Module 1, Unit 1 video transcription

1. Christina

Welcome to Unit 1. I'm your instructor Christina Kaku. In this unit, we'll explore the content of the CELTA
course. We'll start by looking at course types, schedules, and delivery methods. Then, we'll cover what
coursework you’ll do on the CELTA and touch on how the assessment process works. We'll also introduce a few
key concepts related to language learning and teaching. Lastly, we'll compare the work you'll be doing on the
CELTA to what is asked for in job advertisements and what is expected of a language teacher in the classroom.
This will help you understand why the CELTA is so revered by employers and how you can exploit that in your
job search. Overall, Unit 1 aims to raise your awareness about what is included on the CELTA course. You can
get started right now – enjoy!

2. Izabela

The guided lesson planning was extremely helpful in the first part of the course because I wanted to learn how it
is supposed to be according to Cambridge standards and I wanted to understand what the requirements were
and to do it accordingly to what’s expected from me. It was also interesting when I was able to confront my
ideas with my tutor and with my peers. The observations of others or sometimes brainstorming together helped
me improve the final presentation and it helped me be more effective.

3. Harold

I think one of the really strongest parts of the course is the amount and level of feedback, both from peers and
from the trainers. From the peers the feedback process was built into the entire method of instruction. So after
each of us taught a class we would get feedback from our peers. And the feedback was designed to be both
positive comments and constructive criticisms, and so it was always balanced and usually quite helpful. And I
found that a lot of the comments were very consistent from different fellow trainees, and so that reinforced my
understanding of what I needed to improve on.

4. Izabela

During the self-reflection process, I’ve learned to take responsibility for my own progress. It gave me the sense
of taking myself accountable for everything I do and just be responsible for the process. I know I worked very
hard on improving my skills. Sometimes it was impossible to overcome it within a week, but I felt I knew where I
was at on my track and during my path, so it gave me a sense of knowing where I was.

5. Suzanne

Generally, it was similar to what had been spoken anyway, so I think that I was prepared for it. Generally,
everything that was written I completely understood and was able to use and get better with. I think it was all –
the written feedback was easier to process. Particularly after having just taught a lesson, you know, your brain is
all a bit fuddled anyway, so when you’re listening to someone telling you various things, you take on part of it,
and you don’t always take all of it. When you’re reading that written feedback it’s a lot easier to process it.
 6. Brian

The person who interviewed me, he explained to me that responding to the feedback is a really important part
of taking the course, so in developing over the course of the course. So, what I would do is after I did my
teaching practice and I went home, I would look at the feedback and I would I believe that in the next lesson
plan there were personal goals that you were supposed to set. My process was to look at the feedback and look
at the personal goals that I needed to set in the next lesson and try to actively, consciously be proactive in
resolving whatever issues it was that my tutor had said. Let’s say that they said I did too much teacher talking
time, so one of my personal goals in the next lesson would be to reduce my teacher talking time.

7. Christina

Hi, I’m Christina Kaku, your instructor, and this video is about three important CELTA concepts. These concepts
are: language systems and skills, integrated systems and skills, and communicative language teaching.

Let’s look at language systems and skills first, and we’ll start with systems. Grammar and vocabulary – people
have generally heard of these. Phonology – that’s to do with pronunciation. And functions – functional language
is various sets of useful phrases that you can use in a certain situation or to accomplish a certain goal, sort of
like you might find in a phrase book when you travel abroad.

Now the skills. Listening, speaking, reading and writing. People have generally heard of these, too. But let’s take
another look at them. Let’s look at listening and reading. This is when you get information, you take it in, you
receive it. And so these are what we call our receptive skills. Whereas with speaking and writing you have a
message and you’re getting it out, you produce a message and you send it off into the world. And for that
reason, we call these our productive skills.

Alright, let’s see how this might look in a lesson or in a coursebook by looking at integrated systems or skills. You
might have a listening and a speaking lesson - a classic skills lesson. Start by having learners listen to something,
work on that, and get some inspiration for learners to do a speaking task later. You can do the same thing with
reading and writing – have learners do that reading first, then have them do some writing about that topic later.
You can switch it up – you can do listening and writing, or you can do reading and speaking. It’s not the only way
to do a skills lesson, but it is one common way.

But what about this? You could add in some systems work. Reading, vocabulary and then writing. Or maybe
listening and functions and then speaking. We could go wild – two systems and two skills – vocabulary, reading,
grammar and speaking. Why would we let it get quite this messy with this many things? Well, hold that thought.

Let’s have a look at Communicative Language Teaching. The basis of Communicative Language Teaching is that
the end goal for students is to be able to interact and communicate with their new language. That’s what they
want, right? And the idea is, how could we ever expect to get there without having them interact and
communicate in the classroom? Right? We want to get them to their final goal, and we can’t just have one
lesson that’s all about reading or all about grammar with absolutely nothing else included in it and still expect to
reach that goal. So, this idea of integrated systems and skills working together with Communicative Language
Teaching is so that we can provide students with a well-structured, easy-to-understand lesson, of course,
because we want to be good, organized teachers, but also provide them with a little bit of realism to see what
they’re going to encounter and hear out in the world. Okay, so they’re not going to spend all day just listening
and think, “Wow, this was a great new day in English!” They’re going to listen, they’re going to speak, they’re
going to read a sign as they’re walking down the street, they’re going to, you know, write something to
someone. Maybe a text message to a friend. Who knows? They’re going to use all those skills together. They’re
going to use grammar when they do all of those things. And vocabulary. And functions. And they’re going to
pronounce things as they go about their day. It all happens together in the real world. And so if we want them
to be able to communicate outside the classroom, we’ve got to put these things together in our lessons.
Now, Communicative Language Teaching has been around for decades. So, there are lots of other theories and
approaches around now that have to do with communication in the classroom and in the real world. I’m not
saying that Communicative Language Teaching is the one and only good teaching theory, but it has been very
influential. There’s often a relationship between CLT and other modern theories. Sometimes it influences them,
sometimes they influence CLT. But they all promote communication, in the classroom and beyond.

And that’s it. Those are three important CELTA concepts.

8. Christina

In Unit 1, we have learned about the content of the CELTA course. We've also been introduced to three
important concepts on the CELTA course: skills and systems, integrated skills and systems, and Communicative
Language Teaching. We have seen that input covers teaching theory and that observations, teaching and
feedback cover teaching practice. Assignments, then, provide an opportunity to show more in-depth
understanding of both theory and practice. In addition to this, we've seen that one of the most valuable things
on the CELTA course is the teaching practice process. You'll prepare different types of lessons, teach them to
real students and get feedback that you can use to help improve and teach even better lessons in the future.
This is what mirrors the life of a language teacher the closest, and one of the things that many people value the
most on the course.
Thanks for joining us for Unit 1. Let's get started on Unit 2.