User:Charles Jeffrey Danoff/CELTA log

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HELP WANTED

Type classification: this is a notes resource.

Topic:TESOL

and
School:Education
School:Linguistics
Topic:English Language

This is an attempt to log my work, reflections and more as I make my way through my month long intensive CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course at Teaching House New York from November 29th – December 23rd, 2010.

please help

If you are so inclined, please improve this log by wikignoming the following pages, or leave feedback/questions on the discussion pages.

Abbreviations

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The following abbreviations will be used:

  • T = Teacher
  • Ss = Students
  • W = Week
  • D = Day
  • L = Lesson
  • TH = Teaching House NYC
  • HW = Home Work
  • TP = Teaching Practice
  • ICQ = Instruction Check Question
  • CCQ = Concept Check Question
  • TTT = Teacher Talking Time
  • STT = Student Talking Time

Week 2

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Goals for W2 6 - 10 Dec 2010

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  • Be less of a dancing bear like I was last Friday, and elicit from the students.
  • Use more ICQs and CCQs.
  • Be attentive and engaged while I am watching my peers teach and as a student in the classroom.
  • TP 4 lesson plan done by Tuesday.
  • Assignment 2 done by Wednesday.
  • Have lesson plan for week 3 monday, and assignment 3 done on Friday.

W2 D1 6 Dec 2010

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  • Did a solid job of paying attention in the AM as my peers taught, then staying focused throughout the afternoon. Doing better with energy and general being on-task during class.
  • Worked for a bit after school @ TH, then headed across the street to Kafe, where I finished up my lesson plan for tomorrow. Got everything done after 8:30, which implies it took around 4 hours to do, but I'd say there was at least an hour or so of chatting involved there. Tomorrow's lesson is focused on me being less of a dancing bear, and eliciting more, hopefully it'll work out. Downloaded the form for my second assignment, but nothing beyond that, and I did not start my upcoming lesson plan yet.

W2 D7 7 Dec 2010

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Felt like far less of a dancing bear, eliciting more from students. Still need to reduce my TTT running commentary and discovered I use "or something" often when I ask questions, which I was not aware of at, all.

  • Afternoon input sessions were engaging and I learned a lot from watching my peers teach, one of whom gave me an awesome introduction into the "passive", which I'll be teaching on Thursday, making my life easier.

Organization

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  • In my binder instead of doing everything by date besides the coursebook files, I put all the TP parts together.
  • Perhaps next do an alternative table of contents w/everything I've written?
  • Worked till around 6 on TP5, engaging with phonetics and grammar somewhat seriously for the first time in the course. Annoying and a little fun. Still didn't finish tonight, feeling drained around 6 and having plans to see a friend in town for the evening.

W2 D9 9 Dec 2010

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First grammar lesson. Started with a personal anecdote tying into the topic. Did an alright job explaining the grammar, but I spent too much time explaining what the grammatical form means, as opposed to what the example sentence meant. Lesson was easier, because a peer had already taught the same grammar point the lesson prior, so I was just reviewing.

Afternoon input sessions were solid, kept my attention for most of the time.

Evening began and I still hadn't finished my second assignment, so I spent some distracted time working on that till about 8:30, first by hand then typing. As I was about to leave I didn't save adequately, so I lost my typed work. Still had my hand notes, and spent about 3.5 hours re-doing the whole assignment by hand after dinner. Stupid mistake and stupid of me to put myself in a position where I was rushing. Positive is my assignment is way better than it would've been and I learned a lot more about how-to fill out grammar and vocabulary language analysis sheets. Overall I am only treading water in terms of assignments (as in finishing what's due the next day the night before) nowhere near my goals of ahead heading into the weekend. Partially because I chose to have some fun this week, I was less efficient, and the work has proven more challenging than I anticipated.

Week 1

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See Week 1 entries (29 Nov 2010 - 03 Dec 2010)

Other Versions

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Alternative versions of this log are available on: