celta assignment 3 skills related task

Lesson Plans and Ideas

CELTA – language skills related tasks

On CELTA you are asked to complete four written assignments. Even though you get plenty of help from your tutors, time is pretty tight, and you need to do a lot of individual research. I’d like to show you my assignment 3 with hopes that it will give you some help and inspiration on your CELTA journey.

Written assignment 3 – language skills related tasks was definitely one of my favourites. In this task, you are asked to find authentic material – a video, a song, an article – the sky is the limit, and make a lesson plan around it. I knew exactly what type of article I wanted to work on.

You see, when I first started teaching I was given the opportunity to teach a B2 group of adults at a private company. They were all great and loved discussing difficult and at times controversial topics. Since the company was located in Extremadura, Spain – the region of jamón and in general meat-lovers, I decided to bring an article on vegan burgers. The class went wild, students were engaged and brought a lot of great points to the table. That’s why when our tutor presented us with CELTA written assignment 3, I knew what to do.

Firstly, we had to select two or three pieces of authentic material and present them to our tutors. I selected two different articles from reputable websites (go for good sources with no grammar or spelling errors!):

• Charity shops will be full of ‘treasures’ and ‘gems’ following lockdown clearouts – a very topical and hot topic back in June 2020 by Independent . An article about people doing clothes clearouts while stuck at home and donating them to charity shops.
• Burger King ‘plant-based’ Whopper ads banned – an article by BBC News about false and misleading advertising. Another interesting and topical piece of authentic material that can lead to discussions on veganism, misinterpretation of information, fine print and many more.

I presented both of my articles and pushed hard to get a green light on the second one as I’d already had a scaffold of the lesson plan in my head. Luckily, it got approved, and I started working on it immediately. I think that out of all of the tasks, this was the easiest one and the one that took me almost no time to prepare. Scroll down to the end of the post to see the effect of my work and download it for inspiration!

So with the task being chosen and justified, I got on with planning. Following everything I’d learnt by that point, I decided to start with a lead-in by topic prediction based on visuals. Draw or show a burger, vegetables and a TV with a cross/ban sign. Give some time to discuss what they think the article is about.

It, of course, leads nicely to the next activity – reading for gist. Since the article has about 300 words, your students can quickly skim through it to see if their predictions were correct. It is also a good opportunity for them to underline any new vocab, so you can discuss and explain any new words in the next part.

In this written assignment you are asked to prepare all the activities yourself! I decided to go with  true, false, or information not given . I thought that putting this tiny twist on this exercise would make this activity a bit more challenging. I decided to go with eight sentences, so the task is long enough but not too long so students can stay focused.

To finish this part students discuss some general questions about the article topic. The main topic is who is in the wrong – Burger King for putting fine print or consumers for not reading it. I only prepared three questions, but in a classroom situation, I would be more than happy to put more emphasis on a discussion part.

Lastly, I wanted to put a creative spin. I asked students to change the controversial Whopper and make their own, brand new BK item with the list of ingredients, the name and last but not least, the slogan! For this, I went on the  Burger King  website and took a screenshot of the way they present their burgers. Students follow the example and prepare their very own burgers.

I had a chance to do this class in September 2020 with my B2 teenage group. It worked out well, and my students came up with the burger called  The Cheesy Queen ! I don’t think I need to share the list of ingredients as the name speaks for itself.

Good luck with your CELTA ventures! If you feel like you need some help or just an inspirational guideline to follow, don’t be shy and take a look at my assignment.

If you have already done CELTA, don’t be shy and tell me the topic of your language skills related task!

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Published by joannaesl

A CELTA certified ESL teacher based in Altea, Spain. I share my experience regarding teaching in Spain, getting into ESL from scratch, but I also like to prepare lesson plans and classroom content. View all posts by joannaesl

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Content related to english exams and courses., |celta-012| assignment 3: language skills-related task.

Hello Exam Seekers,

there’s been a while since I post something about the CELTA , so I decided that today I would give you some more hints about the assignments.

I’ve already given you tips on how to write your Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner and Assignment 2: Language Related Task . We are in April, May is almost there, so I believe that for those taking the part-time CELTA, assignment 3 will be required very soon. Therefore here are some tips for it.

youtube: watch?v=krZkDTxutdk

Well, differently from assignment 2 which focuses on an analysis of the language (grammar, pronunciation, and form), the Language Skills-Related is much simpler.

You are expected to write an assignment divided into four parts using 750–1,000 words. According to Cambridge, the design of the assignment includes :

• evidence of the candidate’s background reading in the topic area
• identification of the receptive language skills and/or subskills that could be  practiced and developed using coursebook material or authentic text
• identification of productive language skills that could be practiced and developed in relation to that text
• task design in relation to the text with a brief rationale

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

• correctly using terminology that relates to language skills and subskills
• relating task design to language skills development
• finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

I’m going to dive this assignment into steps so that you can follow it properly.

Choose one of the CELTA groups that you are teaching and provide a class profile  which includes names, age range, professional and educational backgrounds, linguistic strengths and development needs, interests and reasons for studying English.

Keep in mind that you don’t have many words to write a profile on all of your CELTA students, só try and choose around 6 students and write something like that:

This is a pre-intermediate heterogeneous group of volunteer students in the CELTA course at _____. We follow Total English Pre-Intermediate as a course book, and sometimes we use authentic and supplementary materials.

Regular attendees

Chose a type of material to provide them (a text or an audio/video) and justify why you have chosen this text for this particular class based on the class profile.

According to my class profile, most of my students are retired and they like to travel, so I chose a video about traveling tips and I rationalized my choice:

I’ve chosen a video called Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!!! ( appendix1 ) because I think it’ll be interesting for this group of students since most of them love traveling abroad: Angelina loves England and every year she goes there. This year she is taking Maria Ester with her. (…) As Harmer(1988:84) says, adults “often have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it”. Therefore, I believe they would all profit on having some tips about discounts on airfares.

The video contains a large range of vocabulary on the topic, and grammar points (present tenses, giving instructions) which they’ll have the opportunity to recognize in an authentic context.

This was just a snippet of my assignment part 2 rational. As you could see, I provided the video source (you should attach it to the appendix) and I explained why I chose that video relating my choice to my students’ likings and to a reference.

After having chosen the text/video, you should d esign and submit a reading/listening for gist and for detail tasks for practicing these skills and provide answers to these tasks . Don’t forget that you have to provide reference all the way long. “According to….”, “this author believes that…”, by doing that, you show that you are making conscious choices and not random.

The length and content of this video make it ideal for students to practice listening for gist and detail, because the topic matches the students’ interests and the vocabulary and structures match the pre-required knowledge for pre-intermediate students.

It would be a good idea to have a skimming task of this video, for students to be more aware of the general idea, they’d be “trying to extract a mostly general understanding of what, superficially, the audio […] is all about”(HARMER,2005:271). In this case, understand that the video is about discounts on airfares .

Task 1 (Reading for Gist)

1) Watch the video and circle the best title for it:

• Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!
• Flight Tips: How to book your flight?
• Watch out: What makes a flight expensive?

  Answer key:  a.

As you can see in my example, I explained why it would be interesting for students to have a gist and detailed activity based on the video, and why that specific task. I provided the task and the answer key.

This was the gist task, the example of one of the exercises, remember that you have to provide at least two, okay?

Do you remember that a lesson plan should provide 4-5 tasks? Warm up/Lead in , Read/Listen for gist/detail, and follow up. Well, part 3 was focused on receptive skills, now part 4 is focused on productive skill. So at this part, you should say which productive skills could be practiced in relation to this text in a follow-up activity. Design and submit the follow-up tasks with the rationale.

As this group of students would benefit from further development of speaking skills and given their general interest in travels and tips for trips, for productive skills, I have devised some questions for the students. They have some questions related to the context (trips, tips, and pre-traveling suggestions) as exercise 3 on their exercise sheets, which they should discuss in pairs and exchange information. They would do this activity with more than one pair so that they would practice speaking and exchange personal information several times and later on expose to the class their peers’ answers as feedback and conclude the productive stage.

1) Discuss the questions below about trips and tips :

• Do you like traveling? How often do you travel?
• When you travel, do you use any search engine to book flights?
• Do you think it is cheaper to book a flight online or in person? Why?
• What was the price of the cheapest and the most expensive flight in your life?
• Do you think that Sonia Gil’s tips were good? Why?
• Do you think you might use her tips in the future?

Extra steps:

These extra steps are the basics: REFERENCE and APPENDIX.

At the end of your assignment include the reference to your background reading and include at least two methodology sources in your list of references. Make sure these references are cited in the body the assignment.

 Mine was like that:

Bibliography

• GIL, Sonia (2014). Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!!!. Available at: < https://www . youtube.com/watch?v=jgbrVzEMolA>. Access on: 24 Jan. 2015
• HARMER, Jeremy (2005). The practice of English Language Teaching. e. Pearson.
• HOGAN, Jonathan T., IGREJA, José Roberto (2004). Phrasal Verbs.
• SCRIVENER, Jim (2005). Learning Teaching. e. Macmillan.

And since you had an authentic material (a text/video/audio) from which you created your gist/detailed task, you should also provide it in your appendix. Since mine was a video, my appendix was like that:

By the way, this youtube channel ( Sonia Travels ), is fantastic for you to use as authentic material for classes based on trips and travels.

I hope that this text was really helpful for you to write your assignment. If you still have questions don’t forget to send us a message. Leave a comment in the comment section below or on our social media:

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• @ExamSeekers

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Have a great weekend, Patty

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Language Skills Related Tasks - help with CELTA Assignment 3

Language Skills Related Tasks is often set around the mid-point of a CELTA course . Like all CELTA written assignments, it is 750 to 1000 words long, and like all CELTA assignments, it's based on the course content and doesn't require a lot of background reading. However, unlike other CELTA assignments, it does explicitly require you to reference at least some background reading. This doesn't mean you need a library full of books. It does mean that you'll need a methodology book to consult, preferably one that has a chapter on receptive skills and one on productive skills. Any of the titles that your CELTA tutors recommended at the beginning of your course is fine. If you're wondering which book might suit you, here are some of our recommendations .

In the assignment, you'll be asked to design a skills lesson (or a set of skills tasks). These might be based on a text your tutors have given you or they might be based on a text you have chosen yourself. If your tutors ask you to select a text, you need to choose carefully. Think about how long the text is, how difficult it is and how culturally appropriate it is. You'll also need to think if it works for your students - is it something you can imagine they'd actually be interested in? You don't need to pick a very simple text, but it does need to be achievable for the students.

The key part of the assignment is task design. You'll be asked to design some receptive skills tasks. These should practise different sub-skills. Typically, these might include a gist task and a detailed comprehension task. You need to be very careful here. In my experience, it's most often in the design of receptive skills tasks that CELTA trainees trip up. Do the tasks yourself. Do students really need to understand the text in order to complete the tasks? Are the tasks doable by students at the level you're teaching? And do the tasks match the sub-skill you identified? It's important to make sure that a gist task actually does check if students have got the gist of a text. It's also important that a detailed comprehension task tests if students have got a detailed understanding of the text. You'll also be asked to design productive skills tasks.

As mentioned above, this is often the only assignment when you'll be asked to explicitly quote from your background reading. Make sure that you choose relevant quotations that show that you understand why students should practise whatever you're looking at in that section of the assignment, whether it's gist reading tasks or longer writing tasks.

Overall, this tends to be one of the more straightforward CELTA written assignments. So long as you can show an understanding of how receptive and productive skills lessons work, it's likely that you will have a good chance of success. It's not as "bitty" as the Focus on the Learner or Language assignments and so this can mean it doesn't take as long to write either - which is a relief!

About the author :

Dr Connor O'Donoghue  hails from Ireland and he started teaching English as a foreign language in Poland in 2003 and he became a CELTA trainer in 2008. He has taught and trained in Ireland, the UK, France, Italy, Slovenia, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. Connor also holds a Masters and a PhD in Education from Trinity College in Dublin. He has previously managed large teacher training centres in Vietnam and in London before founding DC Teacher Training.

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Home › CELTA tips › CELTA tip: the language skills assignment

CELTA tip: the language skills assignment

By Pete on April 28, 2015 • ( 16 )

I think the language skills topic on the CELTA is incredibly useful. As someone who rarely uses textbooks, I’m always searching for authentic reading and listening materials to use in class. Topic 3 on the CELTA gave me a solid overview of how to plan a receptive skills lesson, and the basics I learnt from this module still underpin my practice.

I’ve written an overview of the assignment and a few tips below. Here is a copy of my assignment , and here is a link to the authentic text on the BBC website.

What do I have to do?

Basically this, as the CELTA syllabus states:

That’s a snippet from the CELTA handbook . It only mentions the criteria for reading lessons, but there’s a breakdown for the other skills too. You’ll find this on page 8, and further info on page 17.

So, you have to prove you can do all of the above in a written assignment. This means designing your own lesson based on an authentic text (reading or listening). You must include opportunities in your lesson for students to also practise their productive skills (speaking or writing).

The assignment outline I was given was something like this:

Total words: 1000

Task: Choose one authentic text from the options your tutor will give you

• Consider your students needs, ability, etc.
• Don’t adapt or grade the text – if you do then it’s not authentic

Part 1: justify your choice of text (150 words)

• Why is it suitable for your learners? Reference your background reading (Harmer, Scrivener, etc.)

Part 2: Receptive skill task design (550 words)

• Talk about how you will introduce the text topic
• Design an initial reading task for the students (e.g. a gist task)
• Talk about any vocabulary that you need to pre-teach
• Design a task where students read for specific detail
• Explain what the tasks achieve and why they are suitable/useful. Mention background reading when you do this

Part 3: Productive skill task design (300 words)

• Think of a follow-up task based on the text. This should be either a speaking or a writing activity
• Write a little rationale on why you’ve chosen this task, how it exploits the text, why is it good for your learners, etc.

That’s an abridged version of the assignment, you’ll no doubt get more detailed info from your tutor, but that is pretty much it.

Tips for task design

My lesson was for upper-intermediate learners.

Part 2 : for a lead-in, get the students to talk about the topic. My text was about crazy things that people do while they are sleepwalking. What better way to get students interested in the text than having them discuss that very thing?

What crazy things might people do while they sleepwalk?

I got their ideas up on the board

If you do something like this then you have the basis of your first task.

You have 2 minutes to read the text. Does the text mention any of your ideas on the board?

Students scan the text for relevant information, but also they read for general meaning (gist) as the topics above may appear in the text but worded differently.

I find this is a great initial task for reading/listening texts. Using student ideas gives them a bit of investment in the text too. I use this all the time:

(Another CELTA lesson based on a listening text about New Zealand)

Lead-in: what do you know about New Zealand? (elicit and board responses)

Orientate students to text

Gist Task: Are any of your ideas mentioned in the text?

(A lesson I made last year on a listening text about biscuits injuring people)

Lead-in: what injuries might you get from biscuits (elicit and board responses)

You can find another example in my lesson about Boudica

Detail task:

True or False questions are generally a good idea for a detail task. I won’t go into much detail here as you’ll get plenty of input about this on your course, but what I would say is this. T/F questions don’t always need a clear answer – you can manipulate your questions in such a way that will provoke discussion among students. By making the answer to a question slightly ambiguous, students may express their opinions, and in doing so they

a) might show a deeper understanding of the text

b) engage more in the text and topic

c) practise more English!

You can see an example of this in my assignment. Another idea is to include a question which may involve your pre-taught vocabulary . This is a good way to check that they really did understand it!

Part 3: On reflection, I think my productive skills task was a bit rubbish to be honest. You could do better I’m sure. However, whether it’s good or not, you can still get a good mark if you justify WHY you chose that task. My task involved creativity, my students were very creative, so…

a) it was relevant to the learners

b) it showed I learnt a bit about my learners in previous classes

c) it showed that I used what I learnt to inform my practice

So, I guess my main tip for this assignment is to justify everything you do. Think carefully about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Mention your learners throughout the assignment – think about what they gain from the tasks you’ve set. Get a few quotes in the assignment from experts but don’t go overboard – 1000 words isn’t much. Finally, remember what you do in this assignment as it’s extremely useful when you’re starting out!

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Categories: CELTA tips

Tags: CELTA , efl , elt , IH Budapest , language skills , language skills assignment , reading for gist , receptive skills lesson , teacher training , tefl

What an interesting post. I love the online article that you chose about sleepwalking and this must have led to lots of laughter in class and made for a highly enjoyable lesson during which the students would have been motivated to fully engage.

In your CELTA assignment you mention the tendency for learners to take a top down approach and I agree that by upper Int stage, they will have usually developed the confidence and ability to do this, aware of the advantage of first skimming a text to evaluate it’s worth, then to scan for specific detail before reading as a whole in more depth.An essential skill for exams in fact!

However, I am currently working with low-level level ESOL learners and It is quite difficult for them to ‘let go’ of their need to translate most, if not all, unfamiliar vocabulary making reading a real chore.This ‘bottom- up’ approach can really dampen their enthusiasm for reading reducing reading to just a way of learning lists of new vocabulary.. Finding suitable authentic texts is a challenge but even in the article you used, there are certain paragraphs I could take out and use.

For low level learners, one source of simple authentic material might be the ‘Good Deed Feed’ in the Metro newspaper found in railway stations. There are lovely succinct ‘thank you’ messages which are great for past forms and vocabulary.

Another thing I’ve used is the ‘Tiny Texts’ website https://tinytexts.wordpress.com/ , but as this is written or compiled specifically for learners of English, it can’t really be described as ‘authentic’ in the strict sense of the word. And for that matter what about graded readers and adult Quick Reads which are abridged texts? I think they pay an important role in making a wider range of literature available to learners.

You’ve reminded me of and reinforced my belief in the value and importance of authentic material whenever possible. Thank you!

Like Liked by 2 people

Thanks so much for the comment Peter, you’ve got me thinking about authentic reading tasks for lower level learners. Rather than ramble on here, I’ll send you an email with something that might help… I really like the tinytexts link – you’re right though about it not being strictly authentic. I don’t know exactly where I stand on the ‘all texts in class must be authentic’ viewpoint which seems to have been drummed into me on my recent course. Very interesting to think about though, authentic texts are undoubtedly valuable but giving low-level learners access to them is often both difficult and time consuming!

I remember reading an article years ago on text choice and student level. There’s a theory that you can use almost any text with any level. It’s the TASK that is designed to the student level. The article also suggested that if you are aiming to use authentic texts with learners, begin with gist tasks for a while. This raises confidence that students CAN identify purpose, origin, where important information might be in a text and the importance of layout, visuals and graphics in identifying meaning. I used some texts from Grellet ‘Developing Reading Skills’ (1981) for a ,it of my ideas and texts.

I really love this lesson plan and article and your blog in general is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing. I love it so much that I’ve chosen to use this article as a basis for my CELTA course final teaching practice (with credit to your blog of course). Would you have any suggestions for using this article as the basis for a speaking activity? Or any other ideas how I could exploit this text? I have 60 mins. to fill and not sure how I’m going to do it. Thank you so much again for the wonderful blog. It’s been very helpful to me during my CELTA.

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Hi, cheers for visiting my blog. Hope the CELTA is going well. A speaking task… hmmm. What about giving students a prompt about something crazy they’ve done in their sleep (e.g. ‘fed a lion’ or something). Give them time to write notes about how this might have happened (I don’t know, they were on safari or something, or they live next to a zoo and they climbed the fence). They then share their stories with each other, and their partner asks questions to get more info. Then they feed back about which story was most believable, crazy, etc… That’s off the top of my head – I’m sure you could think of a better idea though! Good luck with the course 🙂

Thank you! Your blog has been one of my favorites of the many I have visited. Not too much longer now for my CELTA course now thankfully. 🙂

I’m revisiting this post because my trainees are about to do this assignment. I thought I’d add a couple of things-

The choice of text: 1.If you have to find your own text, it helps to choose something that the students will have some personal response to. For example, something from the local area, something that’s in the news, etc.

2.Choose a text with clear headings and subheadings, pictures or other visual clues. This will add to the context and maybe you can mix up the sub-headings and pictures so students have to match them correctly- A Gist task.

3.Don’t choose something just because it appeals to you without thinking about it’s more general appeal. Things that work- Tourist Information, leaflets about local events, articles that compare or present lists (the 10 most/best/worst of something), articles about ceremonies like weddings or cultural events like Christmas. These are rich for students talking about comparisons after they have read.

The following task: In the assignment, you will need to follow the receptive skills tasks with productive skills tasks (speaking or writing).

1.Remember the receptive skills work (reading or listening) needs to be followed by a speaking or writing task in the assignment. The texts in 3 above will all give students something to talk or write about.

2.Tasks that allow students to use the text as a model or a prompt for their speaking or writing, will work well.

Would you say that’s useful Pete?

yeah really useful! Anything else to add? We could make that into a separate post if you want. Much better to have input from an actual CELTA trainer than just my take on things…

Thanks Nicky, very useful tips to add to my assignment task.

I think your outline was really helpful Pete.

The assignment will be slightly different depending on the centre. At our place, we provide a choice of either a reading or a listening text for trainees to choose from, but most centres ask trainees to find texts themselves.

We could helpfully make this into a separate post if you like- so one post doesn’t deal with all aspects of the assignment. Yours deals with the assessment criteria and this one deals with the choice of text.

Another post my provide ideas for the productive skills part of th assignment- often the weakest part of the assignment.

Thanks a million for sharing, its an amazing blog and very useful tips for my CELTA assignment which is due in 2 weeks. I have chosen an article on ‘Why Hydration is so important?’ for my assignment. Will definitely follow your step by step guideline.

Thanks once again for sharing.

thank you very much for this, extremely helpful! Was this a pass or did you have to resubmit? I imagine a straight pass!

Hey, this was a pass. I got a pass A overall but I don’t know if this assignment was worth that much, probably not.

Hi peter, thanks it was quite helpful. I am doing CELTA and finding it hard to find authentic material. I managed to find a text but it seems a bit too long, my question is can we use half of article to design some material? thanks

Hi, thanks for reading and commenting. Regarding the text, I think a lot depends on what you are using it for and whether half a text fits that purpose. For example, if you are practicing some kind of reading skill like scanning you might not need a full text. It’s hard to say and I’m not a tutor. My advice would be to show the article to your tutor and see what they think. They probably would tell you directly yes or no, but they’ll guide your thinking on how to choose appropriate texts. Best of luck 🙂

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CELTA Assignment 3 Skills Related Tasks

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The Ultimate Guide to CELTA

CELTA Written Assignments – Language Related Tasks (LRT)

Looking for help with CELTA written assignments? You’ve come to the right place.

Written assignments form a major part of the CELTA assessment process and are a compulsory part of the course.  There are 4 written assignments in total but some centres conflate two of them to make one larger assignment.  In this series we will look at each individual assignment and provide you with some advice and guidance as well as highlight some of the common pitfalls.

Disclaimer: All centres create their own written assignment rubrics, make sure you check with your centre exactly what is required.  We can only provide general information here, rather than specific.  With this in mind, do you think it would be wise to pay for other peoples’ assignments to help you write your own?

Although centres design their own written assignments, the CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines states that for the LRT assignment:

The design of the assignment to include:

identification of significant features of the form, pronunciation, meaning and use of language items/areas and the use of relevant information from reference materials

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

a) analysing language correctly for teaching purposes

b) correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analysing language

c) accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about language to an appropriate source

d) using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

All written assignments should be 750-1000 words

Source: CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines

With the above in mind, how can you make sure you can successfully complete the LRT assignment?  Firstly, you need to start learning how and what to analyse.  When writing your lesson plans you are required to analyse language and the LRT assignment is really just more of the same, possibly in more detail.  I would recommend the following books to help you:

Practical English Usage by Michael Swan

Grammar for English Language Teachers by Martin Parrott

An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage by Geoffrey Leech

Below are a couple of examples that we give our trainees when preparing them to write their LRT assignment.

Target statement: It was going to be such an exciting adventure

Checking understanding (CCQs) 

• When was the adventure, in the past or in the future?  (In the past)
• When was the adventure, after this statement or before? (After)
• Was the author excited about the trip before he went?  (Yes)
• Did the author enjoy the trip? (No)

Reference: Practical English Usage, Michael Swan

You can look at my previous Blog Post for help with CCQs

Target statement: ….before putting on our wetsuits

Checking understanding

Use visual and ask:

Has he been surfing already? (No)

Is he getting ready to go surfing? (Yes)

Common Pitfalls 

In our centre, trainees often fall foul of the following:

• they focus on the wrong part of the statement
• analysis is not aimed at the level of the students (too high level)
• CCQs don’t really check the students’ understanding
• they forget to reference sources
• they over-analyse and/or focus on irrelevant areas
• trainees don’t anticipate enough problems
• they anticipate problems that are very unrealistic
• they go too far over the word count

Any one of the above can result in having to resubmit the assignment.  Whilst having to resubmit is no bad thing, it does increase your workload and stress levels so should be avoided if possible.

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How to Write CELTA Assignments: Easy Guide

 learning how to write celta assignments.

Hello once more! The latest question is from a reader who hasn’t studied in a long time and she’s worried about how to write  CELTA assignments .

The main points to think about here are:

the instructions for the assignments the writing style for these how to cover all of the necessary points

Some of the above will overlap, but let’s start with the instructions for your CELTA assignments!

Instructions for your CELTA assignments

First, you’re going to have a clear the word count .

Now, the word count is very strict, as it is in all English language institutions – follow it very closely!

You have to be aware that you’ve got a strict word limit for the CELTA assignments. Here’s the exact wording from the official CELTA syllabus PDF :

“[Each CELTA] centre is responsible for designing the written assignments, which should each be between 750 and 1,000 words.”

So please take note of this and do not go over it. If you ask your tutors, they might give you a 10% above or below maximum/minimum limit, but do not take a chance by going over that.

Tip: To make sure you cover all main points evenly, you can break up the assignment into appropriate sections with even word counts for each part before you start. If you feel some sections will need more words than others, then adjust these accordingly.

In short, make sure you are definitely within the word limit when writing your CELTA assignments!

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Using Instructions Properly

If the assignment instructions, or rubric, ask for references, as they will in some assignments, make sure to check whether they count for the word limit – they shouldn’t for most referencing styles, but some CELTA centres might say that they do, so ask your tutors first!

To clarify, I specifically mean the reference list/bibliography at the end. Any references in your assignment text (i.e. in-text citations ) will normally be included in the word count.

Also for referencing, you should check what referencing style you need when it comes to how to write CELTA assignments .

Common referencing styles include:

• APA 6th Edition
• Any many more!

Most likely, your CELTA centre will use either the APA or Harvard referencing style. If you find this out in advance, it is another thing you can learn before you start the course!

For the  Focus on the Learner Assignment – you have to show understanding of theory and background knowledge through referencing relevant books.

You don’t have to add many references, but you are expected to use a few, perhaps 3-5 throughout the whole assignment (see this post for examples of real CELTA assignments to get an idea).

The assignments don’t require many citations/references, but when you do need to include them, you can get help from free websites like citethisforme.com , or you can use my guide on 10 Tech Tips for writing CELTA Assignments for a bit more detail on tools for referencing.

But referencing shouldn’t be a major problem! You can get free apps and websites to do it for you, as I mentioned, so you don’t need to stress over it.

To sum up, remember to check the style of referencing that your CELTA centre wants and follow that consistently and it won’t be a problem for you. This is because referencing doesn’t feature heavily in the assignemtns, although you do need to use it.

Covering  All the Points You Are Given

Another thing to focus on is covering all of the relevant points that you are given in your assignment instructions.

Make sure you make a list of these and check each one off once done, and that’s all you have to do to make sure each point is covered.

You’ll be asked to cover lots of different parts of your learning and reflecting on what you’ve done, but if you’re not ticking off every box on a list, it will be harder to know if you have done everything asked of you.

No need to worry, though – it’s mostly quite formulaic and you don’t have to be an outstanding writer to pass, you just have to write clearly and concisely to get through it.

Make sure you’re following or ticking off everything on the list, and be thorough.

A lot of people because they rush in forget to check or they think it’s not worth checking, because they need to move on to the next thing.

Just remember to draw up a list that covers everything you’ve been told to include and go through it.

Using a Table to Help You Cover All Points in Your CELTA Assignments

You could start by making your assignment a table in a Word document, with each point to go through.

Let’s say if you have two columns, and the first column has the points to cover, and the second column is blank for you to write in, you can just simply fill those boxes with ticks when done to make sure they have been covered.

So, if we look at page 19 of the CELTA syllabus document,  we could make the following table to help us for our Focus on the Learner CELTA assignment :

You can see the document embedded above here if you’d like to take a copy. At least, that’s how I do my Masters assignments!

Whether you choose to do the above, or not, you really need make sure you’re following the instructions closely, that’s the biggest thing I can say as I’ve probably stressed in this answer!

Don’t worry if you’re coming back after a long time without doing any formal writing.

If you’re on the CELTA course it’s because they think you have a high enough level. Don’t be afraid of the written assignments for this reason!

How to Write CELTA Assignments: Writing Style

Also, the other thing that we should really talk about is the writing style for your CELTA assignments.

This is one thing I do a lot of teaching about at the moment (teaching English for Academic Purposes, or EAP). Something we’re always stressing is that students should try to use an impersonal style and don’t use things like “I” or “we”etc.

However,  i n your CELTA assignments, there’s a lot of reflective writing and you will need to use a somewhat informal style.

This is because they ask you direclty to reflect on your learning. For example, the final assignment – lessons from the classroom, will ask you to reflect on what you’ve learnt during your course.

You can only really complete the assignment by saying “I”.

You’ll also need to talk about both yourself and students directly in the Focus on the Learner assignment.

In short, don’t worry about using what seems like a slightly informal style, because a lot of the assignment writing is actually reflection.

CELTA Assignment Tasks

The other point is then, in some of the assignments, you will be given language tasks and exercises.

Assignments which require direct answers to questions/exercises/tasks and less flowing writing (prose) are:

• Language Related Tasks
• Language Skills Related Tasks

There will be many different tasks within these assignments, so you won’t actually be writing paragraphs for much of them.

Instead, you’ll be writing answers to specific short questions, so you don’t need to worry much about style here. That said, as always, clearn and concise English language is always important!

I hope that has clarified some points for you about how to write the CELTA assignments and that I haven’t scared you (too much!).

If you have any questions, just please let me know and get in touch via: 

Twitter , Facebook  or in the comments below!

Thank you for reading/listening!

More Helpful Content For You:

Stephen Beale

After taking the CELTA back in 2007, I have since gained over 11 years' experience of teaching English in various countries. I have also worked in EAP for several years and like sharing what I've learnt along the way here.

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Celta: Assignment 3: Skills-Related

For this Skills-related assignment, my choice of authentic reading material is “Few Places with Better Stories” from Asian Geographic magazine (no 78 issue 1/2011, pages 30 and 35). As this magazine is widely read and it is also a popular TV channel, the students will be able to relate to it easily. I decided to use this article as I think it is appropriate for English Language learners at the Intermediate level. The article deals with photography which can be a hobby or passion for many adult learners and hence they can identify with the author. It is also biographical, as the author narrates his experiences, thus the reader can bond with the narrator. This topic has a universal appeal and is not culturally biased. The article also has contemporary relevance as the author blends photography with nature, as the world is desperate to conserve it. “One test for useful reading might be to check how far tasks reflect real-life uses of the same text. If a text is used in class in ways that are reasonably similar to real life, the task will likely be effective” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan) But, most of all, this entire article is perfect for a reading activity, as the topic enables great discussions/productive skill extensions.

Part 2: Receptive skill task design

I think a good starting point for this lesson would be playing a clip of underwater life from the National Geographic archive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSlFsbrUz2Q

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Students are familiar with underwater life and the clip will help to set the context and situation. Students could first discuss with partners how they feel about underwater photography. After eliciting some opinions and feelings, ask some additional, personalized questions like:

• “Have you seen the underwater world at Sentosa?”
• “Would you like to be an underwater photographer?”
• “Would you like to go on an underwater expedition with the National Geographic team?”

The teacher elicits responses to set the context further. Although there are plenty of new vocabulary items in the article, I think students would not have any significant difficulties in grasping the overall meaning of the text. I agree with Jeremy Harmer about pre-teaching: “by giving them some or all those words we deny them (a chance to practice tackling authentic texts)” (Harmer -203). In my perspective, students learn new words about context which will enable them to grasp the word well. In this article, I would pre-teach key vocabulary, such as:

• photo-journalist
• to fall in love

I would convey the meaning of the above words with the help of visuals, and CCQs. The rest of the vocabulary issues (which do not impede the set tasks) can be dealt with by matching words with meaning or synonyms at the pre-reading stage. I would use this article to practice skim reading. Though the article is lengthy, the first paragraph throws enough insight into the author. This enables a gist reading. The gist reading task – 30 seconds: Appendix B

I would remind the students that gist reading is a skill that requires quick reading and the ability to choose important information. “Skimming=Reading quickly for the gist of a passage. A typical skimming task would be a general question from the teacher…” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan) Feedback: 1minute

A lesson without feedback “is teaching that proceeds forward without reference to what impact this is having on the learner’…” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan) For specific reading task or scanning skills, I would use a simple set of questions- 5 minutes (reading and answering): Appendix B. “You probably want tasks that encourage students to search for specific small sections of text which they can read more carefully to find a required piece of information. Students doing this will be reading the material in a similar way to how people might read it in everyday life.” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan) For both the scan and skim reading activities, students would do a pair check of their answers before the teacher does feedback. The teacher flashes the answers for the gist reading on the screen (OHP) and for the scanning task, individual students could volunteer to discuss the answers. At this stage, the teacher can feedback on how the students located the answers (sequence of information in the paragraphs, lead words, context, etc). “A common scanning activity is searching for information….Although scanning is involved with finding individual points from the text….the way the reader finds the information involves some degree of processing of the overall shape and structure of the text…” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan)

Part 3: Productive skill task design

I would use a writing task for productive skills. As the students have read about underwater life, I would set a guided task to write about the topic: “Your thoughts and feelings of the underwater world” (Students are expected to write five sentences)

Photos and pictures of marine life will be pasted around the classroom. Each picture/photo will carry a description/keywords. Students will do a gallery walk, with a pen and paper, to note the details and description they would like to use. They will return to their seats to write five sentences about underwater life and their feeling/sentiments. This task is for 15 minutes

At the end of the task, the writing from students will be pasted on the whiteboard and the students can read each other’s and vote for the best.

“Writing involves a different kind of mental process. There is more time to think, to reflect, to prepare, to rehearse, to make mistakes and to find alternative and better solutions” …” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan). I would like to use writing activity because “ The need for long formal written work seems to have lessened over the years, and this is reflected in many classrooms where writing activities are perhaps less often found than those for other skills” …” (Learning Teaching, Third edition 2011, Jims Scrivener, Macmillan).

• A copy of the authentic task- appendix A
• The tasks you have designed- appendix B
• The answers to the task- appendix C

The gist reading task – 30 seconds: Answer the following questions with a “yes” or “no”.

• Is this passage about a photographer?
• Is this passage about underwater life?
• Is this passage about a school teacher?
• Para 1: When did the author fall in love with the sea?
• Para 1: Why did the author become an underwater photographer and a photojournalist?
• Para 1: What brings the greatest joy to the author?
• Para 2: According to the author, is the ocean dying?
• Para 3: What motivates the author most?
• Para 4: Did the author swim with underwater animals?

Answers key Gist activity (skimming)

Specific reading (scanning)

• He loved telling stories with pictures.
• Photographs of nature.

Bibliography:

• Learning Teaching, Third Edition, Jim Scrivener, Macmillan, 2011 Harmer, J.The Practise of English Language Teaching, 3rd Edition, Longman, 2001

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