Language Discussion Forums

TEFL am I allowed to critisie?

2009-07-09T16:27:11+09:00

So can someone please tell me what is CELTA? More to the point, what is it supposed to signify? In Hamburg it seems that anyone can do a CELTA course if they have 1500 Euro and 4/5 weeks to spare. Then suddenly they are a “qualified English teacher” Ok one may say that CELTA is for a course for the improvement of existing teachers, so why in our area is it seemingly open to anyone?

Case: Due to the economy crisis in our area, teachers have been applying to us regularly and over the last four to five months I have personally interviewed over 60 potential English teachers. Out of these around 30 proudly displayed their CELTA certificate to me. Amongst other things, I have 6 specific questions I ask teachers in an interview.

Two relate to explanation of grammar, two relate to teaching techniques and two relate to basic training interaction. Naturally, after having a CELTA certificate pushed under my nose I expected some reasonable answers, but what did I get?

Unbelievably I received very bad explanations of grammar; for instance; one told me the difference between the present perfect and the past simple is that “the past simple is in the past and the present perfect is a future tense because it is still happening.” Another told me that the difference between the use of going to and will was; “he he he, I have never really thought about that” In respect to technique, the main answer is “I use a book or whatever you would like me to use” In interaction with students they did not seem to have a clue, certainly not to my standards. The very strange thing is that only 2 teachers out of the 28 I interviewed were near what I could call average! Out of the 30, 20 of them told me they had taught before! All were able to tell me how to set up the classroom for teaching, well sort of.

Intrigued, I asked the last CELTA trainer a little about CELTA and their response was interesting. They told me they had not long moved into Hamburg and had the chance to do the course at *** school. The course cost them 1500 Euro for 5 weeks training and that there were 10 students in their class. Hey! Not bad, 15,000 Euro for 5 weeks training! The person did not have past teaching experience, well not in English, but at least they were a native English speaker. They went on to tell me that they did not speak German and wondered what they could do to earn money. Suddenly they decided that because they taught in some kindergarten back in the year dot for 20 minutes, they would do the CELTA course and teach English in Hamburg.

So my question is what is CELTA or like always, am I misunderstanding something?

Seems I should now run out and get a certificate to offer the CELTA course. It would certainly generate a needed income!

By the way, the one’s that did not have a CELTA certificate did not feel they needed one as they have been teaching for some time and have references from the people they taught for. “They hoped that I would not look at their lack of a CELTA certificate as a disadvantage in the interview” That they can be sure of !!!!!!!!!

Rob

내말다듬기

2009-05-18T21:29:03+09:00

CHOOSE RIGHT WORD.WHICH WORD IS 혜성?

Forum Customization

2009-05-13T19:33:58+09:00

Re: this blog post where joesp talks about the (potential) demise of a popular Korean language forum. I am offering to make this space available for those users.

If enough people come on over and the traffic goes up here. I will customize these forums to match the blog. I might even do a complete redesing of the blog as well.

Let me know if there is enough interest.

~~하리만큼 examples

2009-05-13T19:26:42+09:00

just trying to figure out what is ~~하리만큼.

context is: 지독하리만큼 우직하고 끈질기다

being friendly and tenacious to the point of making you sick

does anybody else have any other examples?

Question: “I can listen to music” vs “I can hear music”

2009-03-24T02:31:04+09:00

Hello I’m new here and I am a beginner who’s just registered for the coming TOPIK.

Would really appreciate if someone can tell me how to say “I can listen to music”, as in “If I had an mp3, I can listen to music any time”.

When I go to translation sites, the answer is 들릴 수 있어요 but isn’t it I can hear music? i.e. passive, like someone is playing music outside and I can hear it.

I am assuming that “I can listen to music whenever I want” is more active and should be said differently in Korean, but I am not sure how to write it in ㄹ 수 있다 form.

Please help!

ESL Lesson Plans on www.english-4u.com

2008-04-04T21:05:49+09:00

English-4U - ESL Lesson Plans offers ESL lesson plans for English language instructors teaching adult one-to-one and group classes - ready-to-use worksheets based on news and hit songs.
You can find free lesson plans here:
free ESL Lesson Plans.

joke spotted on slashdot

2008-02-15T18:37:09+09:00

A customer arrives at a car lot for a new car. The salesman steers him toward the top of the line model with all the newest bells and whistles. While they’re out on the test drive, the salesman tells the potential buyer that the radio is so advanced, it understands voice commands. To demonstrate, the salesman says “classical”, and wouldn’t you know it, a classical station is automatically tuned in. He tells the driver to try, and he says “classic rock”. Before you can blink, Led Zepplin is pulsing through the speakers. The driver is duly impressed and is about to comment on how cool that is, when some punk kid in a riced out civic cuts him off. The driver yells “ASSHOLE” .... and the radio tunes to Rush Limbaugh .

<날아라 허둥구> 대분

2007-09-10T12:11:30+09:00

여로본 안녕하세요,

제 가 좀 도움 필요해요. <날아라 허동구> 대분을 찾 고싶어요. 20woo.com에 찾봤는대, 그곳은 없았어요.

내가 산 DVD는 영어 자막 없는대요! 한국어도!!

can you suggest other places to look?

Is it alive?

2008-01-08T04:01:24+09:00

Is it alive? [ last post: 05-22-2006 ]

Unfortunately I have no ability in Korean to help you…
I’m just a true-beginner in Korean Language, Maybe one of my Korean Friends would like to help, but I have to ask before.
All Koreans I know, are so busy, Studying all time or worrying about how Korean-Life is hard…

If you have some idea which shows how I can help. Tell me, Plz.
I’d love to help!

I have been listening KoreanClass101… and WOW… Really good PodCast… Structure, Voices, Grammar Explanation…

Again… If you have some idea which shows how I can help. Tell me, Plz.
I’d love to help!

- RFKANT -
- Brazilian -

탁월한 추천헌 책

2007-09-12T15:43:32+09:00

그것은 “Once Upon a Time in Korea”라고해요. 방학 동안 미국에서 요행할대 샀어요. 장말 재미있어요.
청래동화 23관 있어요. 아주 쉬는 문장 사용해요. 이야기 되에 사전 있어요. 한국에 살 수있는것을 잘 무르겠어요.

http://book.daum.net/bookdetail/bookmediareview.do?bookid=ENG6108957262824