Failing the CELTA
The Certificate in English Language Teaching for Adults, better known as the CELTA, is the mother of all TEFL Certificates, or so says a lot of its supporters. The CELTA course is considered to be a very tough course that some find just too difficult. For better or worse, other TEFL courses are benchmarked against the CELTA. I had a good hearty laugh today reading this man’s experience failing the CELTA course not once, but twice.
The Man who failed the CELTA twice
“About 2 months after, I Went to Brazil, met a few South African gringos who were anything but politically correct. They really helped me out and showed me how to teach and conduct business properly; something no school teaches. They showed me that you can either work for a school making $10 an hour or work for yourself and make $50 an hour. One of them even took me under his wing and gave me a bunch of his students from Microsoft and the Unibanco (Brazilian bank). I thank god that I met them because I thought all English teachers were academic elitists�now I know only the stupid ones are.”
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11 comments
I might have stuck it out and completed my CELTA, if I thought going through the stress would make me a better teacher. Its like some sort of cultish brainwashing ritual. CELTA is an initiation to push you to the brink and make you feel like some profound breakthrough has been accomplished. I suppose it weeds out some of the less motivated, but I’ve taught before and will continue to teach. I don’t need to go through some boot camp experience that tears down my ego. It makes me think that schools like CELTA graduates because they are more pliant and can be bullied around! I’m sorry but I’m just not going to drink that Kool-ade. On the other hand, I hope the only alternative isn’t to get a “politically incorrect” white South African to mentor me! Am I right in thinking that earning $50 working for yourself involves less-than-legal under-the-table wages? If I can get someone to sponsor me to work in Brazil other than a school, I’ll start packing!
What a story, amazing that it is true but it really makes the mind boggle. I completed the CELTA here in NZ nearly 12 months ago. I did the 10 week program while holding down a 45hr per week full time job. It was not easy but well worth it with a great bunch of people on the course and superb instructors.
In the end I managed a Pass B and am now actively seeking work in the TEFL field.
Perhaps consideration should be given to setting up a blacklist of failed CELTA or TESOL Certificate people such as this guy. he really gives the teaching profession a bad name!!!
Well, I hate to join the “dropped out of CELTA club”, but if the shoe fits. $1,700+ is a lot of money to invest and walk away from a class!! It is not a light decision to make. I am 45-years-old and getting 3 hours of sleep every night because they want tons of written repetition about “their” process was not my cup of tea. I agree with Drop-Out Daniel!! It did feel like mind control or brain washing was what I was experiencing. They don’t want you to talk at all (if you can figure out how to do it!!). It’s like, “You’re the machine, the students are the talkers.” I have never experienced anything quite like it. I wish I would have seen some negative things about the course online before I signed up. I just didn’t dig deep enough. I have talked with classmates that are still going through the intensive course right now. (I left after one week!!) They agreed with me. We seemed to come to a consensus that they are out-of-touch with the student teachers. I believe that they have been doing it the same way for so long, the things they find repetitious and second nature are more intense and difficult than they know for the student teachers. It isn’t anything about the English language that is difficult, it is their methodology and excessive, nonsense paperwork that make it unbearable. If I could give someone advice, I would say, there are other places to get serious training. Why pay such a large amount of money to be tortured? There are too many courses that care about the well-being of their students and that want your success not your failure. After one week of intensive CELTA, I was questioning if I even wanted to teach English. If that is what it is all about, forget it. However, I know that it isn’t the end of the road. I so enjoyed the students and their eagerness to learn, nothing could deter me from one day teaching those who truly want to learn. I just wish the CELTA was geared the same way. I wish they truly wanted to produce teachers. From what I see, it may be a get the money and run thing at this point. Very sad. Don’t worry, I WILL be checking on some type of refund of my money. They have a responsibility to come through for the student also. I will see to it. Thanks for letting me vent on this site. I just hope I can help someone else to make a more educated course choice and not have to suffer through the CELTA, especially the intensive course. How anyone could go through this intensive, 10 week course and work a 45 hour job is beyond me. The only way you could do it is if you were the boss and you could do your teaching prep. assignments at work!! Or, tons of drugs!!! Sorry, but it’s true. Thanks again for allowing the post.
I just noticed something that I need to clarify in my first post. I made the comment at the end that I don’t know how anyone could do this course and work a 45 hour full-time job, as one of the posts (Ken Tod’s) had stated. I took the intensive four week course, and, I now see that Ken Tod’s course was a ten week course. So, it is probably possible to work and do the ten week course. Sorry. My apologies to Ken. I really cannot comment on the ten week course, as I have only experienced the four week one. I know for a fact that you can do nothing but the course when doing the CELTA Intensive four week course. It is eat and breath nothing but CELTA for the duration (no sleep included). Hopefully, you have someone who can cook for you, do your laundry, grocery shop, pay your bills, etc. because you will have time for none of this in the four week course.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought this course was a little off. It was difficult to know at the time if it was just my response to these specific instructors. The fact that their tactics seem to be a part of the program is a little strange. I’m not sure how much I actually learned about teaching ESL verses how to give the CELTA instructors what they seemed to want. It is too bad really, I think the course has potential but the focus is off.
I am almost half-way through a 12 week part-time CELTA course. I am in my late 50’s and a well-educated professional used to making my own decisions.
I truly believe that the quality of the CELTA must hang on the quality of the trainers. I suspended disbelief and cynicism for the first couple of weeks when nothing made much sense, and was pleasantly surprised when the jigsaw pieces began to fit together in the third and fourth weeks. No-one has dropped out of our course, despite some clearly finding it quite difficult, and there is always support available from our course tutors. Any of us can ask for help, which is given willingly and in a completely non-judgemental way.
However, I really do not think that I could have done the intensive (4 week) course. There are not enough hours in the day!
I completed a 4-week CELTA earlier in the year. I came to it with several years previous non-ESL teaching experience and, because I am about to start a position at an international school in Japan, thought it worthwhile to do some preliminary ESL training as a form of professional development. As everyone notes, the course is very demanding but more, I feel, in psychological terms than actual workload content. The course mandates a very particular methodology which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but doesn’t always leave much scope for flexibility. Much of the experience of CELTA depends on the personalities of the tutors involved. There were two tutors on my course, both of whom were undeniably intelligent and professional, but with vastly different styles and interpersonal skills. One of them was particularly tough and presented her criticisms in a less than constructive fashion. She was also prone to fairly naked favouritism, praising some trainees’ work no matter what they did but subjecting others to routinely negative feedback sessions with little positive reinforcement. By week 3, she had so undermined my confidence that I was doubting my very ability to teach. In the end I did well (Pass A) but the experience wasn’t entirely pleasant or productive and I do think more care needs to be taken in CELTA with creating a supportive environment for trainees and trying to remove the considerable scope for partiality and subjectivism on the part of tutors.
have logged onto this site as done 2 wks of p/t 18 wk celta course & looking for way out without losing too much money! v encouraged to see that it’s not just me who finds the approach mind-numbing. i’m an experienced teacher, mid 50’s & enjoy teaching esol, but i’m not enjoying the course at all. thought i’d do it to get qualification & give me greater scope for employment in uk, but don’t know if i can face completing it.
I did a 4 week intensive about 9 months ago. It was a long drawn out failure. By the top of week three I could tell that my two tutors did not believe in me. An e-mail invitation to a TEFL teachers support web site was sent out to everyone in the class but me. While for the first two weeks my tutors had complained that I needed to learn to grade my language more consistently - suddenly top of third week I was presented with a list of totally new weaknesses that I absolutely must correct if I wanted to succeed.
We had shifted into teaching intermediate lessons - however there weren’t enough experienced students in the small town - so we had taken the most advanced of the beginners class. I was first up to teach a Language Analysis lesson and soon found the students just didn’t understand what a subject was - let alone how to distinguish a subject question from an object question. My students were lost - but I had to forge ahead with my charted lesson. Suddenly, the tutors claimed that I lacked preparation and ability to discuss meaning & form and so on. (Was it maybe that I hadn’t done a good enough job at pretending that the class was made up of real intermediate students??)
End of third week, on a Friday, I was to teach my first hour long lesson in receptive skills (listening & speaking). In the prep session with my tutor, she acted bored by the theme I had prepared and told me to skip setting any context - the students would be well versed in the subject. Each time I suggested to her to devise some written exercises she had harangued me about how my duty was to get the students talking.
When the hour came however, only two students made it to the class and only one had anything idea about the topic. They were both uncharacteristically tired and unfocused and had little to say. It was like pulling teeth to get them to say anything.
We had always had to turn people away from the beginners classes even on Fridays so it had not occurred to me that I would not have at least a half full class. My exercises were built on having at least 4 or 5 students. Surely the tutors knew that intermediate attendance could be low on Fridays, but they said nothing - as we discussed my plan.
The lesson was a disaster and I felt literally set up to fail.
For the whole third week I waited for my tutor to give me back our first assigned paper - a self evaluation. Finally, I complained and the next day - a full week later she returned the paper with a failing grade. All the others had gotten theirs back the day after turning it in..
I spoke less and less with any of the tutors because they were cold and impatient with me, quite often phrasing their responses to my proposals or question as “Don’t you know that….” “Of course you don’t….”
While they taught us that our students would have many different learning styles - they only allowed us ONE learning style. They wanted me to script my classes in advance and then essentially read them out.. This was the only way they seemed to feel I would be able to deliver the perfection they sought. It seemed absurd to ask me to take into account visual thinkers and come up with fun exercises for those who did not do well sitting for two hours - while they had no solutions for those of us candidates who were not logical, analytical thinkers. My tutors had said I had a good rapport with my students yet they didn’t seem reflect on how having my nose lost in a “script” would affect my connection with them. ???
The tutors most definitely did not practice what they preached…
As the final blow they had told us that Cambridge would send out our final evaluations or certificates within 6 weeks of the course. However, after the course months went by with nothing. Finally I asked someone to look into it and the very next day the school in Mexico Fedex-ed me my official failure notice.
I felt for the expense, and the good name of Cambridge I should at least get timely closure to the intensive - but my tutors clearly didn’t think me worthy of it - until I made some noise.
The comment above - that one’s success in CELTA depends on the chemistry between candidate and tutor is an understatement to say the least. My tutors didn’t like me and decided early on that I would not succeed. The course is so intensive and challenging that the added weight of tutor disapproval made it impossible for me to succeed…
Good luck. I hope the rest of you get pleasant tutors who think well of you!!!
As the first comments suggest, you can earn more than the Celta trainers if you work alone, even without Celta. Does 20 days training make you a “teacher”? No.
With an MA and a PGCE I was rejected by employers as “unqualified”. I soon realised that working alone you can quadruple the salary of an employee in a school. You will also rapidly discover that students are bored to death with the mundane humdrum lessons mass produced by Celta “teachers” and relish more original thought.
But, if you’re not sure, follow the path of the speaker above who worked hard, is proud of his grade C Celta, and is now actively seeking employment.
I am doing the 4 week intensive Celta course. I am so glad i found this site, i thought it must have been me - ie i am the failure. one of my “teachers” really dislikes me and makes it very clear. i feel bullied and was reduced to tears by her critisism today. I get nothing but negative comments from her and i am just glad that after next friday i will never have to have any more contact with her ever again. It is a great course if you are happy being fed thier way is the only way….
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