CELTA

First off, apologies for the inexcusable lack of postage over the past couple weeks. But we are back. And with a vengeance.

Now, as many of you, our dear readers, know, we came to Vietnam to get our CELTA certifications and learn how to teach English as a second language. Briefly: CELTA, or Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, is an internationally recognized certification bestowed by Cambridge University. It is the most widely accepted qualification for teaching English, followed closely by the TESOL (run by Trinity College, London), with the various TEFL certifications having less weight as they have no standardizing organization.

We decided to do the CELTA at ILA in Vietnam for a couple reasons; 1) we'd been told that Vietnam is one of the best places to teach English and 2) ILA had the cheapest CELTA course that we could find anywhere in the world so 3) it seemed like a good fit. And it was.

That's not to say, however, that the CELTA is anything other than extremely demanding. It's not so much difficult as all-consuming; indeed, we were in class from 9AM-5PM every day and usually had to get there an hour early and stay a couple hours late to do some lesson planning… and then, once home, there was always more lesson planning to be done. Not to mention the written assignments we had to turn in every week. So very, very intense. And we were thrown right into it, having to teach a lesson on our second day of class, then more lessons every other day for the duration of the course. With each lesson, we were also expected to do better than the one before… so that meant that the grading was much more difficult with each and every lesson.

There were lots of other expectations as well, including a strict dress code. Teachers in Vietnam are highly respected and, as such, we have to look professional - guys had to wear ties every day and girls... well, they were supposed to dress up, but they got away with a lot more. Us guys were also allowed to have facial hair, but it had to be trimmed neatly, which led to some pretty ridiculous mustachioed looks for me, such as the one you see here at our favorite little lunch spot around the corner from the school.

We taught three levels - elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate - rotating through the classes every week or so until we had all taught three classes at every level. I think I had the toughest schedule as I began with the elementary learners and worked up to the intermediates. What was difficult about this one was that the elementary students have less English so the early classes have to be better and by the time we got to the intermediate level, they were doing more complex grammar which is also hard to teach. Kate, on the other hand, began with the intermediates and finished with the pre-intermediates.

Every level was filled with students who pay a deposit and have to attend a certain percentage of the classes to get their fees back. And not that I have anything else to compare them against, but from my limited experience, I think the Vietnamese students must be amongst the best in the world. They were all so eager to learn and participate and so curious as to our backgrounds but not at all disruptive. And they organized several outings for us, but that's a story for another blog.