Today we’ll be focusing more on teaching teachers or professional development courses for teachers. So I think we do offer, as IH Cairo, a good list of professional development courses for teachers. So will you tell us about some of them or at least all of it?
So basically the purpose of this live tonight is just to let you know what kind of professional teacher development courses are available. After this live we will go into more detail about each course in subsequent lives, tonight is just a general overview.
So these are the courses that we’re going to mention: the CELTA preparation course – the CELTA (obviously, no need to go into detail because we’ve had several lives) – the Delta – The International House Certificate in Teaching Young Learners and Teenagers – The International House Certificate in Advanced Methodology – The International House Teaching English Certificate, which is sometimes known as a TEFL. We’ll be talking about each course in an individual live after this one, but this one is like to sum up everything.
So, are these qualifications?
Yes, everything except the CELTA preparation course, basically all these certificates will get you a nice shiny Cambridge certificate. So you’ll have a Cambridge Assessment English official stamped certificate. But remember, the CELTA preparation course isn’t a qualification because it is what it says it is-to prepare you for the CELTA which of course is a qualification.
And what level of English is required when I join any of these professional courses?
Basically, for nearly all of these courses, you should have a C1 level or more. However, for the International House Certificate for Teaching English you can have approximately a B2. But Obviously, for things like CELTA and DELTA you should be minimum C1, what they call the higher end of C1, or the lower end of C2. So for those courses, you’re looking at a band 7.5 in IELTS or band 8. So that’s the level we’re looking at and that’s the same for the other courses. Ideally you should be around the C1, apart from the IH certificate for teaching English.
That’s so that you can keep up with the course. Otherwise, you might find that you don’t understand and you get lost and we can’t help you. But of course, we can tell when you apply, because we can see from your application form whether this would be suitable for you or not.
And are they available face-to-face or just online? What format can I apply for them?
First formats are available and so this depends on our schedule on demand. And so we’re more than happy to run both formats and we can offer at the moment full-time and part-time face-to-face or online. So this is what we’re aiming for, both formats are available at this moment in time.
And why should I take that? These courses, are they recognized worldwide?
They are all recognized worldwide because you have Cambridge certificates, so the Cambridge Assessment certificate gives it credibility and to be accepted worldwide.
I think the most important thing is thinking about which certificate is right for you and what you’re doing. Obviously, most of us know about the CELTA and we’ve talked about that a lot, the preparation course is to prepare you for the CELTA, especially for those who might be worried about dealing with the coursework, about dealing with the sessions, and there’ll be no teaching practice, but they will give you an idea of what to expect in the sessions as a sort of a general overview. It’s kind of like a pre-course in itself, so obviously that’s not a qualification, but it’ll prepare you for the qualification.
And DELTA, of course, is the course you take when you have at least two or three years after your CELTA, so that’s very important, you don’t just jump into a DELTA a year after, or even a few months after doing your CELTA. Because the whole idea of the DELTA is to develop your theoretical and your pedagogical knowledge, and so you need that basis, you need to have used your CELTA techniques for at least two years, which is what Cambridge recommends, so it’s very important that you have lots of experience before you take the course, teaching young learners, teaching different types of English, General, business, exam preparation, because the more developed your teaching background is, the more the course will make sense. And remember on a DELTA, of course a lot of the subjects that you visit on a DELTA course, you actually visited on CELTA but on CELTA we just covered the basics, whereas in the DELTA we go into a great deal of detail. So the more background you have, the better.
With the International House Advanced Methodology course, actually, this one was designed for people who’ve done their CELTA and you should have at least a year of teaching experience and this actually can work as a very good preparation for DELTA because people often get frustrated, it’s great that you’re ready to go and develop yourself and develop your knowledge of teaching methodology, which is what the course does, but of course, you can’t jump into the DELTA yet.
The Advanced Methodology course could be an excellent introduction to DELTA even though it’s not an official DELTA preparation course, it can help you enormously.
And the International House Certificate for Teaching Young Learners and Teenagers, which we call TEFL. Again, this is International House’s own certificate as some of them are and remember, International House are the people that invented CELTA, so we can trust them. This is a worldwide name, they’re up there with Cambridge, so anything that’s got International House and Cambridge on it, you know, that it’s good to go and it’s worthy of recognition.
So the International House Certificate for Teaching Young Learners and Teenagers is actually open to all teaching backgrounds. You don’t need to have taught children before, it could be something useful to do after your CELTA course. It could be something that you just want to do, maybe you taught children years ago and you’re a bit out of practice and you’d like to update yourself, because the course covers the age group from 6 to 16-17 years old, so it is young learners and teenagers, you got the lower range and the older students.
I was about to ask you if this is going to be helpful if I want to apply for school.
Of course, ministries in various countries may not accept them as qualifications to work at a normal school, especially government schools, because they usually prefer you to have taken a Bachelor of Education or a teaching degree first, depending on your educational system, however, in private schools, and this sometimes includes international schools, this could be your foot in the door. So if you’ve taken something like you know and the IH Certificate in Teaching Young Learners and Teenagers, you know this could be a useful piece of paper, nice Cambridge certificate, to get you at least the interview. And we do know anecdotally that there are people who do work in mainstream schools with CELTAs, DELTAs, and the IH Young Learners certificate.
So I won’t say that is a guarantee, because it always depends on the rules and the laws of the country, and sometimes the institution. Some institutions accept these certificates and some don’t. So, it all depends on what your future plans are. Obviously, things like CELTA and DELTA are accepted for teaching at language centers and foundation programs at university. And the DELTA, of course, is one of the steps to becoming a teacher trainer, especially a CELTA tutor because it’s one of the basic requirements, so it all depends on your career path.
I think we haven’t mentioned the TEFL course as in the International House Certificate for Teaching English. So as I mentioned, this one isn’t recognized worldwide particularly, but again, this was designed for people who perhaps don’t have a C1 level of English, but still like to develop their teaching skills and their teaching practice, their practical teaching skills. And so it follows a very similar format to a CELTA and it could help you get a job at a private school and a language center. These are all possibilities and it’s also a substantially cheaper option.
So you might be thinking, I’d love to take the CELTA, I’d love to take the DELTA, but they are so expensive and of course they are expensive because they are internationally recognized. This is kind of like a cheaper option, which you could think to yourself well, okay, I’ll take this, I’ll develop my skills, it might help me get a better job and at least, you know, get me to the interview. And you might also decide after you’ve taken this course, maybe later when you have more money. When you’ve been teaching for a couple of years, you might have the money then say I’d to take the CELTA because I want to travel, whereas, at least if you’re not planning to travel for the next few years, then this IH course could be your alternative for the time being.
TEFL, it’s a bit cheaper. Is it worldwide recognized? Can I travel to work around with the TEFL?
Well, we can’t guarantee it. However, I have met people in different countries who did travel with it. It’s not a guarantee, I can tell you that, unlike CELTA and DELTA, which are fully recognized worldwide. You know, officially, IH does not claim that the course is recognized worldwide, and this is why we tend to advise it to teachers who perhaps are not planning to travel just yet.
So what if I don’t have any experience in teaching before? Should I have certification or a course in teaching before I jump into the teaching field?
Not to take CELTA or the preparation or the IH TEFL certificate, you don’t need teaching experience at all. The courses were designed for people who haven’t taught before, because they’re introductory courses. DELTA is different, you need experience, but the other courses you don’t.
So it’s preparation, of course they don’t require experience so you can be experienced or inexperienced because like I said, they were designed for inexperienced teachers, but if you’re an experienced teacher, you might be taking the course to develop your skills and improve your job opportunities, but you certainly have a teaching degree. So it’s a way to start correctly without having any problems when starting teaching.