Teaching House

THOUGHTS ABOUT TEACHING HOUSE: I DO NOT RECOMMEND.

I did the part time course on Mondays (530-930p), Wednesdays (530-930p) and every other Friday (530-830p). Students were divided into 2 groups, A & B. Group A taught on Monday, Group B taught on Wednesday.

Mon: Brief review of teaching points assigned to students in Group B. Group A does their practice teaching. Group A students write their self-evaluation. Group feedback is given.

Wed: Brief review of teaching points assigned to students in Group A. Group B does their practice teaching. Group B students write their self-evaluation. Group feedback is given.

Fri: These sessions usually covered upcoming written assignments.

The course is divided into 2 segments, each with a different teacher (pre-intermediate (I had Bita Rezaei) and upper-intermediate (Adrienne Radcliff)).

Once you complete the first segment, you will have no further access to your first teacher. (I sent an email to Adrienne asking for some clarification on some vague feedback she gave, but she completely ignored my email.)

Upon course completion, I had a few questions regarding the criteria used to determine my grade. I emailed Lizzy Adams (the director of the teaching program who sent me my grade) and she replied “the criteria is the criteria. You can file an appeal if you want.” I reached out to both teachers asking from some clarification and they both completely ignored my email. After a week, I decided to escalate to Lizzy’s boss, James Peaver. Lizzy took 4 days to give me her boss’s name. Lizzy seems unable to actually answer direct questions. After an entire month of emails to Lizzy and my teachers, I notified James Peaver. He offered to set up a meeting (M-F of the following week) between me, him, and a trainer. I replied letting him know I was available anytime on Monday or Tuesday and didn’t hear back from him for a week. The only time the trainer was available to me with me was 6am my time! I decided instead to notify Cambridge directly about my concerns. They responded to me promptly but referred me back to Teaching House so it wasn’t very helpful.

The appeals process is basically a joke (they even charge you to file an appeal!)

They will hold you to strict rubrics that they don’t adhere to themselves.

The teachers are not very accessible outside of scheduled hours. One of my teachers, Bita, took 3 days to respond to a question I had about my upcoming teaching plan.

They have an elitist attitude (Don’t question the CELTA gods!)

They are very helpful up until you are paid in full, then they will ignore you or say anything to justify their actions.

They will pass just about anyone but only award 2% of students with Pass A. They need to do away with their grading system. They emphasize that it doesn’t matter if you earn a Pass, Pass A, or Pass B. If that’s the case, why not just have Pass/Fail? (I got a Pass B, btw)

There’s no accountability – A teacher no-showed, both teachers ignored emails, they did not deliver the job placement services they promised.

The website advertises a multitude of available job placement services, however, they are virtually non-existent. We were supposed to receive 3 sessions dedicated solely to job placement (according to Lizzy) but we only received one despite the fact that the teacher cancelled our last class and instructed us to log in 50 minutes later than our scheduled start time during the last 3 weeks. This was all time that could have been used to provide the promised services that we PAID for. There is NO one-to-one sessions with a job advisor. There’s basically nothing. Telling me I can teach on Cambly or Preply is not helpful. When I voiced my concerns, they tried to do some damage control by telling me I could email them my resume so they could look it over. That is not enough. They did not deliver what they promised. That’s wrong.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CELTA:
The course is mostly self-led. There is coursework on the Moodle platform that you can do at your own pace. You will be assigned “Forum assignments” that will be mostly ignored. I was the only student to complete the forum assignment but never got any feedback from my teacher, Bita.
About 80% of the “for additional reading” links referenced at the end of each lesson are broken. Moodle in general is cumbersome and could be organized better. It’s also not terribly reliable. The chat feature doesn’t always work, for example, so you will have to set up an outside group on Telegram or Text to communicate with your teacher/cohorts.
In general, I recommend the CELTA certification. But for your own good, take it somewhere other than Teaching House.

I haven't been in school for 10+ years so it was hard to get back into that school work mode but it was ever so worth it. Great instructors - learned so much from them. Daily schedule is structured great - plenty of balance between input sessions, breaks and being able to actually teach in the afternoon was immensely important. Classmates were very helpful and everyone works together to complete tasks - there is no "i want a better grade than you so I'm not going to help" everyone was in it together. Do not expect this course to be easy but as long as you put the effort into it you will be able to pass. Glad I took this course and have the CELTA certificate that will allow me to begin the next chapter of my life.

Highly recommend this course if you want to get into teaching english.

At some point during the curriculum I realized, perhaps because hitherto I'd had no previous teaching experience, knowledge of grammar was far from being the main focus. That's not to say that I believe if one were deficient they wouldn't encounter a mighty struggle, no; only that there were many more details relating to other aspects of teaching. In fact, one thing that intrigued me most about this course was how it went about demonstrating the process of acquiring knowledge, and all that that might entail. It really is hard for me to go into detail, though I'd like to, because I wouldn't want to spoil anything! (and, in all honesty, because I am still looking through my notes and other literature in an attempt to apprehend more...). Paula Ellis and Lise Bell taught the curriculum and I believe were more than equal to the task of guiding us neophytes; especially when thinking, now, about what was being taught.

There was a lot of work involved in taking the CELTA! I loved the course, loved the people I studied with and particularly appreciated Paula Ellis and Adrienne Radcliffe, both absolutely fabulous trainers. The workload is challenging, and having the structure and clear guidance (at which both excel) to put order into the rather large amount of information we were absorbing in a limited amount of time, made my experience a really positive one.

I am a lawyer, so teaching English as a second language is a new career path for me. I've been out of school for a long time, too. I was probably the eldest in my class.

I took the CELTA course in 4 weeks, because my personal situation required me to take the condensed course. I wish I had taken it over a longer period to let the sheer volume of the material sink in more. It is VERY condensed, and quite demanding, and valuable.

There are two reasons I think CELTA is the premier ESL training program. First, you teach real students immediately, and second, you get thorough feedback after each & every teaching session. That's extremely important and I think it's unique to CELTA.

The trainers are grammar gurus, too. They KNOW their stuff and can articulate it well, and usually can help you figure things out for yourself (which is what we need to do for our own students, so they "walk the talk").

The only problem I faced (other than the sheer volume of information), is that there was a lot of education "jargon" which was totally new to me. Their methodology seems sound, so I trusted it even though the underlying theories were not always intuitively obvious. Also, there are a ton of different reference materials used in the course. But there's no central index, so you have to spend time looking for things that could be found more quickly with an index.

I graduated in late July, 2018. Within days of posting my ESL resume online, I had employers inquiring. I had to narrow my search down b/c I was actually getting too many inquiries. (This job search was more immediately productive than looking for a job as a lawyer, believe me). The CELTA course is more expensive than other ESL courses but I have a hard time believing the other courses are as thorough.

I signed a contract to work overseas within a month of graduation and am moving to Eastern Europe next week. I chose this particular job because they are modeled after CELTA's program so their content & approach were familiar. Also, the interview on Skype was with staff who were very warm, open and supportive. They were not recruiting so much as looking for a good fit. I didn't want to jump into a classroom without any support for my first teaching job. So that sealed the deal for me.

This career change is doing exactly what I hoped it would do. I have always wanted to live overseas, immerse myself in a new culture, and I've always wanted to teach. I leave for Poland next week, 6 weeks after graduating from CELTA.