Some Terminology

I found that the official CELTA terminology was designed to make trainees feel that they understand something that is detailed and complicated. I assure you, it’s not. Words like drilling sound so much more professional than repeat. There are many words and acronyms that have been created for this course, I have highlighted a few below.

Input Sessions

My bachelor’s degree had a focus in behaviour modification and so it was easy for me to identify it in the input sessions.

Input sessions are where the trainees are conditioned via behaviour modification techniques to follow this formulaic teaching method. During the input session the trainees becomes the students. The tutor provides you with a topic that you might use when you are teaching, like a reading comprehension activity. First the tutor will direct you to discuss the topic with a partner. Next the tutor nominates trainees to give the answers that they  came up with to the whole class. 

The purpose is to learn the teaching method from the perspective of the English language learners.  I found this another way to pad the amount of time trainees are in the class. Some of the information that is taught in these sessions is useful, but I found the way it was taught to be silly; we are not Pavlova’s dogs. 

Another issue that I observed was that instead of teaching this information before the teaching practices start it was explained throughout the class. A trainee could have taught a reading comprehension exercise during the third class, but the input session for how to teach a reading comprehension class was not taught until the eighth class. 

Peer Checking

Peer Checking is when the students are expected to check that they have the correct answer with a partner (that is also learning English) before the teacher reveals the correct information. I do not believe that two students that are learning English should be comparing answers this frequently. I observed that it could just confuse them. I think that this technique was designed to fill time for those that finished the exercise early.

 Additionally, if the partners speak the same language they frequently speak in that language instead of practicing English. All partner and peer work seems to have been designed to limit the amount of time that the teacher teaches and speaks. 

Partners and Small Groups

Having the English student work with a partner and in small groups is a major part of this technique. It encourages the student to work with other English language learners to guess the answers. I think a little of this is fine, but it is a prominent part of the formulaic method.This also limits the time the teacher can teach, which is not encouraged in the CELTA method.

Limited Teacher Talk 

Limited teacher talk is important if you want a passing mark. The teacher should operate as a coach and speak as little as possible. The CELTA was designed over fifty years ago. My research showed that English teachers were generally comprised of native speakers that were travelling ( perhaps during a gap year). From what I understand these inexperienced teachers had no formal training, thus they were not being encouraged to speak when they were conducting a class. 

However, the profession has grown and there are many more teaching materials available. Furthermore, they are easily accessible online. I believe that hearing someone speak correctly while providing the correct answer is actually more educational than if those learning English guess their way through a class together.

Don’t get me wrong, you cannot learn another language if you do not have an opportunity to practice it, but this opportunity should not be in lieu of the teacher teaching. 

This formulaic teaching method also encourages the English students to correct their own and/or their peers writing. 

Nominating

Nominating is when the teacher calls on the students by name before they volunteer an answer. This provides an opportunity for the quieter less confident students to answer questions. I found this to be an acceptable practice in theory, but I took the course once a week over six months. That made it difficult to learn names and how to pronounce them correctly. Especially when attendance was not consistent and  they change seats. 

Actual teachers will be more familiar with the students in the class. I advise all trainees to insist that the students wear name tags, bring them with you if you need to.

Not nominating enough can  count against you. The number of times that nominating should occur is unknown. During feedback sessions my tutors just informed trainees that they didn’t nominate enough. This of course made learning to do it right impossible.This is further complicated because the length of the teaching practices vary. One week you could have taught for forty minutes and been told that you did not nominate enough, but the next teaching practice you will only be teaching for twenty minutes so you can't really make a correction. It is amazingly hard to do what is expected of you without concrete answers.

Another issue with this is that  trainees will also have to compete with confident students that shout out the answers.When the student unexpectedly shouts out the answer you lost an opportunity to nominate someone to answer that question. Please be aware that you will be held accountable, if the mood strikes the tutor.

Eliciting

Eliciting is the term that applies to teaching vocabulary words. It is a guessing game for students with a limited English vocabulary. I observed that when twenty English language learners simultaneously guess at a word that they just got confused. Eliciting is even supposed to be practiced with beginning students. It is used to introduce words not just as a means to review material from previous classes.

This is an example of eliciting that I witnessed in a beginning English class. The trainee presented a photo of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, then the conversation went something like this:
Teacher: What word is this?

Student 1: Big 

Teacher: No 

Student 2: Old

Teacher: Not that word

Student 3: Tall

Teacher: No 

Student 4: Falling

Teacher: No, the word is impressive.

Drilling 

Drilling is when the teacher requires the students to repeat a word or phrase so that they learn to pronounce it correctly." Everyone say, impressive,- impressive,- impressive." I found this to be incredibly demeaning to the students. It was difficult for me to do this. It was also impossible for me to verify that each student was pronouncing the word correctly, as I was in a small classroom of twenty students with varied accents. 

I also could not imagine using this technique to teach a class of business executives. The business executives that I taught would not have appreciated being drilled. The CELTA does not teach varying methods for different clientele or students that are at a higher level of English. They just provide one way to teach everyone. I found that to be the biggest downfall of the CELTA.

Reading for Gist 

In this method reading comprehension exercises must start with reading for gist. Reading for gist is when the students are given reading material that they need to scan quickly to get the main idea. 

I still do not know what constitutes quickly. During one feedback session I was told that three minutes was not enough time, the next time I was informed that five minutes was too much time. It is difficult to gage the correct length for this activity, as the amount of time that trainees practice teach varies from one lesson to another. The length and the topics of the reading material also varies.

 
Reading for Detail

 
I found that reading for detail was easier to plan because it required more time to complete the reading and answer the comprehension questions. However, without criteria or clear guidance this can also be done wrong.

Concept Checking Questions

CCQ’s are a set of questions designed to communicate to the teacher that the students understood the material. This was also taught in my class via guesswork. In my class we guessed  how to write CCQ’s correctly and how many CCQ’s the tutor expected us to have in each lesson. The book that is helpful was not made known to my class until we had turned in the assignment that required us to write CCQ's. I did not find this educational or a productive use of time for a working adult. After the CCQ assignment several trainees in my course were instructed to write new questions. One trainee told me that she was never told what was wrong with the first set, she was just told to do it again. As I recall most of us had taught four teaching practices before the concept of CCQ’s was even introduced. 

Yes, teachers want to be confident that the students understand the material, but there are multiple options for doing this, unless you are taking the CELTA. Employed EFL teachers rarely have time to write CCQ’s. However, if the trainees didn’t use an unspecified number of them it could have been counted against us.

CCQ Example 

Target Sentence:  If I won five million dollars on a game show, I'd buy a mansion in Beverly Hills.
Have I won five million dollars? NO
Am I going to win five million dollars on a game show? Unlikely
Am I going to buy a mansion? Unlikely
Will I ever get the opportunity to go on a game show? Maybe