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!