This is the fourth in the series of lesson plans I promised to put up after my CELTA course. Listening lesson are generally among the easier kinds of lessons we have to teach. Listening is part of the ‘skills lessons’, along with speaking, reading and writing. The other two kinds of lessons – Grammar and Vocabulary – fall into the Language lessons category.

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Generally, Skills lessons are far easier to plan and execute, mostly because students need to do a lot of work themselves and do not need to depend on the teacher for the most part. Of course, the ESL teacher still has to do their part in ensuring the lesson interests the students. Especially in the case of children and teenagers, if the topic of the lesson is not interesting enough, students begin to fidget pretty soon.

I was presenting it to the Upper Intermediate level ESL students at St. Giles International in San Francisco, the same place I did my CELTA course (Read why I chose the CELTA and not one of the hundreds of TEFL/TESOL courses available).

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CELTA? What’s that? Some sort of water purifier, glass cleaner?

Umm no, it’s actually a very well-known certification for ESL teachers worldwide. Duh, if you know what ESL stands for, you wouldn’t have asked me what the CELTA is.

ESL stands for English as a Second Language. And CELTA is right up there in a world choc-a-full of ESL certifications. It stands for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA). It’s Cambridge University’s month-long certification offered in very few cities around the world. Of course, it is the most prevalent in UK and the most-widely known in Europe but language schools around the world are becoming more aware of the CELTA.. most of the better known language schools make it mandatory for teachers to have a CELTA before they apply.

So when I began my search for the ultimate qualification in the ESL world, the CELTA was a natural choice. I still had to go through reams of forum questions and answers, bouncing the ball back and forth. But it took little convincing to convince me that the CELTA is they way to go.

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3 Comments | In: ESL Musings | tags: CELTA, esl teachers, esl world, language schools, st giles international, teaching of english, tefl, tesol. | #