Your first podcast online - limited period only!

Hi,

go to PODOMATIC and listen to your work - but hurry before it melts...

Search the archives for IT in ELT links.

Cheers,

Anthony

How was it for you?

Hello!

By the time this post gets online, all of you will have taught at the new level.  Some of you will have started working with students much less capable than those you worked with last week; this will present you with certain challenges, such as grading your language, clear and obvious class management and the ability to decipher less grammatical output.  The rest of you will have started working with more proficient students; you may have been intimidated by their level and the fact that you find it difficult to hear anything that you feel you could improve.

This is all normal and is nothing to be concerned about.  New conditions require getting used to and this is OK.  We (your tutors) are all aware that this week's first lessons need to be viewed in similar ways to your first lessons: much is new and a certain amount of "back-pedalling" is to be expected.

So however you feel you have done in your first encounter with your new group of students, the important thing is to look forward.  Think about what you have learnt from watching your colleagues working with the class, and consider the lessons you have taken away from your first lesson.  Look over the notes you have made for your focus on the learner assignment: what do they tell you?  take all these lessons and act on them in your next class.

By the end of this week, all being well, you will have got the measure of your new teaching environment and will be in a position to keep moving forward.

We all have the utmost faith in every one of you.

Best wishes,

Anthony, Dominic & Dee-Dee

END OF WEEK ONE GUIDANCE

Complete Language Related Tasks Assignments part one and two - Remember that the school is open on Saturday 10:00 – 13:00 but is not open on Sunday. If you want to make use of reference books in the resource room to help you with the assignments, you will need to come in on Saturday morning.

People A and B (Fiona, Alyssa, Mairead, Matthew, Anne, Heather), who are teaching on Monday, can sumbit Part Two of the assignment on Tuesday.

Work on lessons for Monday or Tuesday - Remember you need to submit formal lesson plans

Do some background reading

Extracts provided on receptive skills (Harmer), activating lexis (Thornbury) and using your voice and teacher talk.

Take some time off and do something physical!

You are strongly advised to take either one day or two half days off and to do something physical: Here are some suggestions (dependent on the weather, of course).

Go for a long walk or a run in the forest (easy to reach on the S-bahn)
Go swimming
Go dancing
Go skiing at Potsdamer Platz (check it out)

Go to the gym

DO NOT go out carousing on Sunday night!

Enjoy the weekend,

Dominic, Dee Dee and Anthony

Information to help non-EU course participants

We often have requests from American and other non-EU passport holders for information about the realities of working in Germany, particularly about the process of applying for a work visa.

We would be very grateful if any non-EU passport holders who have done the course with us, posted information here about their experience.

In particular, the following information would be appreciated:

1. How long did the process of obtaining a work permit take you?
2. What information and/or documentation were you required to provide?
3. What kind of teaching work have you obtained?
   
4. Did you receive any negative responses from schools you contacted because you were not an EU passport holder?

You can use the comment feature at the end of this post to reply to these questions or to provide any other information you feel may be helpful to a prospective course participant.

Thanks a lot

Dominic

Welcome, Class of November 2007!

Hello!

We are very happy to be able to welcome you all to the Cambridge ESOL CELTA course at the BERLIN SCHOOL OF ENGLISH. The next four weeks will be a very busy time for us all but we hope that we at the school can make your time with us as enjoyable and educational as possible. Because the course is very intensive, it really is a good idea to prepare properly for the course. There are several things you can do to make your entry into the world of EFL teaching as comfortable as possible:

Do the pre-course reading
You should all have received or obtained a copy of the pre-course reading. Make sure that you have worked through the Grammar Development Course as thoroughly as you can before arriving on the first day.

The CELTA course focuses on developing your skills as a language teacher, not your language knowledge per se. During the course, we have to be able to assume a certain degree of knowledge about how the language works in order to have enough time to focus on the core skills of teaching. This is why the pre-course reading is so important.

To prepare for the first week's input you could read chapters 8, 10, 11 and 12 of Learning Teaching.

You do not need to bring the Grammar Development Course or Learning Teaching with you to the school every day. You will need these at home for consolidatory reading.

Do some shopping
You shouldn't need to buy any materials for your lessons during the course but make sure that you have all the personal stationary that you need for study purposes. We recommend the following:

- a large A4 arch lever file (binder) for your notes
- pad of A4 paper
- pens
- pencils
- highlighters
- eraser
- sharpener

If you are travelling over from the United States or another part of the world which does not use DIN A4 as a stationary standard, then wait until arriving in Germany before buying a file and paper. Otherwise, the course notes you will receive probably won't fit properly into your file.

You will need to bring €13 with you on the first day, €10 for a locker key deposit and €3 to buy whiteboard markers.

Get teched up
Your life will be easier on the course if you have access to a computer or a laptop. The school has up to eight PCs for your use but if you have your own laptop you will find preparing lesson plans etc far less stressful.

It is also very handy to have a USB memory stick to transfer files and back up your documents. Wireless access is available in the school. If you wish to make use of this, you should let us know on the first day. A memory stick will enable you to prepare your lesson plans and assignments in comfort on your own laptop or at home before simply printing them out at the school.

Go Open Office
The school computers use Open Office software, which is an MS Office-style suite of programs by Sun Microsystems. It is freeware and it runs on all current platforms (PC, Mac, Linux etc). You may find it convenient to download Open Office for free from

http://www.openoffice.org/ and install it on your computer/laptop.

Spend time with your friends
During the course (even at the weekends) you will have very little time to relax and so it is a good idea to catch up with anyone you want to see before the course starts.

You can expect to be working 2-3 hours per evening during the week plus the equivalent of one full day at the weekend on course-related work apart from any time you find during the "working day" at the school, so don't make the mistake of thinking "I'll surely have time to go to that party/pop over to Krakow for the weekend" etc: you probably won't.

Look at the CELTA syllabus
If you are interested, go to http://www.cambridgeesol.org/teaching/celta8_251103.pdf and familiarise yourself a little with the CELTA course syllabus. You should not worry if you don't understand everything you read; much of it makes more sense once you are actually participating in the course. But it may be interesting for you to see the broad principles behind the course you are about to undertake.

Start a reflective journal
One of the central skills that we will be trying to help you develop is the ability to reflect on your teaching. This means we want you to be able to think critically and evaluatively about what happened in your lessons so that you can identify areas which were central to lesson's success or failure. It is crucial that you develop this skill because it is this that will enable you to survive and continue developing your skills after the course.

Writing a personal journal where you explore your motives for taking the course, your expectations of how you will manage and (as the course progresses) your feelings about your lessons and what you are learning as a result of them could be very beneficial for you.

Do your own work
While the CELTA is not a particularly academic course, it is important that the work you submit for assessment is your own. If you submit work which is later discovered not to be your own, you will be seen as having committed plagiary.

Co-operation with your colleagues and exploiting the ideas of others are good things but plagiarism is not tolerated by Cambridge ESOL and penalties range from reduction of marks to disqualification from the award. In your written assignments the easiest way of avoiding this is by referencing any ideas or quotations you have taken from another's work. The assignment rubrics will show you how to do this if you are not sure.

That's probably enough for now. The main thing is to relax as much as possible and enjoy the thought of starting the journey towards becoming a language teacher. It is a wonderful career and it is certain to be a rewarding experience but it will require organisation, discipline, honesty with yourself and openness to change.

Feel free to get in touch with us either by commenting here or sending us an email at info@berlin.school-of-english.de

I look forward to meeting you all next week.

Best wishes,

Dominic Braham, Anthony Gaughan and Dee Dee Lovering

Technology in ELT - Weblinks

Hi!

Following up on our whistle-stop tour of cyberspace, here's a list of the sites we visited:

The BBC Learning English website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

Breaking News English:
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

Hot Potatoes software:
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

Edunation:
http://www.theconsultants-e.com/edunation/edunation.asp

A good introduction to WebQuests:
http://www.e4b.de/WebQuests/WebQuests.html

The BBC/British Council Teachers' site:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/index.shtml

Podcasts for learners (functional language dialogues):
http://www.eltpodcast.com/

The Macmillan OneStopEnglish site:
http://www.onestopenglish.com/

English for Professional Communication:
http://ec.hku.hk/epc/

Pete Sharma's website (Tech in ELT guru):
http://www.te4be.com/index.htm

A very helpful Blog from an experienced teacher:
http://www.eltnotebook.blogspot.com/

An example of how schools are providing services via their websites - worth a browse:
http://www.target-english.de/

A useful, free podcatcher (sourceforge is worth browsing in its own right):
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Podcast player software to embed in your website:
http://v2.bigcontact.com/about-feedplayers.php

A few tips in conclusion:

1. get a blog - it has lots of learning potential and acts as advertising for you at the same time
2. get a teaching site email address so you can subscribe to all those "FREE LESSON PLANS!" mailing lists without clogging your regular inbox
3. play around with whatever technology you have - you will be surprised what potential there is
4. don't be technophobic - the pen was a scandalous invention in its day!

Cheers,

Anthony

Tips for the week-end

Long Night of the Museums

On Saturday night this week-end nearly all the museums in Berlin are open late. This Long Night of the Museums takes place twice a year and there is always a great atmosphere in the city. More details on www.lange-nacht-der-museen.de

Open Day

This week-end a lot of government buildings (including the chanceller's office) are open to the public. More details on www.bundesregierung.de/Webs/Breg/DE/Bundesregierung/TagderoffenenTuer/tag-der-offenen-tuer.html

Dominic

END OF WEEK ONE GUIDANCE

To do this weekend

Complete Language Related Tasks Assignments part one and two - Remember that the school is open on Saturday 10:00 – 13:00 but is not open on Sunday. If you want to make use of reference books in the resource room to help you with the assignments, you will need to come in on Saturday morning.

People B and C (Tyler, Ian, Joe and Neil), who are teaching on Monday, can sumbit Part Two of the assignment on Tuesday.

Work on lessons for Monday or Tuesday - Remember you need to submit formal lesson plans

Get Some fresh air!

You are strongly advised to take either one day or two half days off and to do something physical: Here are some suggestions (dependent on the weather, of course).

Go for a long walk or a run in the forest (easy to reach on the S-bahn)
Rent a bike and go cycling
Go swimming
Go dancing
DO NOT go out carousing on Sunday night!

Suggested background reading

Extracts provided on receptive skills (Harmer), activating lexis (Thornbury) and teaching grammar (Thornbury), using your voice and teacher talk.

Enjoy the weekend,

Dominic and Gui

Welcome to the August - September CELTA course

Hello!

I'm very happy to be able to welcome you all to the August - September 2007 Cambridge ESOL CELTA course at the Berlin School of English. The next four weeks will be a very busy time for us all but I hope that we at the school can make your time with us as enjoyable and educational as possible.

Because the course is very intensive, it really is a good idea to prepare properly for the course. There are several things you can do to make your entry into the world of EFL teaching as comfortable as possible:

Do the pre-course reading

You should all have received or obtained a copy of the pre-course reading. Make sure that you have worked through The Grammar Development Course as thoroughly as you can before arriving on the first day.

The CELTA course focuses on developing your skills as a language teacher, not your language knowledge per se. During the course, we have to be able to assume a certain degree of knowledge about how the language works in order to have enough time to focus on the core skills of teaching. This is why the pre-course reading is so important.

To prepare for the first week's input you could read chapters 8, 10, 11 and 12 of Learning Teaching.

You do not need to bring The Grammar Development Course or Learning Teaching with you to the school every day. You will need these at home for consolidatory reading.

Do some shopping

You shouldn't need to buy any materials for your lessons during the course but make sure that you have all the personal stationary that you need for study purposes. We recommend the following: a large A4 arch lever file (binder) for your notes; pad of A4 paper; pens; pencils; highlighters; eraser; sharpener.

If you are travelling over from the United States or another part of the world which does not use DIN A4 as a stationary standard, then wait until arriving in Germany before buying a file and paper. Otherwise, the course notes you will receive probably won't fit properly into your file.

You will need to bring €12 with you on the first day, €10 for a locker key deposit and € 2 to buy whiteboard markers.

Get teched up

Your life will be easier on the course if you have access to a computer or a laptop. The school has up to eight PCs for your use but if you have your own laptop you will find preparing lesson plans etc far less stressful.

It is also very handy to have a USB memory stick to transfer files and back up your documents. Wireless access is available in the school. If you wish to make use of this, you should let us know on the first day. A memory stick will enable you to prepare your lesson plans and assignments in comfort on your own laptop or at home before simply printing them out at the school.

Go Open Office

The school computers use Open Office software, which is an Office-style suite of programs by Sun Microsystems. It is freeware and it runs on all current platforms (PC, Mac, Linux etc). You may find it convenient to download Open Office for free from http://www.openoffice.org/ and install it on your computer/laptop.

Spend time with your friends

During the course (even at the weekends) you will have very little time to relax and so it is a good idea to catch up with anyone you want to see before the course starts.

You can expect to be working 2-3 hours per evening during the week plus the equivalent of one full day at the weekend on course-related work apart from any time you find during the "working day" at the school, so don't make the mistake of thinking "I'll surely have time to go to that party/pop over to Krakow for the weekend" etc: you probably won't.

Look at the CELTA syllabus

If you are interested, go to http://www.cambridgeesol.org/teaching/celta8_251103.pdf and familiarise yourself a little with the CELTA course syllabus. You should not worry if you don't understand everything you read; much of it makes more sense once you are actually participating in the course. But it may be interesting for you to see the broad principles behind the course you are about to undertake.

Start a reflective journal

One of the central skills that we will be trying to help you develop is the ability to reflect on your teaching. This means we want you to be able to think critically and evaluatively about what happened in your lessons so that you can identify areas which were central to lesson's success or failure. It is crucial that you develop this skill because it is this that will enable you to survive and continue developing your skills after the course.

Writing a personal journal where you explore your motives for taking the course, your expectations of how you will manage and (as the course progresses) your feelings about your lessons and what you are learning as a result of them could be very beneficial for you.

That's probably enough for now. The main thing is to relax as much as possible and enjoy the thought of starting the journey towards becoming a language teacher. It is a wonderful career and it is certain to be a rewarding experience but it will require organisation, discipline, honesty with yourself and openness to change.

Feel free to get in touch with us either by commenting here or sending us an email at info@berlin.school-of-english.de

I look forward to meeting you all next week.

Best wishes,

Dominic Braham

Final Input and Farewell

Here are some weblinks to internet sites we visited during the input session on Technology in ELT as well as some others which you may find interesting.

The BBC Learning English website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

The BBC/British Council website - http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/index.shtml

The Macmillan publisher's website - http://www.onestopenglish.com/

The Second Life ELT Fantasy Island - http://www.edunation.com

Audacity Audio Editor download - http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

A free Podcast player to embed in a web page - http://www.bigcontact.com/feedplayer.php

An example of how teacers are working at distance with clients - http://www.my-english-teacher.com/

I would like to thank you all and, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, wish you the very best in your future careers.

Best wishes,

Anthony

End of Week Three Guidance and Comments

Hello,

If you feel anything like me, you're feeling a little bit tired and very much looking forward to the weekend. You are all working very hard and it isn't unusual for concentration or motivation to be slipping a little by this stage of the course. It is very important that you rest as much as you can afford over the weekend so that you can approach the final week in a 100% committed way - we still have some way to go!

Your lessons next week will be very much the fruits of your hard work over the last three weeks. They are opportunities to show both your tutors and yourselves exactly how far you have come in this short time. We hope that you will be happy with the outcomes of your lesson planning next week, so invest in this final week as much as you can in terms of energy, concentration, motivation and care.

We are all looking forward to witnessing the results!

To do this week-end
- Work on lessons for Monday and Tuesday
- Complete Skills assignment (Deadline Monday for those teaching Tuesday; Deadline Tuesday for those teaching Monday)
- You could do some preliminary work on Focus on the Learner assignment (but remember that there is no input on Tuesday so you will have time to work on this assignment at that time)
- Get some time off. the Cindy Sherman photo exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau is interesting

Week four schedule
In week four you do not have to attend teaching practice on the days on which you are not teaching. You can use this time for working on assignments and preparing your final lessons.
Feedback on teaching will be the day following the lesson (10.30 – 11.00). Only those who taught need to attend.

TP feedback on Monday week 4 will be immediate for those who taught on that day.

From 11.00 – 11.30 (10.30-11.00 on Monday) the tutors will be available for consultation on lesson planning (see below).

Teaching practice guidance in week four
There will be minimum guidance in week four; at this stage of the course you are expected to prepare lessons independently. The tutors will be available each day in the capacity of librarians to offer guidance about alternative materials and consultants to answer specific questions but essentially you should prepare your final lesson independently and the tutors will not talk you through each stage of your lesson.

Best wishes,

Anthony, Sue and Gui

Assessor's Visit on Friday Week Three

Hello everyone,

The course will be visited on Friday 27 July by a Cambridge ESOL assessor.

During her visit, she will be looking at samples of the work in your files, observing a sample of teaching practice and observation and meeting with the course tutors to discuss each candidate’s performance and development on the course.

In order to make her job as straightforward as possible it is essential that your files are up-to-date and well organised. So, by 09.00hrs on Friday Week 3, please ensure that your file is organised as follows:

1. The records in the blue CELTA 5 are complete and all relevant sections have been signed by you in ink. This booklet should be at the front of your file.

2. You have included all TP documentation in the following order:

A) written tutor feedback
B) your lesson plan
C) materials
C) self-evaluation

The complete documentation for one lesson should be kept together in a transparent slip file.

The records for each lesson should be filed in reverse chronological order (i.e. with the most recent lesson at the front).

3. You have included your marked written assignments (including both first and second submissions as well as any written guidance you received).

4. You have removed any other documents (e.g. observation tasks, input notes, plans from un-assessed lessons).

The assessor will be observing some teaching practice. If she happens to watch your lesson, this is not some special exam for you; it is just another sample she is looking at.

She will also meet with you as a group at 13.45hrs for about 15 minutes. She will probably ask for some feedback from you as part of her role of ensuring that the course has been run in accordance with Cambridge standards and requirements.

If anyone wishes to speak to the assessor in private to discuss any aspect of the course, have a word with her and she will fix a time to speak to you. She will be working in room 301.

Best wishes,

Anthony

End of Week Two Guidance and Comments

First of all, I want to thank you all for your efforts this week. You are all working hard and deserve a break. The weekend is not very long but we hope it is enough to recharge your batteries.

Some of you have had very successful lessons this week; some of you have had (shall we say?) "learning opportunities". The important thing to bear in mind as we move into week three, however you feel your performance has been up to now, is that from Monday we are in some respects back to square one.

Your students will be new to you and this will raise novel challenges: anticipating problems, language grading, pace and timing, planning your lessons with your students in mind - all this will be more difficult in week three than it was in week two.

As a result, you may find that your initial lessons with the new group don't always go as smoothly as you might expect. This is in many ways normal and you should see it as "acclimatisation". You need to extract the lessons from your TP sessions as quickly as possible so you can act on them in your following lessons.

We will take account of all this in the way we assess your initial encounter with your new group. We anticipate some initial "turbulence" and will make allowances; what we won't accept is poor performance in areas that we can justifiably expect you to be in reasonable command of at this stage (such as planning your procedure, framing aims, ordering materials, receptive skills procedures, class organisation and management).

To do this week-end

- Lessons from the Classroom assignment – please note that this needs to be submitted at 9.00hrs so that your tutors can read it before your tutorial meeting
- Work on resubmissions of Language Related Tasks (if necessary)
- Prepare for tutorial – complete self-evaluation in CELTA 5 (p. 11 – 15)

Suggested background reading

- Scrivener old edition p. 6-8/new edition p.22-26 (Three kinds of teacher)
- Scrivener old edition p.16-19/new edition p.105-108 (Potential problems)


Don’t forget to take some time off and do something physical or at least not work-related!

The Sony Cinestar at Potsdamer Platz shows original language films. Current options include:

Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard
The new Harry Potter movie
The Namesake (matinee only)

Teaching practice in week 3

On Monday you will interview students from your new group and also teach the others in a carousel style (more details on Monday).

Assessed teaching practice starts on Tuesday.

You will receive guidance for Tuesday and Wednesday’s lessons on Monday and there will be additional lesson preparation time on Tuesday (i.e. there is no input from 12.30 to 14.00)

Assessor visit in week 3

The Cambridge assessor will be visiting us on Friday Week Three. More information regarding her role will be given closer to the time.

Best wishes,

Anthony

End of week one guidance

END OF WEEK ONE GUIDANCE

To do this weekend

Complete Language Related Tasks Assignments part one and two - Remember that the school is open on Saturday 10:00 – 13:00 but is not open on Sunday. If you want to make use of reference books in the resource room to help you with the assignments, you will need to come in on Saturday morning.

Work on lessons for Tuesday or Wednesday - Remember you need to submit formal lesson plans – but the final work on the plans can be done on Monday or Tuesday after you have had relevant input

Get Some fresh air!

You are strongly advised to take either one day or two half days off and to do something physical: Here are some suggestions (dependent on the weather, of course).

Go for a long walk or a run in the forest (easy to reach on the S-bahn)
Rent a bike and go cycling
Go swimming
Go dancing
Go skating
DO NOT go out carousing on Sunday night!


Suggested background reading if you have time after relaxing

Extracts provided on receptive skills, activating lexis and teaching grammar
Scrivener p.226-251(Lexis)
Scrivener p. 170-191 (Receptive skills)
Photocopied extract from Harmer: the Practice of English Language Teaching on receptive skills

Here are the concert details for the Elgar fans among you:

Edward Elgar - Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester e-Moll / Antonin Dvorák - Symphonie Nr. 9 „Aus der Neuen Welt“
Symphonisches Orchester der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Leitung: Constantin Alex
Sonnabend, 14. Juli 2007, 20:00 Uhr, open air im Innenhof der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Mitte

Enjoy the weekend,

Anthony, Gui and Sue

First TP over - how do you feel?

Hello!

Today many of you taught your first assessed teaching practice lesson and I guess you have spent a fair bit of time discussing the experience with your colleagues by now. However you felt your lesson went, I would like to say that we your tutors were very pleased with what we saw.

And what exactly did we see? Well, we saw hard-working, concentrated people trying to implement whatever they had planned to do while taking account of the students in the room. we saw fledgling teachers making some initial errors of judgement or errors of execution, true, but mostly what we saw was an impressive level of quality and focus. we saw lessons which the teachers who gave them can be proud of at this point.

The important thing is to look objectively at how you operated during your lesson as well as the the outcomes. This means considering how much "teaching time" you had under your belt before standing up their today. Many of you had never tried to teach language before today - the fact that you were able to lead a reasonably successful lesson at your first attempt is a tribute to you.

But let's not get complacent this early. You know how much effort you put into preparing for today and we have seven more lessons ahead of us. So keep focused and good luck!

Welcome, Class of July 2007!

Hello!

I'm very happy to be able to welcome you all to the July 2007 Cambridge ESOL CELTA course at the Berlin School of English. The next four weeks will be a very busy time for us all but I hope that we at the school can make your time with us as enjoyable and educational as possible.

Because the course is very intensive, it really is a good idea to prepare properly for the course. There are several things you can do to make your entry into the world of EFL teaching as comfortable as possible:

Do the pre-course reading

You should all have received or obtained a copy of the pre-course reading. Make sure that you have worked through the grammar development course as thoroughly as you can before arriving on the first day.

The CELTA course focuses on developing your skills as a language teacher, not your language knowledge per se. During the course, we have to be able to assume a certain degree of knowledge about how the language works in order to have enough time to focus on the core skills of teaching. This is why the pre-course reading is so important.

Do some shopping

You shouldn't need to buy any materials for your lessons during the course but make sure that you have all the personal stationary that you need for study purposes. We recommend the following: a large A4 arch lever file for your notes; pad of A4 paper; pens; pencils; highlighters; eraser; sharpener.

If you are travelling over from the United States or another part of the world which does not use DIN A4 as a stationary standard, then wait until arriving in Germany before buying a file and paper. Otherwise, the course notes you will receive probably won't fit properly into your file.

Get teched up

Your life will be easier on the course if you have access to a computer or a laptop. The school has up to eight PCs for your use but if you have your own laptop you will find preparing lesson plans etc far less stressful.

It is also very handy to have a USB memory stick to transfer files and back up your documents. The school is in the process of establishing a wireless network but there is no guarantee at this point that it will be in place before your course. A memory stick will enable you to prepare your lesson plans and assignments in comfort on your own laptop or at home before simply printing them out at the school.

Go Open Office

The school computers use Open Office software, which is an Office-style suite of programs by Sun Microsystems. It is freeware and it runs on all current platforms (PC, Mac, Linux etc). You may find it convenient to download Open Office for free from http://www.openoffice.org/ and install it on your computer/laptop.

Spend time with your friends

During the course (even at the weekends) you will have very little time to relax and so it is a good idea to catch up with anyone you want to see before the course starts.

You can expect to be working 2-3 hours per evening during the week plus the equivalent of one full day at the weekend on course-related work apart from any time you find during the "working day" at the school, so don't make the mistake of thinking "I'll surely have time to go to that party/pop over to Krakow for the weekend" etc: you probably won't.

Look at the CELTA syllabus

If you are interested, go to http://www.cambridgeesol.org/teaching/celta8_251103.pdf and familiarise yourself a little with the CELTA course syllabus. You should not worry if you don't understand everything you read; much of it makes more sense once you are actually participating in the course. But it may be interesting for you to see the broad principles behind the course you are about to undertake.

Start a reflective journal

One of the central skills that we will be trying to help you develop is the ability to reflect on your teaching. This means we want you to be able to think critically and evaluatively about what happened in your lessons so that you can identify areas which were central to lesson's success or failure. It is crucial that you develop this skill because it is this that will enable you to survive and continue developing your skills after the course.

Writing a personal journal where you explore your motives for taking the course, your expectations of how you will manage and (as the course progresses) your feelings about your lessons and what you are learning as a result of them could be very beneficial for you.

That's probably enough for now. The main thing is to relax as much as possible and enjoy the thought of starting the journey towards becoming a language teacher. It is a wonderful career and it is certain to be a rewarding experience but it will require organisation, discipline, honesty with yourself and openness to change.

Feel free to get in touch with us either by commenting here or sending us an email at info@berlin.school-of-english.de

I look forward to meeting you all in July.

Best wishes,

Anthony