My Experience Getting a CELTA Pass A

As many of you know, I recently took (and survived) the Cambridge CELTA course - I took it despite having taught for over five years because I no longer wished to be a very good “corporate trainer” (translation: teacher in a suit) who happened to not be certified. I wanted to be a fantastic teacher with a real qualification.  I chose CELTA because it was the only certification program that I felt I would really learn from after five years of teaching.

And I did – I felt that besides learning some new ideas and techniques for good teaching, that teaching 8 lessons and being critically assessed on all of them was extremely good for me. I went into the course thinking that timing and half-assed lesson planning were my problems, but learned that it’s in fact timing and Teacher Talking Time that I need to work on. Simply having a qualified person assess my teaching and give me action points was an immensely helpful learning experience. No other certification program would have given me that.

So, yes, all you other CELTA folks out there, I did get a Pass A (provisionally, but I have every reason to believe that that will be my final grade as well). After five years of experience and knowing from feedback, the clients I was given and their subsequent renewals that I was good – if not great – at my job, I’m happy to see that my grade reflects that (although I would have been fine with a B – that was the grade I was prepared to receive). For those who don’t know, about 70% of everyone who takes the CELTA gets a regular “Pass”. 25-27% get a Pass B and 3-5% get a Pass A.

There are a lot of personal experiences scattered about the Interwebs on taking the CELTA, especially the gruelling four-week course. At least one good post on the topic covers the writer’sexperience getting a Pass B, with tips on how readers can attempt the same. There are none chronicling the experience of someone who got a Pass A, which is why I’m writing this at all.

I can’t tell you “how” to get a Pass A, because even having got one, I don’t really know how it’s done. The criteria for the various grades are never clearly outlined – there is no (known) formula that says “if you get this many Above Standards on your lessons” or something, that automatically translates into a Pass A or B”. *

What I can say is that it was extraordinarily difficult, despite having come in with a lot of experience. I’ll be honest: I found the input sessions mostly easy (although I did learn a few things and pick up lots of ideas and techniques, broadening my repertoire), the written assignments not difficult in their content but certainly difficult in terms of the time and attention to detail it took to turn in something truly great. I did find the actual teaching to be a challenge – partly because my own style was a bit higher on the Teacher Talking Time that CELTA so rails against, and partly because being assessed and critiqued in great detail on a relatively short lesson that comes between two other lessons that other trainees planned is quite different indeed from how I teach at my actual job.

Basically, even with experience I had to work extraordinarily hard to hand in work and perform at a level that eventually earned me the A, and I don’t see how I could have done it without prior experience. I’d attend class all day, come home and work for up to four hours straight. In every other aspect of life I reverted to someone who has the mentality of a five-year-old because I was just so mentally shot to hell from how hard I was working. I ate kids’ food and drank a lot of whiskey. I worked all weekend almost every weekend (on the final weekend I managed to take Sunday off). I obsessed over lesson plans and nearly get headaches just thinking aout the level of detail I included in my Procedure pages. I stopped blogging, I stopped reading, I stopped watching TV and didn’t even check e-mail all that often – I did keep Facebook open in the background at all times though.

I highly doubt that someone on the CELTA course with zero teaching experience could get a Pass A unless they were preternaturally talented or had some indirect experience (ie one of their parents was a teacher or some such – that kind of exposure does have value). A Pass B would be possible, but a person with no experience who managed that would still have to be exceptionally talented.

I did note a few things that might have helped bump me from a B to an A. While there’s no set number of Above Standards that one needs in order to get an A or B, clearly the more you get, the better your chances are. The poster in the link above got 6 out of 9 Above Standards and got a B. I got 5 out of 8. Another trainee in my group – who was extremely good and actually had a teaching certificate already, just not for TEFL – got 6 out of 8, but I’m not sure what his final grade was. Another girl in another group also got 6 out of 8, but I’m not sure of her final grade, either. If more than half of your TPs are Above Standard, you’ll probably make it into the upper grades…or you’re far more likely, at least.

They tell you that as long as you pass all of your written assignments, it doesn’t matter how well you do on them, because it’s an overall Pass/Fail (and it is clearly announced that if you fail one assignment, you can pass the course but you can’t get a Pass A). That said, my final report noted that all of my written assignments were “of a very high standard” and that I passed all of them with no resubmissions. The fact that this was noted makes me believe that it had some impact on getting the A.

The tutors look in great detail at lesson plans, and this is one area in which I excelled – I mentioned above how I would give myself headaches over the level of detail I included. Every stage had ICQs and CCQs mapped out. If I was going to model instructions, I noted that, and how I would model them (with a student, with the board etc.).  I was very detailed in writing out what the students would do in each stage and I was very careful to check my Interaction Patterns to make sure there was as little T-Ss as possible. If your Procedure page for a 40-minute lesson reaches 3 or even 4 pages, you know you’re on the right track.

I was careful to use any new thing from a recent input session as soon as it was appropriate, and note that in my lesson plans, as well. In the real world you don’t need to do this, but if you If you’re really trying to excel, listen carefully to little things the tutors say: if you hear a tutor mention that using “teach” and “learn” in your aims or stage aims is a bad idea (and it is – “teach” is too teacher-centered and “learn” is too general), then don’t use those verbs in your aims. If they say “for any language focus, create a context and cover meaning, form and pronunciation”, well, do that. Every time. Even if you have to write that down on a piece of scrap paper and tape it over your computer.

Which, yes, boils down to “do what the tutors tell you”, but hey. Oh well. They’re tutors for a reason.

Other things that I felt worked in my favor: strong language awareness**, good rapport with students, confidence, good instructions, ability to adapt and create materials, good anticipation of problems, participation in input sessions and “professionalism” (be on time, don’t look skeevy, get on well with other trainees and coordinate lesson flow with those in your group, show leadership skills), and strong self-reflection and reaction to feedback.

Of course, a lot of this is easier said than done. I can say “oh you should cultivate a strong rapport with students” – yeah, great, but how do you do that? I can’t tell you. I know what works for me, but everyone’s style is different. This is why teaching is a lot harder than people give it credit for (and the profession has a surprisingly high number of detractors). There are no easy answers to things like “how to improve rapport” – it’s very touchy-feely. There are fewer clear answers in education than in other professions.

No guarantees or promises that doing all of this will get you an A, or even a B (like I said, I can’t tell you how to do that), but these are things tutors noted as my strengths, and a few of them were things that tutors openly said were important – for example, one tutor said quite clearly that a Pass A trainee “shows a high degree of professionalism, which includes being on time” (there were some late students).

It’s also quite clearly possible to get a Pass A while still having areas requiring improvement – even serious ones. I personally need to reduce my Teacher Talking Time. It’s hard for me to do, because I’m a naturally chatty person and I do have a strong personality. I like to really get to know my students, and I like for them to really get to know me, which often translates into my being more talkative and more at the front of the class than I really should be. If you know you have a similarly serious action point, but have shown clearly that you are taking steps to improve, are aware of the problem and are open to feedback on it, then it is still possible to finish the course while still needing to work on the issue, and get an A nonetheless.

I could also stand to work on my timing, and my lead-ins tend to take too long. I tend to latch on to a few great ideas and over-use them, for example doing similar lead-ins for each class (not on any report, I just know that I do that). When I get nervous, my eye contact shoots to hell and at least in the beginning my board work was a mess (much improved, still not perfect).

Basically, I’m far from a perfect teacher. I’m good, and I’m not shy about the fact that I’m good – I am so totally not into the paradigm where women and people in professions dominated by women are shot down if they are anything less than humble, if not self-deprecating, and goodness forbid you be confident or (gasp) self-promoting. I’m not perfect, though, and I could be a hell of a lot better. If someone like me who still has a lot to work on can get an A, clearly it is a goal that need not be dismissed as impossible (although if you have no experience at all, you are probably better off shooting for a B).

So, what real advice can I give? Not much, except this: if you set up your goal as “I’m gonna gits me an A!” then, well, it’s a worthy goal and all, but you’ll probably give yourself an ulcer, and stress so much about whether you’re doing enough or doing well enough that your freaky-outy stress will cause you to lose focus and actually do worse. Don’t look for a magic bullet or secret formula – there is none, and trying to guess at the magical combination of factors that leads to an A will just cause you to get even more freaky-outy. Always remember that it’s not a competition, so if you see someone who seems to be doing better than you, hey, you’re in it for four weeks with that person and you are quite possibly friendly with them – you are not in a race. There is not just one gold medal. Their good work does not mean you’ll get edged out for the one top spot, because there is no “one” top spot.

It sounds like a cliché but it’s really true: just work your ass off, do the best work you can do and don’t freak out (because that will affect your work).  Remember that the course is designed for people with no experience. Things you can do immediately, that take no innate or learned skill are to participate as much as you can in input, do your damnedest to provide as much detail as you can in your lesson plans, be on time and be receptive to feedback (defend yourself if you feel something said was really unfair, or explain your rationale, but don’t get defensive or argumentative).  If you are given a language focus to teach, learn everything you can about it (especially if it’s grammar), beyond what the textbook says. Even if you don’t plan to teach every aspect, know everything you can to better cope with questions or issues that may arise.

*One tutor said something along the lines of "We know we're not turning out perfect teachers, that's impossible in four weeks. After the CELTA you'll still need training. A Pass A tells employers that you can start teaching immediately with basically no training and little support. A Pass B tells them that you will need a lot less training than most new hires, but still require some. A Pass tells them that you are an average passing trainee, will need further training and support, but you did absorb the fundamentals taught on the CELTA."

**About that language awareness thing – yeah. It’s tough, even with experience and especially with no experience. Don’t be afraid – when I started teaching, I was all “modal? WTF is a modal?” – which of course meant that I was not the best teacher. I learned, though, and I got better. I picked up my language awareness because I had to teach it. Actually teaching it did far more for my own in-depth language awareness than reading a grammar book ever could have done. If you find yourself, the night before a lesson, flipping through web pages or reference books going “WTF is a modal?”, don’t worry, you’re not the only one, and the next time you have to teach it, you’ll know it. You’ll get better. You’ll learn it in far more depth and detail than you ever thought possible because having to teach it does that – it forces you to learn it in a somewhat high-pressure situation. So go out and buy yourself a good grammar reference, pour yourself a drink and relax.