Skip main navigation

Live question and answer session

Questions and answer session about training options.
7.9
Hello everybody and welcome to our live Q&A. And I’m here in Cambridge with Mary. Hello. And we have Graham in Argentina and we have Mary Therese in New York. So, we’re going to start off with a question that some of you wanted to find out more about, which is what employers look for when they employ a teacher. We had Steve in the course, talking about the need for the teachers to be able to do the job, which is teaching people English. But also being able to fit into the staff room, so being a co-operative member of staff, someone who’s willing to help others.
43.6
So I think teachers need to be flexible and adaptable and realise that sometimes they might have to stand in for a teacher or sometimes things might not turn out the way they expected. And they have to be able to adapt to that. So Mary, what would you say, what would you be looking for in a teacher? For me, I’d be looking for teachers who are interested in their development. Because it doesn’t matter what experience you have or what qualifications you have, if you’re keen to develop and you’re saying I’m interested in development, I’ve done this MOOC or I’ve joined this Twitter group, then that really makes me know that you will be improving yourself, improving the other teachers.
80.2
So definitely, people who are interested in their development. And what about you, Mary Therese? Would you like to come with your views? Yeah. I think a teacher who has empathy and sympathy, who is sympathetic to their learners and can understand when learners are not able to understand stuff and who have patience, I think. And I think is quite important. What about you, Graham?
114.8
Yeah, I agree with everything that was said. I was going to say one of the most important things for teachers is willingness to do things in school, whatever. And I think this is what Monica touched upon, really.
127.9
That you can be asked to teach a class at 8:00 in the morning. You have a class of young learners,
134.7
perhaps, at 5:00 in the afternoon. The thing is with directors of study is they love people who say yes. So that flexibility that Monica mentioned, that willingness to do things and as well, as you said, Mary Therese, the rapport with students, the empathy with students, I think, are all very valuable qualities to have. Thanks very much, Graham. And lots of you have put comments about CELTA Some of you clearly know what CELTA is and some of you already applied to do CELTA but some questions show us that people aren’t quite clear what CELTA is. For example, someone asked if you could take the CELTA test without doing a course for it.
177.8
So I think it would help if we kind of clarified what CELTA is. And Mary Therese, you’re in New York. You’re assessing a CELTA course. So would you like to tell us what’s happening on that course that you’re assessing? That’s right, Monica. I’m here. I’m assessing a course at Teaching House and yesterday I was at Saint Gile’s College in New York. And so this morning, the candidates are sitting in a classroom just along the corridor here and they’re receiving a check on one or another aspect. I think today they’re learning about [AUDIO OUT] students here in the schools and the students are in free lessons for extra lessons and are in two groups.
235.7
Each has six candidates and with six training teachers in the group. And they will be teaching for 40 minutes each. And they will teach these students that come in. They have prepared their lessons. They prepared their lessons yesterday and last night. And so today, they’ve come in prepared with their lesson plans and with their materials. They teach the students and then two hours later, the students go home and then the tutor, the trainer on the course will sit with their teaching practice group and will discuss the lessons and give feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson. And then they’ll prepare for the next day.
273
So this is, the course that I’m assessing today is an intensive, four week CELTA course. So every single day they have input sessions in the morning and they have teaching practice in the afternoon. But there are also part-time models. So last week, for example, on Thursday evening, I assessed of part time course here at Teaching House. And on this course they have input on Saturdays, two evenings in the week for the teaching practice. So they have Mondays and Thursdays, they come in for the teaching practice in the school, and they have input sessions on a Saturday. But there are also lots of people who go about the online model.
312
Which is really quite similar in a way to the part time course except that they don’t come to school for the input sessions. The input sessions are done online. But they still need to come in for the teaching practice. So either they’ll come in as they do here, at Teaching House twice a week [AUDIO OUT] or else it’s possible that on some CELTA online courses, they do the teaching practices in a block, or two week block towards the end of the course. Back to you, Monica. So the CELTA can be done in a blended format.
352.5
And quite a few people ask questions about online courses, about whether they’re recognised, whether employers will accept that a teacher is trained if they have done a fully online course. So Mary, would you like to say something about recognition for courses? Yes. So as Mary Therese said, there’s the online CELTA which is actually blended and it has teaching practice. And that’s a key part of recognition. So a lot of institutions will - so for CELTA Online, the certificate is the same, it looks the same as the CELTA face to face. So a lot of institutions will be really keen to find out, did you have assessed teaching practice?
391.9
So for a lot of online courses, they might not have assessed teaching practise. But there’s also lots of different, very different online courses. So you can have an online MA, for example, which is very in-depth, very intensive, and widely recognised, but you might still be asked to do some kind of practical teaching element if your MA doesn’t include that. There’s also a lot of short online TEFL courses which you can do. These often are quite useful to learn about topics to learn about grammar. But in terms of being recognised by institutions or employers, again, though they’ll probably ask for something which includes teaching practice. Or they might have their own training programme.
433.7
So, I think my advice would be think about where you want to go. Phone up some schools in the area and say, I have this qualification. Could I apply for a job? Or what’s your minimum qualification? That’s the best way to find out. Thank you also for all the questions that you’ve been asking during the session. Please carry on asking the questions. We’ll try and answer the questions from the step and also that you’re adding in the chat box now. And some people have already applied to do a CELTA and there were some questions there. Susan was worried about the interview process and a bit scared about it. But actually, the inter- doing a CELTA is an investment for you.
475.7
And you don’t invest in anything without finding out about it first. So, the whole point of the interview is not just for the centre to see if you’re right for the course but for you to see if the course is right for you and maybe to get a bit of a taste of the course. So I wouldn’t worry about the interview, the procedure, the interview procedure is to help you find out more about the course. Because there’s nothing worse than embarking on something and not quite realising what you’ve committed to. Yeah, the CELTA is definitely a big investment of time and effort. Everyone says that.
505.5
And somebody else, Janice, I think it was, was worried about the teaching practice and getting nervous and what that would be like and whether she’d be supported. So Mary, would you like to - teaching practice? And there’s also another question about teaching practice. Mada Priah, I’m sorry if I pronounced your name wrong. So about, do we have to do teaching practice on the very first class? So yes, often you start teaching practice maybe on the second day and the first day you prepare for it. And in answer to the question of what happens, are you supported, yes.
539.2
So on CELTA courses definitely, you’re given a - you’re given lots of support and help with your classes at the beginning and then you’re given more and more independence. So you’re not expected to go and design a class, deliver a class on your own. It’s you’re helped, you’re supported, you’re given advice and ideas. So actually, it’s not as scary as it seems. And generally, the students are really, really nice and really supportive. So definitely on all the courses I’ve taught on, the practice - the students in the class have really helped the trainee teachers feel more confident. They like seeing the teachers learning stuff.
581.1
And they’re very good at answering the questions even if the question wasn’t clear in the first place. They help the teacher out. We didn’t mention written assignments. Mary Therese, I think part of the CELTA course there is a written part. Could you just describe that very briefly? Yeah, that’s right. There are four written assignments that need to be handed in over the period of the course. But the written assignments, the written component [AUDIO OUT] because it is a practical course and it’s about teaching. It’s not [AUDIO OUT]. So there are four written assignments. There is a grammar assignment. In fact, the assignments follow our MOOC quite well.
630.1
One is about grammar, one is about communication skills, about developing reading or listening and speaking skills and writing skills, one is about, is a reflection assignment where type of how they’re doing in teaching [AUDIO OUT] what their strengths are. An evaluation of a learner or group of learners that you’re teaching. And the aim of that really is to develop an awareness of this so that in your classes you can learn to [AUDIO OUT] learner needs and help learners with their particular difficulties, not just in general. Graham, do you want to talk a little bit, I think we had a - if you don’t mind me pouring out question - I think we had a question about non-native teachers.
687.1
And somebody asked if they’re a non-native teacher. Would you like take, answer that one, because I know that you’re in Argentina. Yes. Yeah, Mary Therese. Thanks. Yes, the answer is yes. Of course you can get a job if you’re a non-native teacher. There’s not enough native teachers to go around anyway. The non-native teacher in many markets is the standard, in actual fact, many countries. And here in Argentina, the vast majority of English language teachers are non-native speakers. And they - most of them have gone through teacher training run by universities in Argentina, for example. So if you were to come here and work in a language school, then there would be a mix of native speakers and non-native speakers.
742.3
And I think it’s very beneficial for the students to have that mix because non-native speakers have a lot of knowledge of student problems with the language, for example. And they also have - very strong in the L1, so they can help students in that way. Whereas of course, native speakers bring other things to the table as well. So I think reason to not embark on a career as a teacher if you’re not a native speaker. Back to the studio. Thanks, Graham. There was one question actually, again, we had lots of questions and comments on the course about this, about accent and pronunciation.
785.7
And somebody asked if she was expected to have an English British pronunciation when undergoing the interview and for assessments. And she’s worried because she’s got an Irish accent in pronunciation, and asked should she work on it? Now Graham, would you like to respond to that one as well? Yes, it made me laugh a little bit when I read that because I’m from Scotland. So I don’t know have what might be described as a standard English pronunciation. And I taught English for many years in various different countries around the world, and it was never a problem for me. In fact, students are often very interested in different accents.
821.3
So it can actually be quite a big talking point, something you can use as a springboard in class to look at different accents and different pronunciations. Because English - there’s not just one form of English. You have lots of different forms of English all over the world. So I wouldn’t worry. I think people worry too much about accents when they’re thinking about becoming a teacher. It’s actually one of the less important things, I would say. Far more important is knowing how to transmit your knowledge to students and teach a good class. Back to you, Monica. Thanks very much, Graham. Love the Scottish accent. In fact, Mary’s got a northern accent.
864.9
Yes, a bit of a northern accent so we’ve all got different accents. I’ve got a question here from Mohammed who asks, is it better a teacher who always shouts or not shout? Oh. So I think this has brought up a really good point, Mohammed. That you have to think a lot about discipline, especially if you’ve got large groups, if you’re teaching children. Think about the way that you get authority. So there’s lots of different ways to do this. I’ve done this in various ways, generally not shouting, so generally having rules that people agree to. Also having treats and star charts.
898.1
So for example, whoever is really good, they get to come and wipe the board at the end of the lesson. Giving people jobs in the class, I think can make them really responsible and help with discipline. So yes, I would say not shout. Mary Therese, would you like pick up one of the questions that we’ve had?
920.4
Sure. We have somebody asking - who is it? It’s Maria - asking what do we need to do in order to sit CELTA examination? Do I have to attend a programme? Can somebody do that already that [AUDIO OUT] there a different [AUDIO OUT]. It’s a course. It’s a training course and programme [AUDIO OUT]. Even if you attend the blended version, you still do the input online but you have the teaching practice is face to face and live. We also had some questions here about TKT. So Sara, for example, Sara who’s been a very active participant on the course actually, thank you Sara, would taking TKT be redundant? In order to take TKT, what’s the difference between TKT?
977.7
Should I do TKT first and then do CELTA? TKT and CELTA are different. TKT is an exam. So you don’t need to do a course for that. You can do self-study or you can do a course. But you, the TKT, it’s an exam. You answer 80 questions in 80 minutes or whatever. And it’s a question testing your knowledge of teaching, not your ability to teach. Whereas CELTA course where you are trained to teach. And yes, maybe it is a good idea to do TKT first to enhance your knowledge, to get a lot of knowledge about teaching and then yes, do CELTA after. [AUDIO OUT] my answer to those two. Back to you, Mary and [AUDIO OUT].
1030.6
And somebody else was asking actually about what you can do to prepare for CELTA. I think TKT can be a good preparation as you said, Mary Therese, if you build up your knowledge. And Steven wanted to know how much emphasis there is on the grammar aspect of the CELTA course and which parts of grammar I would need to know in order to qualify as a trainee teacher? So, that’s it - as we’ve said on the course, you’re not expected to know the grammar book from A to Z. It helps if you know a little bit of grammar before you start. We always recommend that little bit of [AUDIO OUT].
1067.7
The key thing is that you [AUDIO OUT] people at the CELTA courses, I want to see that they can look at an example sentence and they can break it down. Maybe they don’t know it’s called present perfect, but they can spot that two sentences actually use the same structures and they use the verb to have followed by the same form of the verb. So I think that’s what people want to see more than that you can name all the grammar or you know it instantly that you could see patterns and also that you prepare. So if you haven’t studied grammar before, you won’t know more than your students. The key is you prepare what you’re about to teach.
1103.3
If you don’t know the answer if they ask you something else, you say I’ll find out and you find that for them and you tell them the next day. And some people always recommend that you find out about the language difficulties of the people that you’re teaching. And some people have asked what would be the best course to take if I want to teach in Vietnam or Thailand, for example. I think Anya and Erie asked that. So one possibility is to do the CELTA course in the country where you want to go and teach and then you will get sent [AUDIO OUT] difficulties of the particular target group that you’ll be teaching or some of the [AUDIO OUT].
1142.3
So that’s one. [INAUDIBLE] wanted to know if you can teach at university for CELTA. So again, I’ve taught at universities, I’ve seen people teach at universities with CELTAs. Often people at universities will be expected [AUDIO OUT]. So for example, if the university has lots of English speaking courses, they might well have summer schools pre-sessional English classes. And those are the classes where having the CELTA is often the requirement. Somebody else asked about young learner courses. Loredana wanted to know what about if you’re teaching young learners? Because that’s what she’s doing at the moment. Is it useful to take TKT and then a CELTA course? What would you advise there? Would you maybe like to answer that, Graham?
1195.1
Because presumably in Argentina, you need to - have a lot of young learners, teach children to learn English. So to somebody who wants to teach young learners, what should they do?
1208.9
I’m not quite sure about the CELTA and young learners. But certainly, one of the things you need to, in my experience, is you need to just get in there and teach them. That may sound quite simplistic but a lot of teaching young learners is something that you learn on the job. And I would say to new teachers who’ve done the CELTA, as I was a number of years ago, confronted by my first class is you just have to use your common sense. They’re just kids. You can manage them. Perhaps Mary might be able to talk a little bit more specifically about anything to do with young learners on the CELTA course.
1257.8
Thanks, Graham. So the CELTA course is aimed at adults but there’s often sessions about how to teach children because often, that’s the context you find yourself in. I agree with Graham. The best thing to do is get out there, teach, and have lots and lots of energy. Be willing to do songs, jumping up and down, stories. It’s a lot of fun teaching children. And really the variety, engaging, active activities, those are all things that can really help. And so you will cover a little bit on your CELTA course. Again, if you’re teaching in the context where you’ll be probably teaching young learners after, you might have more input about teaching young learners.
1302.5
So that’s always been something to think about too. Looking at some other questions, there was another question about what book can I take for CELTA? What would be useful? So there are a few books. If you went to a centre and ask them, they’ll probably recommend ones that they use. But often they’ll direct you to things like Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener or The Practice of English Language Teaching. These are all good books, useful to do some research before. And of course this MOOC as well. You can definitely learn a lot from the MOOC. And some people have asked if this MOOC would be enough to get on to the CELTA.
1341.2
Well I think it’s good preparation for CELTA and that’s what it’s designed for. Yeah. And it gives you, it’s something you can talk about in the interview. You can say that it’s made you think of these things and the ideas and the activities, things we’ve looked at, all kinds of materials, listening skills, reading skills, they’re all really good things to talk about. The centre will still probably want to do - definitely for CELTA, centres will do an interview as well. We’ve also, Mary, we’ve had some questions again about age. Somebody said, he’s 35 years old, is it possible to learn stress and intonation? Yes. And thinks - this person might thinks they might be fossilised.
1378.5
So, it’s never too late to learn anything, is my answer to that one. Yes, definitely. And some people were worried, one participant was worried about the age of the learners that she would have to teach. Because as an older woman, a more mature teacher, was a bit nervous about the idea of teaching 18 year olds. And said that from what she’d seen, classes that were promoted or advertised by language schools had lots of young learners. So would you like to comment, would someone like to comment on that? Mary or Mary Therese maybe?
1416.6
Mary Therese in New York, or if we’ve lost her.
1424.6
Can you hear us, Mary Therese? Have you got me back now? Yeah, we got you back. Sorry about that. [AUDIO OUT] 35 is really young. Don’t you think 35 is really young? I don’t think age is an issue, actually. The older you are, the more I think students respect that you have a lot of experience and that you know a lot of stuff. If you’re young, you have the benefit of vitality that us old people might not have. But I think that what is important is that you understand your learners and that given whatever their age and whatever your age. I don’t see age even as being even a remotely significant thing.
1475.6
But Monica, can I just tell you about Oneias, who’s written in on the box here yesterday? So well done, Oneias. He said he learned a lot from doing the TKT preparation for the exam course. People are asking also, somebody called Sostenes. I’m sorry, apologise for not pronouncing your name properly, asking about the cost of a CELTA certificate and the cost of a CELTA course. I think we touched on this earlier in week one, 100 years ago.
1509.1
The answer to the cost of the CELTA course is: it depends. It depends where you are and it depends on the centre because the price of the course is dictated by the centre. So the best thing to do is to choose your centre, look at the Cambridge website, choose your centre, and then contact the centre about the price. Also, we have questions, Monica from Maria and Graham, about people who don’t have [AUDIO OUT] because they live - somebody, I think, Oni in Mauritius was asking about what to do if there aren’t any courses because she lives [INAUDIBLE] as well, that doesn’t have access to any kind of course. So Mary, I know you really [AUDIO OUT] especially online stuff.
1565
So maybe you could give some advice to people about that. Yeah, thank you, Mary Therese. Yes, there’s lots of options. If you don’t have CELTA centres near you, then you can look for other organisations. The British Council is very good, International House. They often do teach training courses in areas where you might not find a CELTA centre. Of course online learning, there’s lots of opportunities. Like I said before, you can look for universities. Some of them do online teacher training courses. You can look for more MOOCs as well. There’s this one and there’s also How to Teach Your Subject in English, there’s one through the British Council on teaching for success. So there’s lots of MOOCs available as well.
1609.8
Maybe a good place to start is to look on our website. We’ll put up a link to this. So we have a teaching framework that says - gives you ideas of things you might want to improve in or areas you might want to think about and gives you kind of a needs analysis for your teaching. So that’s probably a good place to look for your needs. And then online, look for where you can fill those needs with free courses, with face to face courses. There’s something for everyone, definitely. We’ve got another question here which is about advice on if you’re teaching one to one classes and how you can make them more effective and more interesting.
1650.4
I wonder, Graham, if you’d like to say something about that. How you can deal with it. Obviously when you’ve got one student in the class, you need a lot more material to get through because just one person would get through the material very, very quickly. And you’ve got to, obviously, there’s a lot more energy from you because you’ve got to be the partner. But any suggestion, any ideas, Graham? Yeah. I used to teach quite a lot of one-to-one classes with business students, actually. Yeah, they can be quite hard work, depending on the student you’re teaching because you need to have that kind of continual interaction with just the one person. Normally you’re in a group class.
1695.8
You’re spreading your interaction over various different people. So the dynamic is a big different, it’s true. But basically, the strategies are the same. You do the same kind of activities that you often - whereas in a group class, you’d set up a pair of students through a gap fill activity between them, an information gap activity, sorry, between them. You play the part of one of the students and be - and your student obviously participates with you rather than with a classmate. The other thing that you can do is you have a perfect opportunity to get much more in depth with topics that they’re interested in. And this is even from elementary level.
1741.4
It might be a bit more difficult with beginners. But with elementary level upwards, [AUDIO OUT] plenty of practise in conversation. You can give them plenty of correction as well. You can be very, very specific with what you want to do in the class. So the one-to-one class is an excellent opportunity for the learner but it’s also great for you as a teacher because you can be very focused on some very specific things with that one student. Back to you, Monica and Mary. Thanks very much, Graham. And Sarah has said that we mentioned apparently a good book for teaching one-to-one in a previous session. And that’s in some links which we’ve uploaded to the step, and it’s by Peter Wilberg.
1784.3
It’s called Teaching One To One or One To One, but there is a link to it. There’s also two links to interesting articles and a blog post about teaching one-to-one and strategies and ideas. So there’s three links for you to follow, Sarah. We’ll add them to this step as well so you can follow up and read them. They look really good. Mohammed’s asked a question about what you have to do, actually, to achieve on this course. And he said that to qualify, you have to have marked at least 90% of the steps in the course complete, and says isn’t that difficult? It shouldn’t be. No. You can look at your progress.
1825.3
If you click on the tab at the top, you have a to-do list and then progress. It will show you how much of the course you’ve marked as complete. And also at the top of each week, you’ll see it’s either blue or pink to show you’ve completed the steps. So, just look through and check that you’ve completed things and at the bottom mark as complete. So yeah, that’s - it shouldn’t take - it shouldn’t be too difficult. And Lady E has asked if the CELTA helps people teach with technology because now many people in many countries ask teachers to integrate technology into their teaching. And does CELTA equip us with such knowledge?
1866.2
And for teachers to go and teach anywhere in different contexts with different resources, and that includes technology as well. So on your CELTA course, you’ll be introduced to a variety of materials and resources. So there should be some technology included. And depending on the context, it will vary. So yes, you should be given an overview of the things that you can use in different contexts. Because the contexts vary so much. Good question. Thank you, Lady E. And Lady E also has asked whether the CELTA prefers a particular curriculum. So I think probably the same answer.
1906.6
The CELTA is designed not for one curriculum and not for one particular style or approach, but it is designed to be applied to different context, different curriculum, different students, different learners.
1923.9
We have another question from Judy who says she’s nearly 49. Young, again very young. And she says that she’s a bit apprehensive about doing a CELTA course because all of the websites that she’s been on, the course participants look younger than her children. I want to reiterate that CELTA courses have people of all ages on them, all backgrounds. And actually, the kind of people that we have doing this MOOC have done CELTA courses. So we have people that are doing career change who are a little bit older. We have people that come straight out of university experience. We have people with teaching experience, people that have maybe taught in a different environment.
1979.1
And we have people that haven’t taught at all. So Julie, don’t worry about the 49. Wait until you’re about 99 and then maybe we’ll have to think about whether it’s appropriate or not. And - Retireds that have taken up teaching - sorry to interrupt, Mary Therese. I think it goes back to what Graham was saying, is that you don’t want a staff room full of people who have got the same background, who are the same age, the same interests. You want a varied staff. And the students want variety in their teaching as well. They don’t want every teacher to come in and be the same teacher and do the same activities and have the same background and the same ideas.
2021.2
So, I think variety is the spice of life, as they say. And I don’t think I’ve ever had a CELTA course or taught one where I’ve - where everyone has been, say, under the age of 35. Never. And I’ve had lots of courses. So don’t worry Julie, go for it. So have we got time for one last question, Mary? Yeah.
2042.9
This is one here: somebody said, this is an interesting question. She says that she’s noticed that she’s more fluent when she talks without any preparation. And if she prepares, then gets very nervous and forgets what she has to say. So, I think sometimes actually you can over-prepare or you can be so nervous because you’ve prepared something and you want to stick to what you’ve prepared, that you can get a bit tongue tied or forget what you wanted to say. So I think that’s just a question of maybe giving yourself a few prompts, a few key words to remind yourself what you’re doing next. So I think just over - be careful of over-preparation.
2085.8
And don’t worry if you go off the plan a little bit. I’ve got a question from Sarah. I think it’s a really good question about what should you do if a student encounters a profanity or slang term and asks you to explain it? So I’ve had this where students have heard words and they haven’t realised that the word is offensive or carries extra - though actually for that, I tend to explain to the student what it means, how it is used, and also the reaction. Saying if you use this word in an interview, you would - the people would be very shocked.
2118.2
And I think that’s really useful because that’s not the information that’s always covered in books but the kind of information that’s important for a student to know so they don’t inadvertently or just use inappropriate language. Yeah, I think especially now that people can pick language up on the internet and may not realise that what they’re picking up is not to be used. Mary Therese, would you like to pick your last question to answer?
2146.5
Sure. Somebody - Stephen is saying what is the difference between CELTA and this course? This course is an online course. There is no teaching practice. You don’t get a certificate. It’s not a qualification. Whereas CELTA has teaching practise and you get a certificate. And we have Natalia also asking about teaching classes with students of different levels, which is a real big question. And we talked a little bit about differentiation, I think, earlier in the course, didn’t we, in Week 3 and in Week 4. So adapt the material. Give the students different tasks to do and that sort of thing. Anything to add on that, Graham?
2194.6
Back to Mary. Do you have any - I think those are great ideas, yes. Think about how you can adapt tasks. And generally, there’s very easy things you can do. You can simplify tasks, give a bit more help. Put students in pairs, one person who is stronger with one person who needs more help. And they can really support each other. So yeah, lots of good ideas. So Alice said, will this certificate be treated seriously? So I think she’s meaning the certificate from FutureLearn. So the certificate on FutureLearn is to show that you’ve attended this course, that you’ve taken part, you’ve marked the activities complete, that you’ve passed the test.
2232.9
So it’s useful to show that you’re interested in your professional development. And personally if it was me, in the past I’ve put MOOCs on my CV when I’ve applied for jobs. I’ve said what it is and what it includes. Because I think it’s useful to show that you’re in charge of your own development and that you’re looking for opportunities. Does this certificate say that you have stood in front of a class and been assessed? No, it doesn’t say that. But it still for me has been very useful doing MOOCs generally and highlighting that. They’re a very good learning opportunity but they only go so far. You can’t really replace standing in front of a group of learners and teaching them.
2272.8
You can’t replicate that in the online environment at the moment. I think that’s all we’ve got time for today but Mary and I will be here for the end of week review on Friday. So we’ll be looking on the site and looking at any questions and comments and interesting ideas that are coming there. And we’ll see you again then. See you Friday So that’s goodbye for now. Bye.

On Tuesday 13th December at 3.30pm (UK time) we held the last of our live Q&A sessions, about training options, jobs and career paths.

You can watch a video of the session above. Some useful links from the session can be found below:

Cambridge English Teaching Framework

Books

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer

One to One: A Teacher’s Handbook by Peter Wilberg

More information on teaching one-to-one

ELT chat discussion about one-to-one teaching

Article about one-to-one teaching

Please add your questions in the comments boxes as you do the different tasks this week and we’ll do our best to answer the most common questions in the session. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • What’s the difference between an online course and a face-to-face course?
  • Can I get a job after doing only a four-week CELTA training course?
  • Are online courses useful?
  • What do employers look for in a teacher?
  • This article is from the free online

    Exploring the World of English Language Teaching

    Created by
    FutureLearn - Learning For Life

    Reach your personal and professional goals

    Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

    Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

    Start Learning now