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CELTA and Trinity: Which TEFL course is for you?

What is the difference between the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity TESOL?

Both the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity TESOL are English language teaching certificates that are accredited and recognised all over the world. As a result there are actually more similarities between the two courses than differences, but we shall look at the finer details of both.

Similarities

–          Both are accredited by highly respected institutions: TESOL by Trinity College London and CELTA by University of Cambridge English Language Assessment (formerly University of Cambridge ESOL)

–          Entry criteria for both includes: being over 18 years of age; having a standard of education equivalent to that required for higher education; a good level of spoken and written English; a good level of language awareness

–          Both include 6 hours of teaching practice with real English language students

–          Both courses comprise 5 units of learning

–          Non-native English language speakers with CAE PASS or IELTS 7.0 can apply to both

–          There is no final exam for either and assessment is continuous throughout the course

–          Both courses have a duration of a minimum 4 weeks

Differences

–          The CELTA must last for a minimum of 120 hours, the TESOL for 130 hours

–          The 5 units of learning for Trinity are:

  1. Teaching skills
  2. Language Awareness
  3. The Learner Profile
  4. Materials Assignment
  5. Unknown Language

–          The 5 units of learning of CELTA are:

  1. Learners and Teachers/Teaching and Learning
  2. Language Analysis and Awareness
  3. Language Skills
  4. Planning and Resources for Different Contexts
  5. Developing Teaching Skills and Professionalism

–         An external moderator will mark unit 4 for the TESOL and the whole course will be moderated by an external assessor for the CELTA.

–          For TESOL the final grades are either pass or fail. For CELTA the final grades are Pass A, Pass B, Pass or Fail.

Which one should I take?

Given the similarities between the two courses and that they carry the same weight in terms of international recognition, the main three deciding factors when choosing between the CELTA and TESOL are:

1. Price

The TESOL generally tends to be a little cheaper than the CELTA, although this is not always the case.

2. Location

When it comes to location, large cities will have centres that offer both the TESOL and the CELTA, but smaller cities may only offer one of the courses. If location is a key factor then this may limit your choice or options.

3. Facilities and reputation of the centre

All TESOL and CELTA centres are externally moderated and inspected, and must adhere to the standards and criteria set out by Trinity and Cambridge. However, not all centres are exactly the same in terms of facilities and reputation, and this is often reflected in the price. If you are looking for specific facilities such as air conditioning throughout, a good on-site café or a maximum group size of 12, then you need to look in detail at the specifics of what each centre offers and this may determine which course you choose to go for.

student and teacher looking smiling at the libraryCactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. Cactus works with well-known course providers to offer CELTA, TESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. Cactus TEFL also offers free post-course careers advice and support, as well as access to our very own TEFL jobs board and job alerts.

 

CELTA Course Winner – LIVE Prague Blog

Do you want to know first-hand what it’s really like to take a TEFL course?

Follow our 2014 Suzanne Furstner Scholarship and CELTA course winner, Shervin Hejazi, who has just arrived in Prague to claim his prize of a 4-week Trinity CertTESOL course at our partner school Oxford House TEFL.

Shervin started his course on Monday and is already well under way. When he’s not revising English grammar and carrying out teaching practice in front of fellow students, he’s busy updating his blog with his thoughts and experiences on his TEFL course in Prague – giving would-be teacher trainees a window into the world of a TEFL student, and hopefully inspiring them to do the same! We’re loving Shervin’s blog and we hope you do too!

Follow Shervin’s TEFL in Prague blog

Read Shervin’s winning Scholarship essay here

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Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. Cactus works with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. Cactus TEFL also offers free post-course careers advice and support, as well as access to our very own TEFL jobs board and job alerts.

What is doing a TESOL/CELTA course really like? An Insider’s Perspective

Cactus Managing Director Fay Drewry gives us a first-hand account of life as a TEFL trainee in Barcelona

Having decided I wanted to do my TEFL course in Barcelona and try living and working there for a year – hopefully to improve my Spanish – I set about trying to work out which course I should do and at which school. I had never been to Barcelona but I knew instinctively that it would be a city I would love…a city with a beach, and sun, and Gaudi, and chicos guapos…what more could I want?  I spent quite a bit of time trawling through various websites trying to compare TEFL courses and locations and prices, until I came across CactusTEFL.com. Finally a website that explained everything I needed to know, allowed me to compare courses and start dates, plus they were on the end of the phone to help me with my application – great! So I applied, did the pre-interview task, had a Skype interview with the school, and before I knew it I was accepted onto the course. So far so good, and I even managed to book myself onto a part-time Spanish language course, just to make sure I wasn’t just speaking English all the time!

My course expectations

Having always been fairly academic (good A level results, good degree) I didn’t think that doing a 4 week teaching course to become an English language teacher would cause me too many problems. This was not entirely the case. Initially I questioned if I really needed to spend a significant amount of money on learning how to teach a language I already spoke fluently. How hard could it be? A lot harder than I thought, as it turned out.

So I arrived in Barcelona courtesy of Easyjet, and for the duration of the 4 week course I stayed with a family in a nice part of the city. They were lovely. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to spend much time with them. Mainly because I spent the majority of my ‘free’ time holed up in my room frantically trying to work out the stages of lesson planning, creating materials with no idea of whether they would actually work in class, and writing assignments that at 4am in the morning didn’t make a lot of sense to me either.  This was essentially, the beginning, middle and end of the course. A learning curve like no other I had ever experienced. It wasn’t that the information was complicated or intellectualised – most of it, in fact, was common sense. There was just A LOT of it.

In at the deep end – the course in detail

There were 18 people on my course, but there were 2 courses running simultaneously, so there were about 35 of us all together. English, Scottish, American, Irish, Canadian, and Dutch. A great mix of people from 18 to 55, with a range of motivations, backgrounds and reasons for doing the course.  Teaching in front of my other 17 classmates started on the second day of the course. Not embarrassing at all.  We had to teach our fellow trainees for 5 minutes about something we knew or were good at – having just left PwC as a trainee accountant (the most boring year of my life) I decided to teach everyone how to complete a balance sheet. Not that this had a lot to do with teaching English but it did get us up, writing on the board, in front of a group of people.  From there on in the rest of the course flew by – everyday filled with so much information to take on board, so many different things to think about, so much to understand. Classroom management, lesson planning, setting of lesson aims, achieving lesson aims, checking meaning of target language, ensuring free practice of target language, error correction, varying interaction patterns, catering for different learner styles – not to mention making the materials for all the activities from scratch. It was a surprise that all 35 of us made it through to the end of the course without having a nervous breakdown (only joking – ish).

Throughout the course everyone teaches for a total of 6 hours. Each time was a pretty nerve racking experience – but with each teaching practice the feedback from the tutor helped me to identify which areas I was getting right and which points I needed to work on. This made me feel like I was actually progressing and improving, and allowed me to focus on just a couple of things at a time – rather than trying to get everything right, which was basically impossible. We all had mid-course and end of course tutorials with our tutors, which made us aware of exactly how we were getting on and if we were on track to pass the course. This was an extremely positive aspect of the course – as there were no nasty surprises at the end with someone thinking they were doing great when actually they were going to fail.

So, I got to the end of the course in one piece and passed! What a relief. The lessons learnt were invaluable and there is no way, after having done the TESOL, that I would ever want to stand in front of anyone and try and teach them English without having done the course.

14 years after doing my Trinity TESOL I’m now the Managing Director of CactusTEFL…but that’s another story…

Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. Cactus works with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. Cactus TEFL also offers free post-course careers advice and support, as well as access to our very own TEFL jobs board and job alerts.

Cactus Language is a leading provider of language courses in over 120 locations abroad.

Do I need a degree to do an English Language Teaching course?

ELT Course Requirements

Although the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity CertTESOL are classified as Level 5 qualifications within the national framework (university level), you do not need a degree to apply.

Applicants are usually university graduates or have attained a standard of education that would allow entry to higher education in their country. That said, each applicant is judged on his or her individual merits. Factors taken into consideration with every application include motivation, language awareness and previous work or teaching experience.

ELT Job Requirements

A degree is not essential to obtain work teaching English upon completion of your course. It may, however, help – for example in locations where competition for jobs is high, or in obtaining a work permit.

If you don’t have a degree, you have better chances of finding work in locations where there is less competition and at a time when teachers are needed. Equally, if you don’t have a degree but have some teaching experience on your CV, your job prospects will improve dramatically.

For further advice and support on ELT courses and jobs, visit Cactus TEFL or call 0845 130 4775.

Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. We work with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. You will receive free, impartial advice every step of the way, and you can trust us to help you choose the right English language teaching course for you.

 

Is the CELTA or TESOL difficult?

Challenging, yes, but very rewarding

To complete the Cambridge CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL successfully, you need to be committed and devote your full attention to the course. The 4-week full-time course is intense and demanding, with lessons and teaching practice during the day and several hours’ homework on the evenings and weekends. You are unlikely to have much free time or be able to think of much else apart from English language teaching!

You will feel challenged, tested and also immensely rewarded. You will see the hard work pay off and you will thrive on the support and friendship of your fellow students, who are likely to become and remain good friends. The sense of achievement you feel at the end, combined with the ability to find decent, paid work in far-flung corners of the globe, will far outweigh any late nights studying or initial trepidation at standing up in front of your peers to deliver your first lesson.

It is a difficult course, but many people pass each month and it is certainly within the reach of the majority of people who have an interest in people and language.

Good luck, and for further advice and support visit Cactus TEFL or call 0845 130 4775.

Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. We work with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. You will receive free, impartial advice every step of the way, and you can trust us to help you choose the right English language teaching course for you.

Where is the best place to take TEFL?

The world is your oyster when it comes to training and teaching English, but where is the best place to take TEFL?

With ELT (English Language Teaching) or TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) courses available in locations ranging from London and New York to Buenos Aires and Shanghai, your teaching qualification really is your passport to a new life elsewhere, if that’s what you wish. The question is, where?

If you don’t already have a strong preference for a particular country, location or course, a good starting point is to think about where you eventually intend to teach. There are various advantages to taking your ELT course in the same place you hope to teach, as follows:

  • You will be perfectly placed to start looking for a job before you have finished your course, with good access to local job vacancies
  • Schools prefer to see teachers face-to-face, so you will be able to visit and attend interviews in person
  • Some training centres guarantee you a job if you pass your ELT course with them
  • It makes sense logistically and financially
  • You will meet people on your course who also planning on staying in the city/area, meaning that you have a ready-made network of people; this is particularly helpful if you are venturing on your own

If you speak a foreign language, you might naturally gravitate towards a location where that language is spoken; this will enable you to keep up the language and it will prove incredibly useful when it comes to settling in to a new place.

Whatever stage you’re at, visit Cactus TEFL or call 0845 130 4775 for advice about any aspect of ELT courses or jobs.

Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. We work with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. Cactus TEFL also offers free post-course careers advice and support, as well as access to our very own TEFL jobs board and job alerts.