3 questions about life after CELTA
As the course starts to unwind, CELTA trainees often ask the following questions:
Will I need to produce detailed lesson plans once I start a teaching job?
I’m afraid the answer is: it depends. You may end up working for a school that provides you with their own lesson plans, or one which expects you to just follow a book faithfully, or yet another one where yes, detailed lesson plans will continue to be expected. The level of detail on lesson plans on the CELTA course is probably not attainable on a daily basis: after all, on a course, you have much more time to reflect and the planning stage is designed to help you prepare thoroughly for teaching. But many of us throughout our careers continue to produce a plan for each lesson, although they may be considerably shorter😊.
How will I know if a school is good?
My advice is to go to as many interviews as possible so you can weigh the various options available to you. As a rule of thumb, the interviewer should be willing to give you details about hours, pay, conditions, type of lessons, etc. The best schools will be those who will have a Director of Studies who can continue to help you develop as a teacher. Ideally, they will offer you a seminar programme (or funding/time to continue developing) and you will be observed on a regular basis.
Lastly, ask as many local teachers as possible why they like working for their schools.
What can I do to keep developing as a teacher after the course?
If you’re in Lisbon, join our Edmodo group. We will keep you informed about monthly teacher development sessions. In 2019, so far, we’ve run sessions on ‘Catering for learners’ and ‘Music and Culture’. There are more to come including ‘Graphic organisers’ and ‘Useful activities around the topic of numbers’.
IH Torres Vedras|Lisbon also offers a face-to-face Teaching Young Learners course which will help you prepare for this important area of teaching English.
There are many online webinars and conferences which will provide you with additional input. International House World Organisation offers many excellent online courses on a variety of topics such as: Teaching Very Young Learners; Teaching Business or One-to-one students, etc.
Lastly, read the IH Journal on a regular basis as a means of keeping up-to-date with new developments
What are you going to explore first?
Link to our Edmodo group: https://edmo.do/j/qiwbpa
Link to some useful webinars: https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/resources-for-teachers/webinars/
Link to a face-to-face conference in Portugal: http://www.appi.pt/33rd-appi-annual-conference/
Link to the IH Journal: https://ihworld.com/ih-journal/
Link to the IHWO online courses: https://ihworld.com/teach/ih-online-teacher-training/
Find out more about our CELTA courses here: CELTA
Author – Paula de Nagy
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