CELTA Experience (Day 1)

I've been waiting for today, the first day of CELTA. I can't wait to see new faces in class and to get to know them. I'm really grateful for having my boyfriend who took a day off specially  for me today to take me to English Language Teaching Center (ELTC) of University of Sheffield. Oh, but before that, he took me to the Student Union first to have myself registered and to get a student card. 

I went to the 6th floor and I saw a girl there, but she's not one of trainees who had introduced on Padlet. And, it turned she's actually one of the trainees. My first friend of CELTA, Sama from Egypt. I decided to go downstairs to have a banana because I was really hungry. After some time, I said goodbye to my boyfriend and went to the 6th floor myself. Oh, my boyfriend spent the whole day at Peak District. 

At the registration, I met a few people, CELTA Trainees. I tried to guess which one is which according to the photo on Padlet. 

After the registration, Sama and I walked to ELTC together, and started the day. 

We briefly introduced ourselves. There're 12 of us including me. They're Colin, Simon, Kirsty, Charlotte, Ethan, George, Carys, Michael, Isha, Iori, and of course Sama. 

This first meeting talked more about the administration such as shared folders 'Trainee's Folder', and my own folder 'Siti Fitriah' with a portfolio in it. Also, the trainer told us about how to use the printer. Oh, we have three trainers, Erin, Manuel, and Nick. We had a quick chit chat with each of them to get to know them and of course to ask for their advice to make this CELTA. I took some notes of the advice from each of them. 

Nick suggested that we save the handouts, and with the diversity in trainees' background and ability, it be great to share and practice it. 

Erin told us that there's going to be a lot of information during CELTA

Right away, an assignment came, Focus on the Learner (FOL). I found this assignment interesting though, to interview and analyze a learner's challenge in learning English. But, before going further, we were introduced to language levels: Beginner, Elementary (A1), Pre-Intermediate (A2), Intermediate (B1), Upper-Intermediate (B2), Advanced (C1), and Proficient (C2), to better understand each description. This assignment consists of 3 parts: interview and summary, language and skill analysis, and interventions. In analyzing the learner's language, we are expected to identify 2 mistakes in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, with the total of 6 mistakes. When talking about skills, we should focus on both strengths and weaknesses of the learner. In the last part of the assignment, we should find any activities to help the learner improve his/her language. For me, all these details are really helpful to do it as well as I can. 

After lunch, the input session was given by Nick. Here I reviewed the terms listening for gist and listening for detail after a long time ago talking about it in university. The most interesting part from this session is the stages in planning a lesson: Lead-in/Orientation, Pre-teach, Listening for gist, Listening for detail, and Follow-up. I'm not sure if I have ever learned or been taught these stages before, but I found these stages are clear and helpful in lesson planning. 

As we have been told, this CELTA course is going to be packed. Next, we were briefed on observation and reflection as part of our portfolio. Throughout the course, I will be observing experienced teachers, which means the tutors, and my peers in their teaching and expected to give my peers some feedback.  They'll do the same thing to me as well. Also, we were given Teaching Practice Points (TP Points), what we're going to teach and in which class for the first half of the course. I've got a Pre-Intermediate class together with Carys, Ethan, and George, and Erin is our Tutor. Hopefully, I'll do well in every TP. 

Here's my Student Card. Yeay!