celta practice

8/12/2019 CELTA Practice

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CELTA Pre-Course Task Practice (Certificate in Teaching English toSpeakers of Other Languages) Sunday, 18 May 20144:13 PMTask 1 - Types of contexts

1. In what context will you be doing the CELTA course?

I will be completing the course in an open, most likely monolingual context, where mycolleagues are likely to be other native English speakers.

2. Do you know what context you will be teaching in after you finish the course?

I would like to teach one-to-one lessons, or lessons in groups, in monolingual groups of nativeSpanish speakers, with previous formal education, mixed gender, with a similar ability, ingenerally smaller classes to allow for higher engagement.

Task 2 - Adult learners

1. Think about why you decided to teach adults.

As a comparison to teaching children, you can create much more interesting conversationsand develop much more exciting discussions with adults. Adults are generally paying to learnEnglish and want to be there. This means they are usually motivated to learn and interested inlearning English, whether it's for personal or professional gain.

2. What do adults bring to this learning situation?

Adult learners often bring: Reasons for learning, either to pursue personal or professional goals Specific goals and expectations Successful and unsuccessful past learning experiences Rich life experience, enabling interesting in class discussions Attitudes towards learning, the culture and the language There already have ideas about the role of the teacher and the learner They have likely developed literacy and thinking skills Different learning styles, and varying levels of confidence and self-esteem, or anxiety Status of 'face' An ability to reflect on their learning.

Task 3 - Finding out about learners

1. What would you want to find out about a group of learners that you had to teach so that youcould plan your lessons?

You usually find out about: Their jobs or their studies - what do they do? Their language learning experience up till now (how long and how often they practice?) What language learning activities they are used to doing (games, grammar exercises,

practicing with conversation in class) The level of books they used or the level of the class they studied in, if any


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How much they enjoyed learning English The reasons they are learning English, and why, what are their specific goals for learning

- what do they need in terms of particular skills? The length of time they are going to stay in the course, and what they expect to learn What makes them comfortable when learning

Hobbies and interests 2. How?

You can find out about learners by: Looking at interview notes made during placement tests, if they were interviewed Having personal interviews in the first few days Give the learners a questionnaire As a class activity, you could ask the learners to interview each other and then write up

then information on a poster You could ask the learners to write about themselves in a letter of introduction to you

If they are just moving into your class, you could talk to their previous teachers

Task 4 - Motivations for learning English

1. If you were teaching a group of learners, each of whom had different motivations for learningEnglish, which learners would be the most challenging in terms of motivation?

I think the biggest challenge would come when learners are unsure of their goals, they havebeen told by their parents or employers that they have to do the course, or they have to dothe course because their next job demands it, and they have no interest in the language or theculture. This is crucial - you must have a strong interest in learning the language or culture to

learn effectively. The critical aspect in motivation is the strength of the motivation - internalfactors will be much stronger than external factors.

Task 5 - The qualities and skills of a good language teacher

1. Looking at the list of qualities and skills that a teacher might have, which do you think learnersmost often rate in the top 5?

Learners often say they would like teachers who: Are friendly and kind Have a good sense of humour Explain clearly Have patience Know their subject

Task 6 - Overview of grammar

1. What is grammar? Make a list of associations you have with the word grammar.

Grammar is sometimes perceived as something very abstract and difficult associated with longand complicated sentences. Grammar is sometime we use everyday when we speak or write,and is simply a 'system' that we use to express meaning. Native English speakers speak andwrite extremely well without having any explicit knowledge of grammar. Native speakers dohave an implicit knowledge, and use it correctly.


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People who have studied a second language may have more awareness of grammar, but theymight only know the terminology in their own language.

Task 7 - Grammar practice

1. Correct 2. Incorrect - present perfect is only used in a current time frame, for example, this week, this

year, this morning, and not for time frames that have terminated, such as last night.3. Incorrect - the verb conjugation of the verb 'to come' her is in the first/second person,

whereas it should be in the third person, 'He often comes late'. 4. Correct 5. Incorrect - this is due a confusion of the location of adjectives. According to the rule, adjectives

are always placed before a noun, 'Can I have a black coffee, please?' 6. Incorrect - confusion between less and fewer. Less is used with uncountable nouns such as

money, whereas fewer is used for countable nouns, such as the number of items. It should be

'People with 12 items or fewer can queue here'.

Task 8 - Why English teachers need to know grammar

1. Provide a list of reasons why English language teachers need to know about grammar. In doingso, try to give some thought to the learners' perspective.

The key reason here is that teachers need to be able to help learners with their language andhaving explicit knowledge of language is necessary in order to do this completely andefficiently as possible. If a learner produces an incorrect phrase or sentence, the teacher notonly needs to give a correct model, but should also be able to explain why the learner's version

was incorrect. This is only possible if we know the grammar and terminology.

A second reason concerns learner's expectations. We expect a mathematics teacher to knowabout mathematics, likewise, an English language teacher should know about language.

Most courses and syllabi in schools include a specific focus on grammar on a reasonablyregular basis. In order to be able to interpret and deliver lessons from their resources, we needto develop grammatical knowledge.

Task 9 - Word class

1. Identify the underlined words in the following dialogue. Use a grammar reference book ordictionary to help you if necessary.

a. Subject pronounb. Indefinite articlec. Coordinating conjunctiond. Adverb of degreee. Adjectivef. Modal auxiliary verbg. Demonstrative determinerh. Prepositioni. Verb

j. Noun


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Task 10 - Types of verbs

We can look at verbs as belonging to two broad categories: lexical and auxiliary . Lexical verbscontain some kind of meaning and can stand alone. Therefore, in the sentence, I love chocolate ice

cream, the verb love is lexical.

Other verbs fulfil the purpose of acting as a help or support to lexical verbs and are called auxiliary. For example, in the sentence, he is watching television, the verb is performs the role of helping themain verb watch to make the present progressive tense and has no independent meaning on itsown.

Auxiliary verbs can help make tenses that contain more than one verb. Also can be used to createnegative and interrogative (or question) forms. For example, to make the sentence, He lives here,we need to add auxiliary does as well as not , i.e. He doesn't live here . In order to create the question,we add does and alter the word order, i.e. Does he live here?

Task 11 - Function of auxiliary and lexical verbs

There are three auxiliary verbs that have the function of creating different forms: be, do and have.However, all three can function as lexical verbs as well.

Task 12 - Modal auxiliary verbs

These are similar to other auxiliary verbs in that they cannot stand alone, however, they do carrysome meaning.

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Advice2. Permission3. Logical deduction4. Ability5. Possibility

Task 13 - Verb forms

1. Past tense form2. -ing form (gerund or progressive)3. 3rd person - present simple tense4. Base form5. Past participle form

Task 14 - Past form and past participles

The -ing forms can be present participles, I'm working as hard as I can . And also used as gerundswhen they act as a noun, as in, Walking is good for your health.

Past forms and past participle forms can be regular or irregular. It is not possible to look at the baseform and determine whether it is regular or irregular. Native speakers know this informationimplicitly, while learners of English usually have to memorise a list of irregular verbs.

Hear - heard - heard


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Think - thought - thoughtGo - went - goneDo - did- doneTake - took - takenDrink - drunk - drunk

Help - helped - helpedSteal - stole - stolenArrive - arrived - arrived

Task 15 - Verb phrases

We can combine the base form have with the past participle be of been together with the -ing formof a lexical verb in order to create a verb phrase that describes an action that began in the past andcontinues until the present.

I have been waiting for an hour.

Alternatively, we can combine the modal should with the base form of have and the past participleof a lexical verb in order to create a verb phrase that can be used to criticise someone.

You should have studied much harder for the exam.In this sentence, both should and have are auxiliary.

1. Past, progressive2. Modal, perfect3. Past, perfect4. Past, progressive, passive

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Past, simple6. Modal, progressive

Task 16 - Labelling the tense name

1. Present continuous (progressive), am is the auxiliary2. Simple past3. Present simple4. Past perfect5. Passive, present6. Future perfect7. Simple past, with past progressive8. Present perfect progressive

Task 17 -

Task 24 - Phonology

1. Stress = giving emphasis to one syllable2. Phoneme = an individual sound3. Intonation = the music of our voice

Task 25


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1. B 2. C 3. A

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