So here we are teacher training with CELTA

Phbtttt, what a week! Last Monday I started the CELTA course which, in a month of gruelling intensive training, will (hopefully) allow me to become a teacher of English here in Paris. And it's been one hell of a week. It all started at 9 AM in a grotty lino-floored and plastic seated room in a building in the Passage Dauphine, in the latin quarter. Twelve of us sat around while an enthusiastic Irish teacher outlined the course and a bit of the CELTA philosophy : plunge 'em in and let 'em work it out as it goes along. This means that we study teaching on a monday and teach every afternoon from Tuesday onwards, while following "theory" classes in the morning. These are scheduled as "Error correction", "Lesson planning" or "Pronunciation and drilling", and despite being full of teacher jargon and half baked modelisations of what teaching is, do address some interesting points that one must bear in mind while teaching.

So late on Monday afternoon, after a day of getting used to the course and getting to know the others, we start to pan our very first lesson. Having been divided into two groups of six we got acquainted with lesson planning. Panic. Each of us has a twenty minute slot in which we must address a particular aspect of language teaching.

[You really want to know? ok then : language practice (2 slots) is about in-putting vocabulary and then using it, in interrogative sentences for ex; skills teaching (3 slots) consists in listening, reading and writing exercises, while the last slot is devoted to the "freer practice" during which the students (or learners as they are called) apply what they have learned in a less structured and supposedly more "fun" way. it's actually a good way of doing it.]

So long days (9h15 to 6 if you're lucky) and even longer nights as one frantically tries to prepare a teaching practice that will allow one not to make a complete dick of oneself in front of a class of fifteen adults. This first week has required a certain amount of imagination, be it to prepare a text that may inspire them to answer questions on, to deciding how best to review the alphabet, or how to get them to practice vocabulary relating to description.

But despite the massive work load (I'm tired...) i's been good fun. The course buddies are all nice without exception, though I spend a lot more time with the other five in my teaching group. We are an international lot : Ronnie from Austria, Erin and Christen from the US, Jen from the UK and French Sonia. And we teach! Not always amazingly but sufficiently well to have held the class's attention every day and hopefully taught them a few things about English.

There have been slightly awkward moments of course : for example after 10 minutes of teaching I realise that I have got to the end of my lesson plan (so lets improvise a writing exercise, to everyone's dismay). The main was however when I decided to teach them "lighthouse". there is a strict "No other language than English" policy, so I thought the best way to make them understand would be to draw one on the board. As I did so, adding a long tall lighthouse to the pile of rocks I had added for extra atmosphere, I heard sniggers which of course were directed at the enormous erect penis I was casually sketching. Oops! I had a light at the top: the penis hole. I add a beam of light shining from it: wow! ejaculation. Can it get any worse? Yup. I desperately add stripes to the lighthouse (in my mind's eye lighthouses have red stripes on them), it somehow makes it look even more so. I add a boat to draw their attention away : a vaginal sloop. Lots of giggles (good god, their ages range from about 25 to 50!). Still, if that is the worse thing I do I'll be happy.

On another note however. The CELTA, prestigious and no doubt efficient as it is, seems a bit of a rip off. For €1525 (yes, a thousand quid) we get lousy facilities (albeit in a stunning location in the latin quarter) where the tape machine is antique, the books museum-quality, the plastic seats have broken flaps of 'table' badly screwed to them. There are no stapler, scissors, hole puncher or even decent pens for the board. And to top it all we teach people (in our case unemployed) who also pay! It can't all go on the rent and the salaries of the tutors!