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Lessons from the Classroom

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CELTA K.S. ASSIGNMENT 4: LESSONS FROM THE CLASSROOM I decided to take CELTA course as part of my continuing professional development. I am working in a FE institution and I am training and assessing NVQs at the moment, but have wanted to move on to full time ESOL and literacy for quite some time. I also really wanted to go travelling and thought that teaching could be the answer to any cash shortages on the way. The three month-journey I put myself through with CELTA proved to me that I can actually start thinking seriously about pursuing a career in ELT and gave me confidence to kick start my travelling preparations, because I do not have to worry so much about coming back and finding myself without a job, money and career …show more content…

During one of the input sessions we watched a DVD in which Jane was drilling and using clapping to mark the stress. I thought that as much as effective it was, it was a bit scary too, so in my lesson I decided to use some hip hop music (instrumental) and use punching in the air to mark the stress. It proved to be a success with my students and I got really good feedback from Fay, my colleagues and also from my students, whom I met in IH after I changed to the upper intermediate level. One of the first lessons I observed was Jess’s Study Skills Low. She had a really good reading and writing lesson and I thought she did an amazing job getting her Korean students (who are traditionally quiet and shy) to speak. In her writing part of the lesson she played some classical music and I thought it worked really well and helped with the atmosphere in the classroom. I decided to use music in my lessons too, but changed the genre, as classical music really lowers my energy levels. Background music really helps, especially in freer activities, because it takes away any inhibitions and students can speak freely. Observing Jess also showed me the importance of sitting down instead of towering over students and also standing back and letting them speak freely, even if they make mistakes. I am a little bit of a control freak so I found both sitting down and standing back quite

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