24 June – 19 July 2013
Dear Trainee, Welcome to British Side and the course! You are now trainees on the Cambridge CELTA Course and students at British Side. The former means that you are following a training course designed by the University of Cambridge ESOL. The syllabus and assessment criteria are laid down by this organisation, and the course will be inspected and moderated by an externally appointed assessor. You will not be assessed by this person (s/he will inspect the centre) but by your tutors. The staff working on this course are: Ramy Sakr Aaron Abrook Jennifer McCready Brigid Nugent Main Course Tutor Assistant Course Tutor Assistant Course Tutor Assistant Course Tutor
********************************************************************************************************* Your tutors obviously have a dual role, as trainers (in which role we try to help you reach your full potential) and as assessors, (which means we have to objectively assess your performance). This means that as the course progresses, we need to give you more autonomy so that you can show us what you are capable of. But don’t worry; we will always help you out if you need it. You will be assessed on three points: Teaching Practice You will be given a grade after your first lesson: At standard or Not to standard. These refer to how we see the success of the lesson, taking into account the stage of the course. For example, is it more than we can reasonably expect after the first five days’ teaching, about what we would normally expect, or are there some basic problems that we would expect you to have sorted out by now? It sounds hard, but it is very important that you don’t take these grades too much to heart. Your grade at the end of the course is dependent upon an overall picture, not a mathematical equation. We need to give you these grades in order to let you know how you are getting on. If you do not agree with your tutor’s assessment then you are
References: Word count: 750 – 1000 words Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig, English File Intermediate, 1999, OUP