celta helper assignment 3

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!

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

Language Skills Related Tasks - help with CELTA Assignment 3

Language Skills Related Tasks Assignment

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.

CELTA Written Assignments – Language Skills Related Tasks (LSRT)

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?

person holding blue ballpoint pen writing in notebook

Although every centre creates their own written assignments, the CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines states that for the LSRT assignment:

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

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by: a. correctly using terminology that relates to language skills and subskills b. relating task design to language skills development c. finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources 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

What does this mean for you? Well firstly, of course, you need to make sure you do some background reading and find out more about why we provide students with practice in the reading/listening subskills, what these subskills are and how you can give the students practice using them. It would be very easy for me to tell you the answers in this post but that won’t help you in the long run. Instead I can suggest a couple of sources for you to have a look at:

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener
The CELTA Course by Cambridge University Press
Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language by Macmillan Education
Listening Skills – Blog Post by TUGtoC
Getting to Grips with Reading Skills – Blog Post by TUGtoC

If your centre’s assignment requires you to find your own material (reading or listening texts) make sure that it is something you can use for the level of learner you are aiming the lesson at. Whilst it is true that most material should be possible to use with all levels, the activities themselves must be aimed at the learners’ level.

Once you have found a text (if your centre hasn’t provided you with one) you will probably be asked to come up with suitable activities that will give the students practice in one or two of the reading/listening subskills. You can make sure that your activity really does practise the subskill you are suggesting by trialling the task yourself (ie if you want the students to scan for specific information, try it yourself and see if it is actually possible to find the answers by scanning!). Please also make it clear in your assignment that you will be giving the students the task to do while reading/listening – NEVER ask students to read or listen to something without giving them a task to do. If you give students something to read/listen to without a task then they will not be practising the listening/reading subskills, instead they will be listening/reading very carefully because they won’t have anything specific to focus on. I can’t tell you how frustrated we tutors get when trainees get this wrong 😦

After you have created your in-reading/in-listening part of the lesson you will be asked to suggest a follow-up activity that would have students practise either speaking or writing. After receptive skills practice students need to start being productive and as reading and listening is an individual task I would suggest a follow-up task should have more student interaction, this could be in written or spoken form but is more likely to be in spoken form as writing tends to be done alone. Whatever you decide to do, remember to exploit the context of the in-reading/listening tasks by, for example, remaining on the topic from the text. Remember, however, they should not be reading/listening to the text again for the post- activity.

One more thing you should make sure you do is write a bibliography, stating all the resources you have used to help you to write your assignment. Remember, CELTA requires you to prove you are capable of “finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task” – (Source: CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines) so make sure you prove this by including your bibliography.

When you think you have completed your assignment, walk away from it for at least a couple of hours. Go back to it later with a fresh pair of eyes and check it against the rubric. Ask yourself the following questions:

Have you done everything that you have been asked to do?
How many words have your written?
Is it clearly laid out and easy for someone else to read?
Are there any spelling, punctuation, grammar errors?
Are there any typos?
Have I included a bibliography?

Common Pitfalls

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

using the subskills terminology incorrectly (ie saying something is a scanning task when it is a skimming task)
providing a task that doesn’t practise the subskill they say it does
not highlighting the fact that the in-reading/listening task they would give students should be done while reading/listening
not submitting a complete assignment
writing much more than is required and going way over the word-count
not proof-reading their work before handing it in
not including a bibliography

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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Author: Emma Jones

A CELTA Tutor based in Munich and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to CELTA View all posts by Emma Jones

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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

Angelina

70-80

Retired teacher

· Likes grammar and writing, but has problems with listening and speaking.

· Has a good range of vocabulary and grammar structures.

· Is interested in England, so studies English to travel.

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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Have a great weekend, Patty

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Thank you a lot! You’ve saved my life!!!!

CELTA written assignment: focus on the learner(s)

The purpose of the assignment

The CELTA handbook (5th edition) explains that this assignment allows you to demonstrate that you can:

show awareness of how a learner’s/learners’ background(s), previous learning experience and learning preferences affect learning
identify the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills needs
correctly use terminology relating to the description of language systems and/or language skills
select appropriate material and/or resources to aid the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills development
provide a rationale for using specific activities with a learner/learners
find, select and reference information from one or more sources
use written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

That's a lot to cover in 1000 words so you need to be concise and stay focused. This is not the place to discuss general approaches to teaching.

Most centres choose one of two ways to set this assignment:

You may be asked to focus on a specific learner from one of the teaching practice classes or
You may be asked to focus on the whole of a teaching practice class.

You may even be given a choice.

Whichever assignment you are set, the considerations are the same but, obviously, more depth will be required in 1. than in 2.

This is in the genre of an Information Report and it has three parts:

A brief introduction stating the basic information about the learner or the class. Say what you are doing and who the subject of the investigation is.
An area-by-area report giving the data you have gathered, noting strengths, weaknesses and needs as you go along.
sources for language and/or skills development and, if it's needed, personal support
ideas for language and/or skill focused activities Link this section carefully to the data you have gathered, explaining why you think the ideas will help.

You can combine the second and third areas if that makes sense to you so two structures are possible:

Either ...	... or ...

Choose one structure or the other. Do not mix them up or you'll be incoherent.

An example of the learner's writing. The neatest way to get this is to write a short note to the learner saying who you are, giving a bit of background (age, background, personal details etc.) and asking the learner to respond in like manner. That way, you get the personal stuff you need and an example of how well they can handle the simple language needed to give some personal data (name, age, occupation etc.).
reasons for learning English
language learning background
student’s opinion of their strengths and weaknesses in English
preferred class and activity types


Why are you learning English?
What learning of English have you done before?
What are you best at? Speaking Writing Reading Listening Grammar Pronunciation Vocabulary
What do you like and dislike doing in the classroom? Working alone Listening to the teacher Working in groups Working in pairs Doing exercises Reading Listening Writing Speaking Listening to songs Playing language games Anything else?

You can, of course, gather some of this data by designing a questionnaire. See the guide to needs analysis to get some ideas. There is an example of a basic needs analysis form here.
Record the interview and listen to it again, making notes of consistent errors and the learner's communicative effectiveness. You can provide a tapescript of some important parts of the interview to exemplify the areas you think need work in the assignment. You will need the person's permission to do this, of course.
If recording is not an option, make as many notes as you can on the learner's use of English as you go along.
Learning style. The new edition of the handbook (the 5th) has removed any explicit reference to learning styles because the theories that underlie such things have been comprehensibly debunked. The syllabus now contains reference to learning preferences. However, for reasons which are slightly obscure, some CELTA centres and tutors are wedded to the idea of learning styles. Many will let you have a copy of something called a VARK questionnaire to give to the subject. There is, of course, a guide to learning styles on this site but you should treat the area with great scepticism. See also the article attempting to debunk the whole concept .

You need to set out some information about the people in the class: ages, occupations, reasons for learning etc. See the table above. The only sensible way to do this with a group of people is via a questionnaire needs analysis. See the guide to needs analysis to get some ideas. There is an example of a basic needs analysis form here.
You can investigate learning preferences but will have to identify from the data any commonalities in the class rather than details of each learner. See point f., above.
For the final section of the assignment where you make suggestions, you'll need to be a bit more generalised and identify common aims and needs rather than individual ones. One approach is to identify the two weakest and the two strongest students and identify appropriate activities, resources and aims for them. That should also cover everyone in between.

The student is studying English for no apparent purpose at the moment. He or she may need the language in the future for some purpose but at the moment that is not clear. The student may also need the language as part of a general education, for access to English-language websites and for travel and tourism. This student needs General English (a GE learner).
This student need English to settle and integrate in an English-speaking culture for an indefinite time. This student needs English as a Second or Other Language (an ESOL learner)
This student needs English for business and commercial purposes either because his/her professional setting demands it or because she/he is intending to study Business and/or Management. This student needs Business English (a BE learner).
This student intends to study in an English-medium institution such as a university or college. This student needs English for Academic Purposes (an EAP learner).
This student needs English for a narrow area of concern such as access to written scientific texts, to work in a particular occupation such as the hospitality industry, air traffic control, the merchant marine, the transport industry etc. This student needs English for a Specific Purpose (an ESP learner).
All of the above can be subdivided into a bewildering range of acronyms including, e.g., EGOP (English for General Occupational Purposes), EGPP (English for General Professional Purposes), ELF (English as a Lingua-Franca, for communication between non-native speakers of English worldwide), English in the Workplace (EiW), English for Professional Purposes (EPP) and so on.

"I want to learn English to fit into an English-speaking culture and work and socialise." This student has Integrative Motivation (to integrate into a cultural milieu).
"I want to learn English to use the language in business meetings / to study a subject at university." This student has Instrumental Motivation (using the language as a tool to do other things).
"I love the language and enjoy learning it and speaking it." This student has Intrinsic Motivation (the pressure to learn comes from within).
"I have been told to learn English by my employer / parents / sponsor." This student has Extrinsic Motivation (the pressure to learn comes from outside).

Be careful not to be too dogmatic here. People are complicated and their motivations are often obscure, even to themselves, so try to avoid statements such as

This learner is extrinsically motivated.

Prefer, instead, something a bit more careful such as:

From the data supplied in the short questionnaire, it seems that this learners is aware of the need to learn enough English to be able to function in the workplace but is also keen to access English-speaking websites and understand something of the cultures of English-speaking societies. She has, therefore, a mix of instrumental and integrative motivation and needs English as a tool as well as for cultural access.

There is a guide to motivation on this site but you do not need all the detail now. If you would like a simpler guide to motivation which still gives more data than here, there is one in the TKT course materials (new tabs).

Obviously, the suggestions you make will be determined by what you have discovered about the learner(s).

Why do you suggest it?
What's its target?
How will it help?
Include both ideas for activities and ideas for materials to use and topics to focus on.
Identify both language structure and skills needs. For example, From the data summarised in point xxx above, I would argue that a priority for this learner / these learners is to enhance his / her / their reading skills because they / he / she identify it as a weakness and this is supported by my observations. Good reading skills are needed for study in the UK and the majority of these EAP students / this EAP student will be going on to university in the next few months. Therefore, I suggest using xxxx in class and starting a reading club using xxxx books and resources. The student(s) will also benefit from a specific focus on both reading for gist and reading intensively so I suggest the following activities will be helpful... or Another area of weakness I have identified in point yyyy above is the student(s)' lack of vocabulary . Therefore, I suggest a specific focus on general academic vocabulary including using yyyy as a resource and spending at least one lesson per day focusing on common academic collocations (such as reasonable to argue, arising from the data, developing the point further etc.). This will improve the learner(s)' ability to be precise in terms of meaning and use conventional language in academic essays. The class / student will also benefit from work on cohesive devices such as therefore, firstly, finally, because, furthermore etc. as his / her / their writing shows that they avoid or misuse these structures in general (see appendix 2, and the comments in point z). This will make the learner(s)' writing in particular more accessible, better organised and fluent.

Do not repeat yourself here. It's not necessary and you don't have enough words to play with. What you do need to do here is identify the main facts and the most important suggestions. In other words, prioritise .

Before you submit your assignment, here's a quick checklist. You can have this as a PDF file by clicking here or you can mentally tick things off on the screen.

learning preferences
the questionnaire and a summary of the results
samples of work
I have identified at least 5 language problems the learner(s) have / has
I have given examples
general future work
specific ideas to deal with the problems I identified

Now assess yourself against the criteria for the assignment. Here they are again. Have you been able to:

Your tutors will maintain a record of the work you have done on the written assignments and will grade each of the criteria as follows: NS (Not to Standard), S (at Standard) or S+ (above Standard). You need to aim consistently for S or S+ grades, naturally.

If you have managed to tick all the items, well done. Submit the assignment and move on.

The CELTA written assignment guides:

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CELTA Assignment 3 - Language Skills Related Tasks

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Background and summary The framework for task-based learning as described in this paper was developed over a period of time in the 1980s, working with students aged 14 and upwards in both multilingual and mono-lingual classes in a number of teaching environments. It is illustrated in more detail in 'A Framework for Task-based Learning' first published in 1996 but now out of print and available as an e-book from http://www.intrinsicbooks.co.uk/title_by_title/framework.html This paper explores the rationale behind task-based learning, defining and giving examples of tasks and their outcomes. It explains the stages in a typical task cycle which focus on using language to exchange meanings, then looks at the importance of a subsequent study of language forms in the context of the task. It shows how the stages in the framework generate optimum conditions for language learning Finally it reports the reactions and findings of novice teacher trainees trying out task-based teaching for the first time. Note: This is a revised version of the paper written originally in 1995 for inclusion in the collection 'Challenge and Change in Language Teaching' (now out of print) alongside a paper on Consciousness-raising activities in TBL, for which see http://www.willis-elt.co.uk/articles/ This Task-based Learning (TBL) framework has since been adapted for use by teachers in many countries round the world – and their experiences are reported in 'Doing Task-based Teaching' Willis and Willis, 2007. For a summary and sample TBL lessons, see http://ihjournal.com/doing-task-based-teaching-2 Sample TBL lesson plans are available free from www.willis-elt.co.uk Introduction We began to experiment with task-based learning in the early eighties, frustrated by the limitations of methodologies that prioritized form-focused language teaching, even when supplemented with`skills' lessons. The Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) model, which focused on accurate use of the grammatical forms taught at the Presentation stage, was in common use at the time. But very few students who finished their English courses were able to use their English to communicate adequately with others. We were encouraged by the success of Prabhu's Communicational Teaching Project in primary and secondary schools in Bangalore (Prabhu 1987), where the focus throughout was almost entirely on meaning rather than grammatical forms. We felt supported by recent research findings in the field of Second Language Acquisition such as those reported by Ellis (1993) and summarized by Skehan (1996) earlier in this volume. This task-based framework differs from a PPP cycle because the focus on language form comes at the e nd. The communication task itself is central to the framework. Such a task may involve student production of language and/or may be linked to a spoken or written text. A single task would normally involve both productive skills, eg speaking and note-taking, and receptive skills, eg listening and often reading. Learners begin by carrying out a communication task, using the language they have learnt from previous lessons or from other sources. They then talk or write about how they did the task and compare fi ndings. At some point they might listen to recordings of other people doing the same task, or read something related to the theme of the task, again relating this to their own experience of doing the task. Only after that is their attention directed towards specific features of language form-features that occur naturally in the recordings they have heard or the texts they have read. In other words, learners begin with a holistic experience of language in use. They end with a closer look at some of the features naturally occurring in that language. By that point, the learners will have worked with the language and processed it for meaning. It is then that the focus turns to the surface forms that have carried the meanings.

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Luis Fernando Rubio Jaramillo

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This assignment attempts to show how reading instruction can develop 2nd grade learner's reading fluency in the Lykeio context. Firstly, there is an effort to illustrate a typical reading comprehension lesson provided by the coursebook used. This lesson is further evaluated along the lines of specific theoretical criteria analysed. Moreover, there are specific suggestions on how this reading comprehension lesson can be modified to comply with the principles presented earlier. Towards that end, changes of the existing lesson are justified on the basis of the theoretical criteria to be met. Finally, an evaluation is pursued with reference to the adapted reading comprehension lesson after teaching it in the particular class.

Suad Othman Mohamed

DELTA Module 3 Extended Assignment Teaching EAP – Reading & Writing

MANUEL Tomás Alexandre Diogo TCHAKAMBA

ABSTRACT In general terms, reading is conceived of as a process that involves not only recognising words in print but also of making sense of them, through the application of specific strategies and techniques. In point of fact, for scholars such as medical students, who are required to cope with scientific articles and other text types with a certain degree of complexity and vocabulary load, developing effective reading comprehension skills is of utmost importance. In this regard, the current research, which takes the form of a case study, addresses the 4th and 5th year students of the Medical Course at the Faculty of Medicine in Benguela province, Angola, focusing on an analysis of their English language needs and evaluation of the learning resources in use for the English language course component. This analysis gave rise to the proposal of a manual to supplement the existing teaching materials, with the objective of developing effective reading skills and strategies in English. The manual provides a set of texts, tasks, procedures and methodological guidelines to develop reading skills that would enable these students to succeed in reading medical English texts, both for academic and professional purposes. These materials and tools to develop reading skills and subskills were designed within the framework of Narrow Reading, believing that reading and reading comprehension are best developed when chances for recycling vocabulary around related topics are high and are intended to support and extend the existing syllabus in current use within the context under study. KEYWORDS: Reading, academic reading skills and subskills, Narrow Reading, development of reading skills, English for academic purposes, Medical English.

Gyanendra K U M A R Yadav

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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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10 Ways to Save Time On Your CELTA Assignments

Often I hear CELTA students complain that they are completely stressed over the amount of time it takes to write a CELTA assignment, and that it comes at the worst time of the course.

For this reason, I have decided to share with you some ways to save time on your CELTA assignments so that you can reduce the stress on your course and not let things get out of control!

So, let’s get right into this to help you speed up your CELTA assignments and find more time for your precious teaching and learning!

1. Use voice typing

Voice typing is available through many apps on smartphones and actually on google.com.

Most smartphones now also have this functionality, which is something you can activate by pressing the microphone icon on your smartphone’s keyboard. You can also activate it using phrases like ‘OK, Google’ on Android or ‘Siri’ on Apple devices (points that I am sure you already know!).

Now, I’ve timed this and for me personally, it is three times or four times faster than my typing speed. I don’t think I’m a slow typer, I’m actually quite a fast typer so I’d say it’s definitely faster.

So, [when voice typing] you would have to say “comma full stop new line” etc. [for the punctuation to show]! It feels a bit weird but it’s still faster than typing it. It’s definitely worth a look.

Below, you can see how to do this on Google Docs, my personal choice for voice typing (and it works on smartphones, too!). Simply click ‘ Tools ‘ then ‘ Voice Typing ‘.

2. Take notes in advance from CELTA course books.

But when you’re reading about methodology or ways of teaching specific points, take notes on either a Google doc or a Word document somewhere where you can come back to later.

Record all of the key points you found on a document. Don’t just read or flick through the books and leave them never to return – use this to save time for your assignments later!

3. Check the marking criteria for your CELTA centre

Some CELTA centres put this up online. Here is a link to a CELTA centre’s marking criteria – it’s very helpful because you know exactly what the markers want.

They should send it to you and you will have something further to prepare from in advance of starting the course. If not, use the link above instead as 99% of these points will be the same.

4. Prepare Formatting on your Documents in Advance

Now the formatting is a little bit tricky, perhaps, but if you just set this up in advance, it is another way sure way to save time.

Create a Word document according to what your tutors say, and this might also come from the marking criteria.

I’ve got my template document and it’s all ready to go – I then just need to do the work!

5. Use Google Books.

When you look at the preview it gives you perhaps maybe 30% of a book. It’s the maximum allowed within copyright law but you can still get a lot of information from it.

And the nice thing is not only can you search in the book but it also highlights all your keywords throughout the whole book in a very fast way.

So, it’s useful to look in here even before getting a book or getting it from the library as well (saves leaving your home to check a book in a library!).

Have a look at Google Books – an excerpt from Swan’s Learner English, which is a fantastic book for the ‘focus on the learner’ assignment, is available as a preview on Google Books here , showing search results for the word ‘Arabic’ (feel free to change it to whatever you need!

6. Use a referencing app or website.

You just need to choose the appropriate referencing style for your centre. I imagine it will either be Harvard or APA but it doesn’t matter because with these all you need to do to change the style is click a button anyway, so it’s very easy.

Another referencing website that I use is Google Scholar . Google Scholar has journal articles and books mainly, not websites.

And there are lots more referencing tools you can use for free online and as apps on a smartphone. Have a look around and see what’s available but don’t pay for any. Just use them for free and it will do your references perfectly.

7. Read all available examples of CELTA assignments online.

I’ve noticed in the recent years many more people are posting their CELTA assignments online and this is helpful as a resource for you to learn from. But it’s also very useful just to have a look at lots of different people’s as there so many out there now it’s hard to believe – but don’t pay for any!

There are lots available for free on different sites. In fact, I’ve put some in a CELTA assignments article as well as they are in the public domain.

CELTA Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner: Quick Summary …

8. Keep a diary of the CELTA course [as you go].

Most smartphone should have inbuilt audio recording apps which save as MP3/MP4 files directly. If not you can just do it over a Whatsapp message to a friend or whatever.

However you choose to do it, just be sure to record some brief audio notes on your thoughts on the course and what you’ve learned so far. Because when you come to writing that assignment, it will be really hard for you to remember a lot of it.

9. Use a phonemic transcription app or website.

You can also use things like the Cambridge Dictionary which is free and that has IPA in there which you can copy and paste as well but it’s only one word at a time doing it that way.

Save your time as if trying to stress about them and find the symbols in Microsoft Word.

10. Ask a friend to proofread [your assignment] for you.

I say this because I’ve worked freelance as a proofreader online before. And it’s very hard for anyone to find errors in their own work because sometimes we end up looking at the same document too many times and we don’t see the problems.

So, what you could do is set up a swap service with someone else on your course. Someone you trust or perhaps someone you know who’s done the CELTA course before.

Simply and ask them just to glance at it, not to give you detailed feedback because people might say ‘no’ if it sounds like a lot of work.

You could obviously do the same for them in exchange.

Summary: 10 Ways to Save Time on Your CELTA Assignments

So good luck with it and come back if you have any questions.