My CELTA experience

During the summer of July 2013, I decied to shift to Vienna and to do that I needed a job, so I decided to do an English teaching qualification, hence landed in the class of 2013 at BFI, Wien. 

BeforeI could embark upon my CELTA journey, I had to clear the rigorous selection process. The pre-tasks only gave me an idea as what my current level of English was. I managed to clear the process by the  thinnest of margins and it seemed that I would had to make massive improvements if I wanted to become an English teacher.

Well, I got selected and was asked to attend the course at the Vienna centre. On the first day, it was just the induction, we introduced to each other by playing the world famous ball game (participants throw a small ball at each other and asks common introduction questions). That was supposed to be a warmer and an ice breaker but even I was questioning myself about the appropriacy of it. We were given a brief outline and requirements of the course and rest of the time we used to get acquainted to felloe trainee teachers. Our group was made up of 10 trainee teachers of which I was the only Indian, there were few Austrians and a Croatian, English and Polish.

We got divided into two groups, one group was teaching elementary students and the other one started with the intermediates. My first lesson was on the 'usual phrases for greetings and intorductions' and I made the right mess of it. It was an elementary class and students spoke very little English. Most of them were clueless as what was going on and failed to understand  much in my lesson. That was an eye opener for me and a realisation that perhaps English teaching wasn't meant to be that easy. My lessons gradually improved as I just kept on improving by working on the feedback given by my tutors. The sessions became more intense day by day and everything was new to me. Slowly, I was becoming aware of the fact that I was probably the only one with not so good knowledge of English. Towards the end of the week, I planned to go for a badminton game with my friend and twisted my knee which resulted in anterior cruciate ligament damage. 

Then came the assignments. The first one was langauge based, I had no clue on how to do it and I also failed to realise that most of the information was available in the books. All my assignments apart from the last one, needed to be resubmitted (sort of a record). One fellow teacher (grammar nazi) helped me a lot with correcting my grammar mistakes. Never before I realised that I was making so many mistakes in my writing, it helped me in getting a new perspective towards proof reading and to understand the importance of it.

During the course, I got quite friendly with my 'grammar nazi' friend and Charlie from Nottingham (who also spoke fluent French). Me and Charlie also got along well with our tutor as he was also English. We went out once and Tom gave me detailed insights of Austrain life.

In the course, my lessons improved, my language also improved, my plans became better and the lesson feedback got better. In all this, I got good support from my fellow teachers and it was by a long distance, the best study group I had ever been part of.

I eventually passed the course and so did rest of the batchmates. Me, Charlie and Tom met for a rendez-vous after the course. Charlie was curious to know as who got the best grades and Tom said that he cannot give out those details, on that I said that I was glad to pass the course and Tom replied, "So are we!".

It was a tough journey and I was truly glad to complete it. I learnt quite a lot in the whole process and became a qualified English teacher as well. Not sure, as how this will help me in my career which is at the corssroads anyway but let's see what happens!