CELTA in the bag!

A real mix: students and their teachers, who were students

So more than a month has passed with nary a new word on this blog. Why? Because for the past month I've been in the grips of a short but very intensive ESL teaching course to get the CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults). The course finished on Friday, and so I am now "qualified" to do what I've been doing for the past five years. (Whoohoo?!) That said, I did learn a lot from the course, perhaps not so much by adding a lot of new knowledge as by adding a whole lot of depth to my existing knowledge. Aside from the piece of paper that I went in for, I came out of the course with a deeper understanding as to what is "good teaching", and a renewed resepect for the ESL profession and its legitimacy as a profession unto itself.

The course has quite a reputation for being brutally intensive, with graduates writing testimonials about how they never got any sleep or saw any friends or family for the entire span of the course. For me, while the at-home work was definitely time-consuming, it didn't reach the nightmare proportions that some write about. On the contrary I, and many of my classmates, found the course so enjoyable and so much fun that we were sad to see it end on Friday.

Three things made the course an amazing four weeks: the 12 people were an extremely varied lot, but put all together, magical things happened and we spent the 4 weeks laughing our way through every day, often to the point of giggle fits that wouldn't stop. Equal contributors to this were our two amazing tutors, Gerald & Alex, who were as fun, easy-going and helpful as anyone could hope for. Finally, the international students that signed up for the free English classes in which we all conducted our "teaching practice" were the same kind of wonderful, cheery, and kind souls that I had come to know and love when I was teaching ESL here in Toronto before going to Japan. I can't stress that last point enough. Being back in the classroom in front of the mix of eager adult students from various countries across the globe and being a part of all that dynamic, interesting and stimulating interaction made me feel the most alive I've felt since returning to Toronto.

We had a nice little party at school after the final class on Friday and then continued on to a bar, and I think everyone had a great time. It's kind of sad now, it being Monday and not heading down to see the gang as usual. Everyone has scattered again, and some will be heading overseas within the next few months to put their new skills to work. Great! All the more places to crash when travelling!