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Celt course workload?

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  • 17-06-2009 12:09pm
    #1
    helpwanted1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 77 ✭✭


    Anybody have any information on the level of work involved in successfully completing the ACELS CELT course?


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    #2
    sunflower!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 55 ✭✭sunflower!


    I dont know if you are a teacher already but if you are can I recommend a course I did last summer. It was one week long and only for already qualified teachers. It was pretty intensive but well worth it as you got your ACELS certification and it is Department of Education recognised. You have to do lesson plans etc and teach a class of your peers pretending to be students of differing levels. You do also need to be supervised teaching an actual class but I think you have three years afterward to do that and if you are having trouble they will let you come back and teach one of their classes and supervise/examine you there! (I'll be doing this this summer as I haven't gotten around to it yet!) I will pm you the details if you like? ;)


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    #3
    helpwanted1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 77 ✭✭helpwanted1


    sunflower! wrote: »
    I dont know if you are a teacher already but if you are can I recommend a course I did last summer. It was one week long and only for already qualified teachers. It was pretty intensive but well worth it as you got your ACELS certification and it is Department of Education recognised. You have to do lesson plans etc and teach a class of your peers pretending to be students of differing levels. You do also need to be supervised teaching an actual class but I think you have three years afterward to do that and if you are having trouble they will let you come back and teach one of their classes and supervise/examine you there! (I'll be doing this this summer as I haven't gotten around to it yet!) I will pm you the details if you like? ;)

    Thanks but unfortunately sunflower I am not an already qualified teacher...wish I was.


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    #4
    Rosita
    Registered Users Posts: 3,933 ✭✭✭Rosita


    helpwanted1 wrote: »
    Anybody have any information on the level of work involved in successfully completing the ACELS CELT course?



    A lot depends on whether you do the course part-time or full-time. I did it part-time and obviously in doing that you tend to have other stuff going on so with there being a lot of contact time (teaching practice plus observation and actual classes to do with the course itself which amount to an average of twice a week +) it is hard going. My course included four weekends - all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

    To put it in context, you have roughly the same attendance/contact time for the course as a full year for one year of an Arts subject in college, and unlike the latter you cannot get away with not turning up.

    I had 6 study reports (assignments to do with the teaching practices) and the portfolio (class notes - which I must admit baffles me), plus various in-class 'reflections' on things done in class.

    Academically it is not very demanding but the time investment and intensity of the workload (you will have something going on all the time) requires that you have a clean slate going in and are not trying to do various other things at the same time. I would say that the full-time course would be good as by definition (presumably anyway) you would be totally concentrated on the course though it would be a hectic four weeks at that.

    I can say that while it is quite doable, there is maybe a general tendency (there was in my group anyway) to under-estimate the workload because (a) it's your natural language and (b) there are weekend courses purporting to do the same thing which make it look handy and (c) most, including myself before this course, did not recognise the massive distinction between knowing stuff yourself and being able to successfully teach it and that skill takes some acquiring, and I found instruction in this area - in terms of how one could improve - a bit vague and abstract to be honest.

    About a third of my group - for various reasons such as workload when they had other things going on - did not finish including one guy who failed teaching practice with just a week left on the course. That was €1,000 down the topilet.

    It is not brain-surgery, but it is not to be under-estimated or taken in any half-hearted afterthought sort of way.


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