Transcript:
Hello again, guys. It’s Steve here from celtahelper.com and I’ve got another question to answer from a prospective CELTA student about the online CELTA course. The question came from Muhammad and he said, “What’s the difference between the normal and the online CELTA and which kind do you think is better?” So
The question came from Muhammad and he said: “What’s the difference between the normal and the online CELTA and which kind do you think is better?” So
“What is the difference between the online CELTA and the normal CELTA and which kind do you think is better?”
So first thing to say, I did not do the online CELTA course, so I don’t know every detail about it. But, from speaking to people who’ve done it and from reading up online, I’m going to give you as much as I know.
If you have done it and there’s anything you think I’ve missed, please tell me and I will add or I will correct this.
I’ll also say that the second part of Muhammad’s question, which [course] do I think is better, is a very complicated one as we will see shortly because there are so many different factors to consider. It really depends on you!
Main Points of the Online CELTA Course
So if we go through a quick run down of the online course to start, now the online course, the main difference is that it gives you access to the input session on your CELTA course as these are recorded.
What do I mean by input sessions? These are the lessons where your trainers will follow the CELTA syllabus and they’ll give you input on different things like classroom management, teaching grammar, the flow of a lesson, all this kind of stuff and you can see the kind of things that will be in that if you look up the syllabus for the course in Scott Thornbury’s CELTA Trainers’ Manual. Not the trainee [book] because that doesn’t really have as clearly the Trainers’ Manual and you can actually find the contents of that from the publisher’s website directly to see and that might help you decide if it’s something you think you want to be there for.
Not the trainee [book] because that doesn’t really have as clearly the Trainers’ Manual and you can actually find the contents of that from the publisher’s website directly to see and that might help you decide if it’s something you think you want to be there for.
Obviously, with these being online, you get that added flexibility because you can access those materials in your own time. You don’t have to turn up to the centre.
However, one thing that is not very clear to many people and it wasn’t to me either:
You still need to go to the CELTA training centre for your teaching practice. It is not 100% online.
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It really should be called a blended learning course because blended learning means mixing online with traditional classroom-based practice and because such a big part of it is the teaching practice, I think it’s really misleading to call it an online CELTA. It really should be a blended CELTA. But remember, you can’t just do it from home. It’s not like that. Maybe you can do that with some TEFL courses. But the CELTA course, you have to go to a centre for the teaching
It really should be a blended CELTA. But remember, you can’t just do it from home. It’s not like that. Maybe you can do that with some TEFL courses. But the CELTA course, you have to go to a centre for the teaching practice, so even though you think you have found an online CELTA centre, it has to be somewhere you can actually go to.
So you can’t do an online CELTA centre in another country from your hometown unfortunately. So be aware of that. Really misleading, but it’s something that’s worth knowing. Now let’s compare that to the normal CELTA. I say normal. The standard one. That’s what Muhammad called it.
Main Points of the Standard CELTA Course
The standard CELTA, essentially the things you would get, obviously as I said, you would have to be there for all of those sessions. So you lose that flexibility that you would have with the online one.
However, you have more of an interactive feel. You’re in a classroom. You’re in a group and you can interact with other people. Through that interaction, you build up more of a rapport.
Now I said interaction. There may be some kind of chat or forum element to the systems you use. But still, I don’t feel it will be the same and that’s one of the common problems with e-learning is people don’t feel they have that genuine human interaction.
So if that’s something you think you will miss, then think about that seriously. However, if you’re doing the standard CELTA course and miss an input session, perhaps due to illness or something like that, it’s only a one shot thing. You can’t get that back.
However, on the online one, you can watch the videos over and over again in your own time, whenever you want. So there is one big difference there and that could be helpful.
Summary
They don’t do online CELTAs in every place in the world [or] in every CELTA centre. Only some of them offer it as an option. So it really depends on where you can go and which one suits your learning. So hopefully from those, you can make a choice for yourself which you think is better.
If you have any more questions, just ask me and the comments before and hopefully I can help you with your CELTA questions!
So I’ll talk to you soon.
Bye.
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