If you've come to this site, it probably means you are thinking about doing a CELTA, are due to start a CELTA, or have recently completed a CELTA. Hopefully this site has something to offer you no matter which of these categories you fall into. Who am I and why do I think I can …
Timing – when to go slow, when to move on
Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of planning and executing a lesson, is getting the timing right. How long will an activity take? When should I move on? Am I going too fast / too slow? How do I know? We’re going to look at these questions and more, and provide some answers and …
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New feature…materials and resources for EFL/ESL
celtatrain.com has begun producing downloadable materials for teaching. These were originally going to be sent via e-mail to subscribers, but we were worried about that being considered spam. So…instead we are announcing a new category on the homepage of the site – materials and resources. Here you will find a small (at first) collection of …
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Aims. How to avoid being aimless!
In the first of a small series of posts on lesson planning, we consider possibly the most important thing to be clear about…aims. Why aim? It might first be useful to ask ourselves why we even need an aim. In other words…what is the aim of our aim? Well…firstly, if we don’t know what we’re …
Assessing and Adapting Coursebook Materials
When I was doing my initial teacher training course, we didn’t use coursebooks very much. While in the long-term this has created a strong interest and enjoyment in materials development, in my early teaching career, it presented a bit of a problem. Back then I had no idea how to use a coursebook to the …
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Recording Vocabulary
In most lessons, we deal with vocabulary to a greater or lesser extent, but are we helping students to remember and use this vocabulary after the lesson is finished? Students can often be seen dutifully scribbling away, compiling long lists of completely unrelated words and phrases. Everyone has preferences as to how to record and …
Looking at lead-ins
What is a lead in? It’s the beginning of the lesson. The students have arrived. They’ve got out their books. It’s time to start the lesson…but how? With a lead in. But what exactly do we mean and what should it achieve? A lead-in should do exactly what it says – lead in to the …
Presentation via a situation…an oldie but a goody!
Presentation via a situation isn’t the most fashionable way to teach a language lesson these days. However, I’d argue that there are plenty of reasons not to totally discard ‘via a situation lessons’ and to have a few good ones up your sleeve. In this post, we’ll look at some of those reasons and some classroom …
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New feature…
Infographics Appearing today...the first in a series of infographics designed to give quick and helpful tips and info on key topics in a more visual format. The first is about listening. Watch this space...more to follow. And if you have any requests, leave a comment and we'll see what we can do.
Controlled and freer practice
Welcome to the second of our posts about practice. This time we’re going to look at controlled and freer practice. How would you define these? What’s the difference between freer practice and controlled or restricted practise? What makes a good freer practice activity? By the end of this post you’ll have the answer to these …
No handouts…no problem.
Going into the classroom with little in the way of materials can be an unnerving experience. A series of activities committed to paper can give us, as teachers, a sense of security. There is something reassuring about going into lessons armed with enough material to teach for hours – but is it always in the …
