainer. Once the trainer joins you, s/he
will naturally take a directive role in the discussion.
Contributions will be invited from all observing trainees
and on days when you have taught, you will be expected
to reflect on your own performance. Developing an ability
to evaluate your own teaching is a very important component
of the course. Trainees do often find feedback stressful,
especially when they feel they have given an unsuccessful
lesson. But the role of feedback is to lead you to see
what you need to change in order to teach more effectively.
By the end of the course, many trainees often agree that
it was these feedback sessions that turned out to be one
of the most rewarding aspects of the course. This will
only be true, however, if you are eager to learn how to
improve and open to constructive suggestions. This kind
of attitude is crucial to success on the CELTA course
and both overconfidence and refusal to accept criticism
can be a barrier to progress.
Is there one particular teaching method that
the course advocates?
Contrary to what some applicants and even some trainees
seem to believe, there is no “CELTA method”.
A search for any such thing in linguistics or teaching
methodology textbooks, for example, would draw a blank.
No single teaching approach is adequate for something
as complex as language and, in fact, it is one of the
well-respected features of the CELTA course that it is
eclectic and introduces you to a variety of teaching approaches.
Of course, in four weeks it is impossible to examine every
known approach to language teaching, so attention is paid
to those that have proved most useful, most flexible and
most effective. All are often loosely described as “communicative”
teaching and if there is one principle underlying all
of them upon which trainers would agree, it is that involving
students actively in the learning process is more effective
than the teacher simply telling the students things. Again
and again, you will hear your trainers encouraging you
to give “student-centred” lessons and to reduce
the amount of teacher-talking time and the stages during
which the students are focused on the teacher instead
of working independently with each other. You will be
helped to develop the roles of facilitator, guide and
resource and to dispense with entirely or use only very
sparingly roles such as performer or lecturer.
What are the possible final grades?
Pass, Pass B, Pass A, and Fail. The CELTA is not a course
you can be sure of passing simply through being accepted
on to it. However, as centres won’t accept you unless
they judge that you have the potential to pass, the failure
rate is very low (about 2% internationally). The majority
of candidates are awarded a Pass grade, with only a small
percentage (around 25%) achieving a Pass B or above. There
is no ‘quota' of particular grades for each course.
CELTA grades are regarded as having a very limited “shelf-life”
as all trainees go on developing quickly in the months
that follow the course, so having just a Pass grade does
not hold you back in any way in your future career. In
addition to the certificate with its overall grade, you
will also receive a personalised report from your trainers
outlining your strengths and development potential. At
all stages of the course, trainees have all evaluations
made of them in their possession and so should have a
perfectly clear idea of their overall progress and their
potential final grade. This will also be discussed in
a mid-course tutorial with one of the trainers. Any candidates
in danger of failing will be warned well in advance and
told specifically what they need to work on in order to
reach the required standard overall.
What is the final grade based on? Who decides
it and how am I assessed?
The two components of assessment are:
- Teaching Practice
- Written Assignments
The key component in assessment is the teaching practice.
It is also a requirement that you pass at least 3 out
of the 4 written assignments in order to pass overall,
but trainees can re-submit any or all of the assignments
if they are not up to standard on first submission, so
it is extremely rare for trainees to fail this component.
(Please note that if a candidate's written English is
very poor, this can be grounds for failing an assignment.
Normally, of course, this problem will have been detected
during the selection process unless there has been some
ultimately counterproductive effort to defraud.)
Teaching practice is assessed on a very wide range of
criteria (42 of them, to be precise), which will be given
to trainees at the beginning of the course when they receive
their official “CELTA 5” record-keeping booklets.
The criteria are collected under five headings: lesson
planning and use of resources; awareness of the learner;
language analysis (i.e. dealing with meaning, form and
pronunciation in the classroom); development of learners’
language skills (i.e. reading, listening, speaking and
writing); and teaching skills and techniques and general
professionalism. Not all of the criteria have equal weight.
Those things that are seen as more critical to an effective
lesson and/or more difficult for the novice teacher to
do well will be given more significance.
A Pass is awarded to a candidate whose “overall
performance” in the teaching practice (and in the
written assignments) “meets the specified criteria”.
The Pass candidate will be someone still in need of help
and guidance during their first few months at work.
To receive a Pass B (in addition to fulfilling the requirements
for a Pass) a candidate has to consistently demonstrate
in their teaching practice “a level of achievement
significantly higher than that required to meet pass-level
criteria” in classroom teaching skills (that is,
those gathered under all headings above except the first).
It is expected of a Pass B candidate that they will need
only a minimum of further help and guidance immediately
on graduating from the course.
To receive a Pass A (in addition to fulfilling the requirements
for a Pass) a candidate has not only to show consistency
in significantly exceeding Pass requirements in classroom
teaching skills but also in lesson planning (the first
of the headings listed above). It is also expected that
the Pass A candidate “will be able to work independently”
without the need of any guidance immediately on graduating
from the course.
There is no CELTA examination. Assessment is continuous.
You will receive a detailed evaluation of every lesson
you teach, which will include an overall grading of the
lesson as “at standard”, “above standard”
or “below standard” for the stage of the course
you are at. In other words, the standards expected of
you are constantly raised as you receive more input and
feedback and gain more teaching experience over the course.
This means that if you remain “at standard”
throughout the course, you have made constant progress.
It also means that what is happening towards the end of
the course is more significant than what is happening
towards the beginning, so that falling below the standard
once in the early stages, for example, is unlikely to
have any effect on your final grade. For this reason also,
higher grades cannot be decided by simply adding up the
number of times a candidate rose above standard. Attention
will also be paid to the stages in the course at which
s/he rose above standard and over how wide a range of
lesson types.
Final grades are decided by the course tutors at the end
of the course, both of whom will have observed you. In
addition, every CELTA course is visited for one or two
days towards its end by a Cambridge-appointed “assessor”,
who will observe TP and feedback and read through candidates'
lesson plans and written work etc. The assessor's primary
role is to ensure that a course is running according to
Cambridge CELTA regulations. In this sense, s/he is “assessing”
the centre and the tutors rather than the candidates.
Part of such an assessment, however, involves the assessor
reading through candidates' “portfolios” (which
are maintained by the candidate during the course and
contain all lesson plans, tutors' comments on TP and written
assignments), ensuring that the tutors' views on candidates’
progress correspond with general CELTA standards and in
cases where a grade is not yet clear, trying to help tutors
establish exactly what a trainee has or has not yet demonstrated.
In the rare event that the tutors recommend a Fail for
a candidate, that candidate’s portfolio is automatically
referred to Cambridge ESOL for a second opinion. There
it will be re-examined by several experienced trainers
and the centre’s recommended result may be either
confirmed or overturned. The candidate may submit a letter
querying the result for consideration together with the
portfolio if they so wish.
Assuming I pass, what will I actually receive?
On the first working day after the end of the course
you will receive a document informing you of your recommended
result. This document is issued by IH Bangkok, and will
state that the result is 'provisional'. A result can only
be considered 'official' once it has been endorsed by
Cambridge ESOL, which will happen at some time over the
following few weeks. If you need confirmation of your
result or a reference in the meantime, tell employers
to contact IH. Approximately a month after the course
ends, you will receive two things. One is the actual CELTA
certificate itself. The other is a detailed report on
your performance and your potential for development from
IH Bangkok. Cambridge sends the certificates here to IH,
we inform candidates of their arrival and then forward
them with the report by registered mail to the address
of your choice.
Where is the qualification recognised?
Worldwide, over 600 CELTA courses run and over 7,000
candidates gain the certificate every year. The Cambridge
CELTA is the most widely recognised and, certainly within
Asia and Europe and increasingly within Latin America,
the most highly regarded of all initial ELT qualifications.
It was originally designed by and intended for the private
language school sector and private language schools probably
remain the main source of employment for course graduates
but it is increasingly sought after by employers at universities
and international schools.
Whether or not the CELTA alone will be accepted as an
adequate qualification to teach legally varies from country
to country. In Thailand and in many other Asian countries,
you will need to have a university degree in order to
be able to get a work permit as a teacher. However, the
CELTA (or a similar ELT qualification) is also a mandatory
requirement for an English teacher in Thailand and a growing
number of other Asian countries.
Within the United Kingdom, Cambridge ESOL Teaching Awards
have been accredited by the Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority (QCA) at Level 4 on the National Qualification
Framework. CELTA is also the first module of a wider qualification,
which will meet the requirements for teachers of ESOL
in further and adult education and which has recognition
from FENTO (The Further Education National Training Organisation).
For more details please see the Cambridge ESOL website
www.cambridgeesol.org
The new CELTA syllabus has meant a wider recognition for
CELTA holders in terms of migrant teaching, which is a
growing sector not just in the UK but in many English-speaking
countries.
Cambridge ESOL also continues to work with various international
ELT organisations to promote the recognition of CELTA
globally and to ensure that your chances of finding suitable
employment will be enhanced with the CELTA.
What sort of help do you provide for trainees
looking for work?
The course includes a professional development session
on how to find work after the course and how you can go
on to develop your career. The tutors have taught in a
number of countries and organisations and can provide
valuable advice on what to look out for and what to be
aware of in addition to sometimes being able to point
graduates in the right direction for employment opportunities.
Being an International House school also means that graduates
have access to the IH recruitment service worldwide.
Is there a chance I could work at IH Bangkok
if I'm successful on the course?
If we have a vacancy, we actively try to employ graduates
of the course. However, because our teaching sector is
small in comparison with our CELTA training sector, we
are unfortunately not able to make guarantees.
What are my chances in general of finding a job
after completing the CELTA?
Excellent! In Thailand and in most other areas of South-East
Asia, trained EFL teachers are in great demand. The fact
that you will have the CELTA, the best known and most
highly regarded initial teacher training qualification
you can get, will ensure that you will have the pick of
the jobs and can therefore be choosy. What's more, our
knowledge of schools and markets throughout the SE Asia
region will mean that you can rely on us for practical
and impartial advice on who to work for.
Any questions unanswered?
Then contact us at e-mail:
teachertraining@ihbangkok.com
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