Most teachers (including us here at celtatrain), need grammatical help every now and again. We will soon be releasing 'Language Life Support - everything you need to know in order to successfully analyse language for teaching' and over the next few weeks, you can have some sneak peeks...for free! Click on the links below as …
Free materials! ‘Putting it into Practice’
For the next month, each week, we will be posting a free lesson from our product: 'Putting it into Practice - Lessons, guidance and resources for an active and principled classroom'. The full product will be released on February 17th. All the lessons include a full plan and can be used exactly as they are, …
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Welcome!
If you've come to this site, it probably means you are thinking about doing a CELTA, are due to start a CELTA, or have recently completed a CELTA. Hopefully this site has something to offer you no matter which of these categories you fall into. Who am I and why do I think I can …
Checking Understanding – Part 2 – Concept Checking Questions (CCQs)
In part one, (see here), we established that when teaching, we may need to check students’ understanding of two main areas; instructions and language, and we explored why asking ‘Do you understand?’ is not a good way to check either of these things. Previously we discussed ICQs, (instruction Checking Questions), and now we are going …
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Checking Understanding – Part 1, Instruction Checking Questions (ICQs)
In our everyday life outside the classroom, when we want to check if we have been understood, the most straightforward thing to do is simply ask ’Do you understand?’, or ‘Do you know what I mean?’. For the most part, people will tell us that they did or they didn’t. If they say they did, …
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Collocation: What it is, and 9 activities to use in your classroom
In this post, we’re going to think about collocations, and look at some practical classroom activities we can use to help students communicate better through their use. Vocabulary or lexis? When we think about the teaching and learning of vocabulary, we tend to think about individual words. In many classrooms, students are encouraged to memorise …
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Speaking skills – getting students talking
Imagine a situation. You’re in the classroom, and the aim of the lesson or stage is focused on speaking skills. You tell students what you want them to talk about, and then…nothing really happens. Not much speaking is generated and what should have been a nice 15 minutes of animated discussion, quickly fades into two …
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Lesson Planning – problems…problems…and solutions! Part 2
Imagine you walk to work every day. You look out of the window and there are a few dark clouds about. What might you do? I’d put my umbrella in my bag…just in case it decides to pour with rain when I’m half way there. Anticipating problems our learners may have is just like this. …
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Lesson planning – problems, problems…and solutions! Part 1
Especially in the early days of teaching, figuring out what is going to be problematic for students is one of the more challenging elements of lesson planning. If we haven’t had much exposure to students, we may feel like we are making wild guesses. In the first of two posts about potential problems and solutions, …
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Dictation – advantages and ideas
What comes to mind when you think of dictation? For many people, it’s boring and teacher-centred activities where the teacher talks and talks and the students struggle to write down every word the teacher says. If that’s your belief, then read on for practical and student-centred activities and ways to incorporate dictation into many different …
Timing – when to go slow, when to move on
Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of planning and executing a lesson, is getting the timing right. How long will an activity take? When should I move on? Am I going too fast / too slow? How do I know? We’re going to look at these questions and more, and provide some answers and …
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