celta assignment 2 examples

Language-related tasks - help with CELTA Assignment Two

Language-related tasks is often assigned early in a CELTA course and, like all other assignments on the course, it needs to be completed in between 750 and 1000 words. Some people fear it, as it's the closest thing you'll get to a 'grammar test' on your CELTA course, but it's not really a test because you are encouraged to use dictionaries, grammar books and grammar resource websites while writing the assignment. In fact, you are expected to look things up and reference this in your assignment. No one assumes you're already a grammar expert before a CELTA course begins!

This assignment will be structured in different ways depending on who your CELTA tutors are, but essentially, you'll always be asked to do the same things. These will include analysing the meaning, form and phonology of a number of language items (usually between 4 and 6 items) and these will include both grammar and vocabulary. You will be asked to do this in bullet points and not in continuous prose, so it can be a good idea to approach this as a series of exercises and not like an essay you might do for a university course.

When you're analysing meaning, it's important that you're aware of whether you're being asked to use the context that is being presented to you in the assignment or if you're being asked to create your own context. Context is seen as key to clarifying meaning, so you'll either be expected to teach meaning in a context presented to you or you'll be asked to provide a context - the assignment may ask you to provide a formal definition, but when analysing meaning for teaching purposes, it is essential this is done using a context. As a fellow teacher trainer of mine is fond of saying, a teacher shouldn't be a dictionary.

In the meaning section, you'll probably be asked how you would check students' understanding of meaning. This may be by using concept checking questions (CCQs) or by using something else like a timeline. This is often the trickiest part of the language-related tasks assignment. Remember that concept checking should be related to the context, it shouldn't be overly vague or complex and it shouldn't use the target language to check understanding of the target language. You'll find lots of help on YouTube and Google if you look up 'CCQs' or concept checking questions. Take care over this part of the assignment, as in my experience, this is often where trainees trip up.

In the section on form, you'll need to break down the grammar items and describe their structures to students. Your tutor should have given you plenty examples of how to do this in advance of you starting the assignment. You'll find lots of helpful examples of how to break down form in any of the grammar books we recommend .

Finally, you'll be asked to analyse pronunciation. Remember to sound the words out and think about how they sound in a sentence, not just how they sound in isolation. The word 'to' sounds different when you say it by itself and when you say it in a sentence like 'I've got to leave now.' Your tutor will expect you to notice this. Remember to use a good learners' dictionary to find phonemic transcriptions and other valuable information about word stress.

No tutor will expect a perfect assignment, and you can make mistakes and still pass, but you will need to show that you can deal with (1) meaning, (2) form and (3) phonology in order to pass the assignment, so make sure you pay attention to all three elements. In my experience as a tutor, you're more likely to be asked to resubmit an assignment with consistently excellent sections on meaning and form if you make lots of errors when analysing pronunciation than you are if you are partially correct when analysing all three aspects of language. If you are asked to resubmit, you shouldn't worry about this. It simply means that the tutor believes you can learn from re-attempting some parts of the assignment. A resubmission isn't a fail, and it's likely you'll only be asked to change very specific parts of the assignment in your resubmission.

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.

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CELTA Skills Related Tasks Assignment

Published by awalls86 on july 12, 2022 july 12, 2022.

For more tips and advice about CELTA, click here .

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The skills related task is usually the third assignment on the CELTA. By this point, you have hopefully already had two assignments back with a pass (if you’re following these guides) and are getting into the swing of writing these assignments.

What do you have to do?

For this assignment you need to outline a lesson based on authentic listening or reading material. Depending on the course provider, you may be given a choice of material to use or you may have the freedom to choose any authentic material you wish.

You are required to write between 750 and 1000 words. This does not include the listening or reading material or the tasks that you design.

Choosing materials

Either your CELTA provider will give you a number of materials to choose from, or you may have complete freedom to choose any authentic material. Remember that authentic materials are those that are not designed for language learners and, therefore, have not been graded for students.

You will need to justify why you are choosing these materials for the particular students at their particular level. The centre may or may not require you to pick materials for the students you are teaching on the course. However, even if this is not required, it is a good idea because then you can actually use the lesson for one of your TPs.

When I did my CELTA, I picked rental adverts in newspapers (I had total freedom to choose). My justification for this is that I was teaching students living in the UK who were likely to need to find a place to live at some point. As upper intermediate students, I felt they could deal with a lot of the vocabulary, but that there were certain phrases that were particular to this topic and genre that could cause students problems.

And when I did this lesson as my final TP (as I say, you don’t have to teach the lesson if you don’t want to), despite suffering from a terrible cold, I can confirm that it was my strongest lesson on the course. Most notably, two of the students in the lesson were whispering to each other at one point “listen, we need this for when we move next year!”

When choosing the material, keep in mind the interests of your students and what they would like to do with English outside of the course. You also need to make sure it is of a reasonable level for the students. Of course, what really determines the level is not the text itself, but the tasks that you devise.

That said, for most tasks students will need to understand around 95-98% of the words to gain any benefit. In other words, there shouldn’t be more than one new word in every twenty. It can be a useful activity to go through the text and highlight what you suspect will be new words.

There are also tools that will tell you what CEFR level the words are in a text. You can copy and paste the text here for example and get a breakdown of the level of each word. You don’t need to reference if you use such a tool, but it can stop you making the claim that a lexically dense and difficult text is suitable for a low level.

Introducing the Material

After justifying the choice of material, you will likely need to say how you would introduce this material. Basically, you need to describe a lead in to the material that will activate the students’ schemata (their pre-existing knowledge).

It may make most sense to deal with this aspect of your lesson outline last. When you know where your lesson is heading, then it becomes easier to see what is important in a lead in.

When you’re ready to describe the lead in, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. Strong lead ins could include activities like:

• discussing questions in pairs
• watching a video clip with a question
• ranking some ideas or pictures
• sharing a personal anecdote (with a question for students)

Pre-Teaching Vocabulary

The next step of the assignment is likely to ask you about the language you would choose to pre-teach and why. Contrary to popular belief, it is not important to pre-teach every word that students may not know, and in fact this may be undesirable.

The main reason why we wouldn’t want to pre-teach a word is because we would then be depriving students of an opportunity to work it out for themselves. Generally, when we work things out ourselves, we tend to remember them better, so it is better if students are able to do this.

Look at these two sentences. In each a made-up word is highlighted. Can you guess the meaning:

1) The coach  grawled the team in front of the media for not working hard enough.

2) She put the book on a monpurain .

Probably, you can guess that the first word means something like criticised, since this is what a coach can be expected to do if his team doesn’t work hard. The second is much more difficult; it could be an item of furniture, but it could equally be something else. Of course, another sentence could reveal this meaning in a text, not just the sentence it first appears in.

The other important consideration for pre-teaching is whether a word is necessary to complete the task you want students to do. Of course, you won’t know that until you have designed your tasks.

Once more the three considerations for pre-teaching vocabulary are:

– Does the student know this word? (If so, why teach it?)

– Does the student need it for the task? (If no, teach it when they need it)

– Can they guess the meaning from the text? (If yes, give them the opportunity to guess)

Designing Tasks

The real meat of this assignment is devising some tasks to do with the materials. You will need to have at least two tasks and these should focus on two different “sub-skills”.

The sub-skills you may cover are reading or listening for:

• specific information
• detailed information

You need to make sure you understand what these three sub-skills are and that you use these labels correctly within your assignment. You are advised to read about them in more detail in the recommended books. However, in short:

Gist concerns the overall meaning of the text. A gist task therefore tests whether students have understood this correctly. For example, a gist task could be to listen to a conversation and say who the speakers are, where it is taking place and the broad topics that are covered.

Specific information is about key points of information such as a price or a fact. Such tasks test the students’ ability to distinguish these. An example could be finding the prices in a menu to price up a meal, or to listen for a reference number.

Detailed information concerns more nuanced information such as a person’s opinion or reasons. Such tasks require a deeper understanding of the text to distinguish these. Such a task could be to listen to a complaint from a customer and pinpoint the reasons why the customer is upset and what they want to happen.

When choosing tasks, we would ideally try to emulate what we really do with such texts. However, this isn’t always possibly and so our tasks often end up being somewhat artificial.

Two things you certainly shouldn’t do are:

• Plan to have students read or listen to the text without any task at all. Always ensure students listen/read and something. This could just be answering a question.
• Don’t plan to have students read the text aloud. They can read the text to themselves.

Post-Reading/Listening

You will also likely be expected to say what you will do after the reading or listening. This can be either writing or speaking. It is often expected listening will be followed by speaking and reading with writing but there is no reason why it has to be. Listening to a phone call, you may decide that writing a letter is a sensible follow up task. Similarly, if the students read a letter, a telephone call could be a sensible speaking task.

As with other parts of this assignment, you will need to justify why this task is applicable to the text and to the students.

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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:

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

• 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.

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Lifecurious

Getting a CELTA Pass A: Example CELTA Lesson Plans & Assignments 👨🏻‍🏫

Here’s everything I learned in the process of earning CELTA’s top grade, plus something you won’t find elsewhere: Pass-A-quality example lesson plans, assignments, and more.

Are you doing a CELTA course and shooting for an A? Or just want to learn more about what it takes? You’re in the right place.

I’ll start by being more pessimistic, but then I’ll dial it back. First, here’s Jo Gakonga with a short summary of the CELTA assessment guidelines :

Jenna Cody also has a great write-up about her experience getting a Pass A, and how difficult/intense it was.

Both Jo and Jenna want you to know that you probably shouldn’t be aiming for a Pass A. Jo starts out with this line: “The rather harsh truth that you might not want to hear is that you’re almost certain not to get a Pass A at CELTA. They don’t give that very easily.” And here’s Jenna: “I highly doubt that someone on the CELTA course with zero teaching experience could get a Pass A unless they were preternaturally talented or had some indirect experience.” Then there are Cambridge’s published grade stats , broken down by country and year. The 2019 results show that 6.5% of students got a Pass A, and in 2018 it was 5.4%.

So how hard is it? Getting a Pass A will take a lot of work, but I think everything above paints too pessimistic a picture. I got it without any teaching experience, and I don’t think I’m that talented. There are lots of things you can do to improve your odds, and I’m here to help!

My first advantage was that I did a semi-full-time six week course, and I wasn’t working while doing it. Four week courses are probably the most common, and the limited time is why CELTA is described by almost all students as intense. I was very grateful for the extra two weeks in my course, and it definitely gave me more time to polish everything I did. So for starters, don’t do a four week course if you can help it. However, in order to find a course with a longer schedule, you might need to shop around internationally…

Choosing a CELTA Training Center

It used to be that you had to do the course in person. Covid changed that. Now you can shop around internationally and attend online, choosing the center that fits your budget, ideal start date, course duration, and time zone. CELTA is highly standardized and teaching centers get close scrutiny from Cambridge, so I’m guessing that tutors in most centers are at least decent. And no matter where you take the course, your tutors and students will all be speaking English.

I went with International House Mexico . In addition to being one of the best priced centers in the world, their time zone is friendly for US students, and most of their instructors turned out to be excellent.

Note that many companies teach Cambridge’s CELTA course, which was confusing to me at first when trying to choose where to take it. The biggest players are International House and Teaching House , both of which have many locations around the world. But there are many other training centers and universities that also teach CELTA. Cambridge’s official site can help you sort through them all by country and city, but its UX is not great. StudyCELTA has an easier to use search that lets you find places based on CELTA course type (online intensive, online part time, online blended, full time face to face, or part time face to face) and course starting date, but they only show testing centers that they partner with. I used a mix of both websites to narrow down my choices.

Example Materials

Probably one of the more useful things you can do (even more than giving yourself extra time for the course) is to learn from high quality examples. CELTA tutors will conduct some demo classes and probably give you example materials for some (but not all) assignments, along with example teaching practice (TP) lesson plans from a prior student or two at their center. You should definitely learn from those! However, the quality of the written materials may vary. Some will definitely not be at Pass A level. So here I’m providing examples of my own work to give you ideas about how to approach and structure things and give you a sense of the level of work that will be needed. If this helps you, please let me know in the comments!

These are meant to be examples only. Don’t use any parts of them directly. Cambridge holds the submissions of all past CELTA students, including me, and they put assignments (and possibly other work) through plagiarism detectors. They’ll deny you a certification at the end of the course if they detect that you reused someone else’s work.

• CELTA Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner (FOL)
• CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks (LRT) — Includes tutor feedback
• CELTA Assignment 3: Language Skills and Related Tasks (LSRT) — Includes tutor feedback
• CELTA Assignment 4: Lessons from the Classroom (LFC) — Includes tutor feedback
• CELTA TP6 Lesson Plan: Functional Language
• TP7 Print Sheet — Streamlined copy that I used as my reference during class
• CELTA TP8 Lesson Plan: Writing — Includes tutor feedback
• CELTA Self Evaluation for TP6
• CELTA Self Evaluation for TP7

Hopefully, yours come out better than mine!

Although your written materials might help push you over the edge from a regular Pass into Pass B or Pass A , of course they’re not everything. Being an effective teacher during your teaching practices is the baseline, and is at least as important. So I’ve got more tips…

• This will mean an additional 45+ minutes of prep for each lesson, but I found it so beneficial that I stuck with it every time. During every dry run, my first pass was somewhat rough and I was able to make adjustments that made it better the second time around when I had real students. It helped me understand where things weren’t working and also where I needed to shorten things to stay within the available time.
• Your first few dry runs will also be good opportunities to make sure you’re fully comfortable with any tools you’ll need like Zoom whiteboards/breakout rooms, Google Slides/Forms/Jamboards, etc.
• After submitting a TP lesson plan, prepare a streamlined version that you can print in advance of your lesson (see the example I included above). This printout should be easy to read at a glance and exclude any fluff you won’t need during the lesson (references, detailed language analysis, etc.).
• Incorporate any feedback tutors give you into your very next TP if possible, or as soon as appropriate. They want to see you show growth and responsiveness to feedback during the course. If your style or preferred teaching methodologies are different than theirs, that’s fine to go back to after the CELTA course. In the meantime, you should follow the opinionated approach that you’re paying them to teach you.
• Participate at least a little in post-TP peer feedback, and write meaningful self evaluations. Both are expected for students with high grades. To make self evals easier to write, I waited until getting TP feedback from my tutors and incorporated parts of their feedback into what I wrote.
• It’s okay to ask more questions about assignments since that’s not held against you in the same way.
• For me, my tutor said that if I was scored then, I’d probably get a Pass B. He also gave helpful tips on where to focus to continue doing better.
• After my next TP, I asked if I’d made enough progress on the areas he mentioned to be on track for Pass A, and I got even more advice.
• I was told that Pass A students typically include lots of scripting in their TP lesson plans, including for any instructions, transitions between lesson stages, ICQs (instruction checking questions), and CCQs (concept checking questions). Make sure your scripts are concise and use appropriately graded language for the level of your students. I started out a bit wordy, and continually got feedback about reducing TTT (teacher talking time).
• Learn everything you can about your language focus for the lesson, and make sure to include a language analysis table or section in every lesson plan. In addition to this being important for higher grades, the time I spent on this helped me several times with questions from students. I had solid answers for them as a result of the research I’d done beforehand, even when I hadn’t intended to include the more detailed coverage in the lesson.
• Since all assignments are allowed to be resubmitted once, CELTA tutors stress that failing an assignment on the first try is no big deal and that you can think of the first submission as a draft that you’ll get feedback on before submitting the final version. But I wouldn’t rely on this. Based on what I gathered from them, getting a Pass B will be hard if you need to resubmit more than one assignment, and Pass A might not be possible with any resubmissions. Take extra time before submitting to get your polish in on the first try.
• One of my tutors said assignments have a 10% word count leeway, so there’s no need to spend extra time e.g. shaving off a few more words if you’re over the limit. But you might want to confirm with your own tutors beforehand that it’s okay to rely on this.
• Be organized and on time for everything. My recommendation: Prepare a detailed checklist each week of everything you need to do that week (see the example below). The schedule given to me by IH Mexico was kind of a mess—it was hard to follow and too high level for me. Partly as a result, my peer that I worked most closely with occasionally prepared for the wrong things or didn’t realize an assignment was due until the last minute. My checklists made it much easier for me and made me feel good about completing even small things that I’d then get to check off.

Following is my checklist for week five that I wrote in Evernote (which lets you easily create lists with checkboxes). I marked things to show up live for (Zoom calls) with 🎙️, and deadlines with ⏰.

• 🎙️ Monday 11am: Live group class
• Read tutor feedback for LRT assignment
• Read guided lesson plan
• Read examples and references
• Read my prep notes from 12/04
• Review demo lesson
• ⏰ Wednesday 2 hr before: Submit final online
• Prepare print sheet
• Read my prep notes from 12/04 and 12/09
• ⏰ Friday 2 hr before: Submit final online
• Dry run beforehand
• ⏰ Thursday: Write and submit self evaluation
• Read tutor feedback
• Guided lesson planning session for next week
• ⏰ Saturday: Write and submit self evaluation
• Unit 14: Correction
• Unit 18: Lesson Planning 2
• Unit 19: Writing
• Unit 20: Recording & Recycling Language
• Observation: Task-based learning: Justin Vollmer (1 hr online)
• Ask tutor about delta between my current performance and Pass A
• Read instructions
• Read suggested resources and examples
• Fill in CELTA-5 info for the week
• Finish draft of to-do list for week 6

If any of this helped you, let me know! And feel free to share your own advice.

Are you preparing for CELTA? Then check out my post on the best English teaching books to help you prepare.

17 thoughts on “Getting a CELTA Pass A: Example CELTA Lesson Plans & Assignments 👨🏻‍🏫”

This is amazing! Thank you so much for your insight and all the detail you included! I start my CELTA this coming Monday! I’m also doing it with IH Mexico City, but I’m taking the part time course, so it will be spread out over 12 weeks. Fingers crossed!

Go get ’em, Pedro!

Hello! Cheers, i took my CELTA with IH Izmir i just completed my TP8 today im just hoping for the best although i must say the assignments really did my braincells dirty

Cheers, Dion! Congrats on completing the course. I liked the assignments (partly because I like writing generally), but they did take a lot of time.

Hello Steven!

I cannot adequately express how thankful I am to you for writing this article and including the resources above. I have been looking for an encouraging article from a CELTA graduate who passed with an A but had no prior teaching experience.

I saw your comment on Lao Ren Cha’s Blogspot page, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. It has been so discouraging to continuously read about how one must settle for a ‘pass’ if they have no prior teaching experience.

My goal is an A pass as well, and I will religiously follow the advice here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thelma, it’s great to hear this was helpful! Clearly, you’re highly motivated and ambitious, and I’m sure you’ll have great advice to share with others after you’re done. Wishing you the best!

Thank you very much, Steven! I appreciate the encouragement!

I hope you are well.

I have returned to thank you for providing examples of your work. It really helped me to put my best foot forward during the course. I have just received my recommended grade and it’s a PASS B. What was that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men? 😀

Nonetheless, thank you so much for this helpful article and the examples. Much appreciated!

Congrats, Thelma! Pass B is dope! I know you were hoping for the A, but I think B is equal to A in terms of opening a few more doors for people without prior teaching experience. You’ll be a badass teacher. 😀

Thank you for the encouragement! Much appreciated!

Thank you so much for the tips and details of lesson plans. I am doing Celta and it’s taking a toll on my health. I can’t grasp evrrything,it’s just too hectic to do TP today and then prepare for next TP the day after next plus not forgetting assignments etc.. i am sure if one can learn all in 4 weeks ?

Thank you so much for writing this article! It’s absolutely fantastic and filled with a lot of extremely useful information. I’ll be starting a 4 weeks CELTA program in April 2023 (didn’t have the option of a semi-full time unfortunately) and was wondering about the TP sessions for each skill…will the course tutors give us specific topics to teach or do we get to select which texts/books to teach students for these sessions? For example, for planning and teaching reading skills, do we get to decide what to teach within this for the teaching practice session to fulfill the language skills related task?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks, Babloo! In my case at least, the reading class was TP1, and because it was earlier in the course there was more guidance on the topic and what to include. I was given a section from an English coursebook to extract the reading material from.

This is so useful, thank you. Apologies if you’ve already said elsewhere and I missed it… how much experience did you have with the English International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) before starting CELTA? Thanks!

None. I learned it as much as I needed to during the course. You indirectly raise a good point, though, that it would be very helpful to gain at least basic knowledge of the English IPA beforehand.

Heyaaaa, just wanted to say that 2 years later this post is still very extremely much… SUPER helpful!! Especially the attached samples, carried me through. I’m in my final two weeks of (part-time) CELTA. (fingers crossed).

Dear Steven Levithan, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for sharing your valuable experiences regarding the CELTA course. Your approach and the exchange of ideas and information reflect your distinguished and noble character, which is highly appreciated and deserving of recognition. I have a few questions about the lesson plans you’ve designed. Firstly, are the topics of these plans requested by teachers, or do you select them personally? Secondly, after designing these plans, is it necessary to execute them live in the classroom? Lastly, during the live execution of these plans in class, is it permissible to use the template of the lesson plan, or should they be presented from memory? I would appreciate a comprehensive explanation, as well as any additional advice you may have for the first and second weeks of the course that I should implement or observe in the classroom. Thank you for your guidance and support. Sincerely, Hamid

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CELTA student

Monday 27 june 2016, celta assignment 2 - language related tasks, no comments:, post a comment.

Written Assignments

Written assignment cover page & resource.

Please use (and complete) a Written Assignment Cover Page for the first page of ALL of your written assignments.

ALL Written Assignments must be submitted in Word (doc or docx) format.

Download the Written Assignment Cover Page (docx)

If you don't have Word, use this Written Assignment Cover Page (Google Doc - Go to "File" (top left), then "Download" to download in various formats).

Before you get started on your Written Assignments, you can refer to this handy Written Assignment Resource that we've put together to give you a starting point for your research and other helpful resources for getting started with and completing each of the tasks below.

LSRT - Language Skills Related Task

Download the LSRT Rubric

Download the LSRT Guidelines

Download the LSRT Sample

For this assignment, choose an authentic reading text to practise and develop your learners’ reading skills. Choose a text which is suitable for one of your teaching practice classes.

Design a receptive skills lesson and describe the procedure of your lesson in prose, including the following information:

Say why you have chosen the text, comment on its suitability for use in the classroom and say which level you would use it with. Submit a sourced copy of the text with your assignment.

Design a lead-in , saying how you would raise your learners’ interest in the topic of the text.

Design an initial reading task and state which sub-skill(s) it practises. Include the task (with answers) on a separate handout.

Design a second reading task and state which sub-skill(s) it practises. Include the task (with answers) on a separate handout.

Design one or two productive skills follow-up tasks (speaking or writing) which capitalise on the interest generated by the text. Include the task(s) with your assignment.

Provide a rationale for doing each stage and task. Reference at least one methodology text to support your ideas.

Assessment criteria

The assignment should be written in continuous prose, with clear headings and paragraphing.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Language skills related tasks assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

correctly using terminology that relates to skills and sub-skills

relating task design to language skills practice

finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

Word count: 750 – 1000 words

LRT - Language Related Task

Download the LRT Rubric

Download the LRT Guidelines

Download the LRT Sample

Download the LRT Rubric and you will see a typical text that you might get students to read in class. It contains some useful language for Part 1 of your assignment. ( Your TP Language Analysis Sheets will be Part 2 ; read the rubric for details – link above).

Look at the items from the text in the box below. Choose one of the grammar structures and do the following:

analyse the meaning , describing how you would check students’ understanding. Use concept checking questions and some other clarification techniques if necessary, e.g. timelines, personalisation.

highlight the form

highlight key pronunciation features

focus on appropriacy where necessary

anticipate problems that students might have with meaning, form, pronunciation and appropriacy and suggest solutions . The solutions for problems with meaning could include some of the same techniques you used to analyse meaning, e.g. concept checking questions, timelines and personalisation

state which references you have used to help you in your analysis.

…everything that has happened to us during the day. (grammar)

…but sooner or later we have to sleep . (grammar)

If scientists invented a pill which, if you took it, would keep you awake for ever, would you take it ? (grammar)

Two example answers, one grammar and one lexis, have been done for your guidance. These can be found in the Guidelines for Assignment 2 link above.

Cambridge ESOL specifies that for the Language related tasks assignment , successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

analysing language correctly for teaching purposes

correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analysing language

accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about to an appropriate source

using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

FOL - Focus on the Learner

Download the FOL Rubric

Download the FOL Guidelines

Download the FOL Sample

In this assignment it is possible to focus on an individual adult learner or a group of adult learners (age 18+).

Part A: Write a profile of the learner(s)

In the profile it is important to include the following information about the learner(s):

Level, nationality and mother tongue.

Background and learning experience, with particular regard to learning English.

Reasons / motivation for learning English and what you consider to be their needs.

Preferred learning style(s) and the activities which they enjoy most and benefit from in class.

Details of their strengths and weaknesses. There should be a balance of grammar, lexis, pronunciation and the four skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing). This analysis will help you prepare for the second part of the assignment.

Refer to at least one reference book to support your observations.

Word count for part A: 550-700 words

Part B: Identify language problems and provide suitable activities from published material to address these.

For this part of the assignment choose two specific language problems. Use your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in part A to help you identify two key areas which the learner(s) need help with. Focus on problems with grammar, lexis and pronunciation, but avoid choosing two problems from the same area, e.g. two problems with grammar.

Find one activity that could be used with your learner(s) for each problem . You need to find two activities in total. You should hand these in with your assignment. These activities must be from other published material, and not from coursebook material you are using, or have used, on the course. Give a rationale for why you chose each activity stating:

Why you have chosen to focus on that area of grammar, lexis or pronunciation.

What exactly the activity you have chosen practises. Do not include a description of how you would use the activity.

Why you believe the activity is appropriate for your learner(s). Consider whether it is engaging, meaningful and culturally suitable.

Word count for part B: 200-300 words

The assignment should be written in continuous prose, with clear headings and paragraphing. Although it might be necessary to discuss and share data with your colleagues, assignments must be written independently.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Focus on the learner assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

showing awareness of how a learner’s / learners’ background(s), previous learning experience and learning style(s) affect learning

identifying the learner’s / learners’ language/skills needs

correctly using terminology relating to the description of language systems and language skills

selecting appropriate material and / or resources to aid learner’s / learners’ language development

providing a rationale for using specific activities with a learner / learners

finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources.

Total word count: 750 – 1000 words

LFC - Lessons from the Classroom

Download the LFC Rubric

Download the LFC Guidelines

Download the LFC Sample

This assignment is linked to your own experiences and progress in teaching practice, your observation of peers, your ‘live’ observations of experienced teachers and the filmed lessons in the Observation Room .

Please organise your assignment under the following headings:

Your teaching strengths Identify at least three areas of teaching which you have improved on during the course and state how you have achieved this progress. You should include specific examples from lessons you have taught and feedback comments from trainers, other trainees and your teaching practice students.

Areas for improvement Identify at least three areas of teaching you need to work on and make suggestions on how to improve on these after the course. Give examples from your teaching and include comments from trainers, other trainees and your teaching practice students to justify your suggestions.

Observations of other trainees and experienced teachers Identify particular strengths and skills you have observed, commenting on both your peers and experienced teachers. You should include specific examples of skills and techniques you would like to use in the future, and say how you will incorporate them into your own teaching.

Further development after the course Say how you intend to increase your knowledge of ELT after the course. State which sources you intend to use to find out information about new methods and approaches. You should also say how you intend to develop your teaching skills in the future.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Lessons from the classroom assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

noting their own strengths and weaknesses in different situations in light of feedback from learners, teachers and tutors

identifying which ELT areas of knowledge and skills they need further development in

describing in a specific way how they might develop their ELT knowledge and skills beyond the course

Focus on the Learner Assignment (1): Detailed Guide with Real Examples

Hi there! In this post, let’s go through the ‘Focus on the Learner’ CELTA Assignment.

First, here’s a brief outline of what we’ll talk about in this post.

Before We Begin: Quick Background Point

Some CELTA centres offer this as CELTA assignment 1 , but others do it at a different point in the course.

It depends, but this assignment is usually set early on in the course, but the deadline can vary – I have heard of students being given this as CELTA assignment 1, but told to submit it after CELTA assignment 2 and 3, for example!

With this assignment coming so early on the CELTA, it can cause people problems since the assignment requires some careful thought about logistics an planning.

This can catch people out, but it doesn’t need to if you are prepared!

Obviously, if you’re reading up on things like this on websites that should help you and you should remove that element of stress from your CELTA experience .

Different Types of Focus on the Learner Assignment

Let’s start by looking at the 3 types of  ‘Focus on the Learner’ assignment .

These are the ones that I know about; as I’ve said before, I’m not a CELTA trainer, but I have done the course and I speak to people about CELTA regularly.

The main three types of Focus on the Learner CELTA assignment are:

So, you’ve got 3 distinct approaches to this particular CELTA assignment. Let’s have a look at some points for each below.

Assignment Type 1 and 2: Focusing on an Individual or Pair of Learners

For the versions this assignment which focus on an individual or pair of learners , CELTA trainees will usually have to perform an interview with one (or two) learners.

The right questions to ask the student/learner

How to record the interview

Getting the student’s permission, and making sure they understand what they are signing up for (think about this for low-level students – harder than it sounds)

Arranging a time and a place to conduct an interview

Choosing a student who you think will actually turn up

You need to make the student(s) aware that doing the assignment is helping you on your CELTA course, but you also need to show them the benefits of coming for an interview , because if they don’t see any benefit, they’re unlikely to come (bad news for your assignment!).

Something you can do here is to offer them extra input into their learning as part of your interview , so you need to think of it from that perspective.

Interview Questions for Your CELTA Assignment

If you have to interview two learners, it’s going to be slightly different from just working with one, so think carefully about how you will ask the questions and whether it is best to have them there together or at different times. Your CELTA trainers can likely tell you which they recommend here.

Try to keep interview questions open-ended and avoid asking questions which have just a Yes/No answer.

Yes, they could understand both of the above questions, but consider which one is likely to allow the student to talk the most.

After all, you will need them to speak so that you can analyse their language!

*I don’t work for ISE Hove and have no contacts there – it’s just a great document!*

My Experience of the Focus on the Learner Assignment

I should add that I had to do the individual learner for mine, and I interviewed a student from Eritrea. His native language was Tigrinya, which I’d never heard of before!

I didn’t know anything about Tigrinya, and there wasn’t really much online about it, bearing in mind that this was in 2007, so there were even fewer websites, so it was really quite hard to find information. However, I did find some in books in the end and these helped me to get through.

Actually, thinking about it, that was one time where it was really helpful to do my CELTA course at a university – the library had so many books available (as you would expect) and the online journal articles we had access to were very useful – but that’s for another article!

Choosing the Right Students for Your CELTA Assignment – Types 1 & 2

Another point to note is that, if you are on a CELTA course with students speaking many different languages, the tutors will specifically say that you cannot interview an individual, or a pair of learners, who speak any of the same languages as you.

Now, although this might sound a bit unfair, the tutors want you to work out of your comfort zone.

Try to take this as a challenge and an opportunity to learn new things and broaden your horizons. I remember doing a case study on a Japanese learner as part of a TESOL module I did at university.

The idea that a basic Japanese sentence is Subject + Object + Verb, rather than Subject + Verb + Object like English blew me away. For more on Japanese, check it this detailed post I’ve just found on Japanese sentence structure (looks interesting!)

However, not everyone will have to do this as it is not always logistically possible.

For example, if you consider an Arabic speaker on a CELTA course in an Arabic-speaking country , with a CELTA course where all the students speak that same language, then it’s highly likely that CELTA trainees there will focus only on students who speak the Arabic language.

Type 3 – Focus on the Learner s : Using a Whole Group or Class

Moving on to the final type of assignment, using a whole group or class, which  could  involve the whole class of students who you will be teaching in your assessed teaching practice sessions.

It depends how big the group is, but you will have to do a profile of the group in terms of where they’re from and their language backgrounds.

Key points to consider when writing a group profile include the following:

Do they all speak the same first language?

Are they from many different countries?

Do they have similar reasons for learning?

Is there a mix of ages?

Focus on the Learner: Word Count and Key Points

In terms of what you need to include, here are the main points:

Generally, the first 300 to 350 words should be about learner(s) background .

Then, the next 300 to 350 would be an analysis of the student’s language problems

This will then be followed by another 300-350 word section suggesting activities for them to improve their English .

Learner Background Section

In terms of learner motivation, for example, some people are coming to class to enhance their career or job propsects.

Other points to cover include a learner’s previous language learning experience.

If you are asked to focus on a group of learners (Type 3), try focusing on students who show difference or contrast to the majority, while also describing the main group of learners.

Needs Analysis Section

Think of a learner’s strengths in terms of the different skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Again, the document by ISE Hove have this covered and have provided a self-assessment grid for learners  to complete themselves (see page 3). It’s simple, but it should work!

Also, you should mention language points that you’ve seen these learners have difficulty with during CELTA teaching practice sessions; you can then identify errors (both from their spoken and written language) to analyse as part of your assignment.

Choosing the Right Language Points for Your Assignment

Interestingly, a student recently emailed to ask me the following question:

“How do I know which language points to focus on when writing the Focus on the Learner Assignment?”

From your extensive notes (hopefully), you can then choose only the language points that you know how to explain, because there will be probably many, many different points if you have taken lots of notes!

For this reason, Swan and Smith’s book Learner English is really useful for this assignment.

 Suggested Activities for Improvement Sections

These suggestions don’t need to be anything out of this world, however. You could just simply suggest that the students try to spend more time speaking with native speakers to improve their confidence, or focus on improving their knowledge of article rules – whatever is relevant.

It depends, but it’s all part of a needs analysis – and you have to think of the interview experience from the perspective of the student , how it will help them

Using Books to Help With CELTA Assignment 1

You will need to refer to different books to show that you’re reading around the topic and that you are aware of the different academic thoughts on these things.

That way you can give good, educated ideas and suggestions to help the students, which are really practical as well. 

**Top tip: If you are going to buy CELTA books, I’d suggest getting second-hand or used books from Amazon as they are generally very good quality and it can save you a lot of money!)**

Examples of the Focus on the Learner Assignment

Finally, where can you see examples of the Focus on the Learner Assignment?

Hopefully, you’ll see a range of different ways of tackling this question, and you’ll see the different types of answers to the relevant questions for CELTA assignment 1.

Now, although the following examples are available online, that does not mean they are of high quality.

Some appear to also ignore the given word count for CELTA assignment 1 (if I dare call it that!), which I find quite strange but it may be something that your tutors are not too worried about – best to ask them that one!

So, in order, you will find examples of each type of assignment for the individual learner, a pair of learners and a group of learners, with links to the original document below.

Example of  Assignment Type 1: Individual Learner

Example of  assignment type 2: pair of learners, example of  assignment type 3: group of learners, summary  – focus on the learner celta assignment.

So, hopefully, you’ve found the information above useful and now have a better idea of how to approach this CELTA assignment!

PS Here’s a quick summary video over on the CELTA Helper Youtube Channel:

Further Reading on CELTA Assignments

More helpful content for you:, recent posts.