MY CELTA Experience; Episode-2

I was thinking that there would be lot of participants of the course but there were only 14 of them. We were told that we were the lucky (later on we thought otherwise) people who could make their way out of 130 candidates. A few minutes later, four ladies appeared, who were going to be our trainers for the next four weeks. I felt that they were a bit nervous at that time. Coming from all the way from Northern Ireland and starting a course for the first time in Turkey was something that might have raised many question marks in their minds. These were, Caroline Grainger, Dorothy Glenn and Elna Coetzer. Among them I only knew Elna Coetzer before, who came to our country to arrange workshops. After formal welcome words Kristina Smith gave a brief  introduction of CELTA course, the trainers, dos and don'ts and  course timings. 

The First Session: 

                                Dorothy Glenn entered the room and started talking to us in a strange language. At first we thought that we were in a wrong class or course but later realized that it was foreign language lesson. She was teaching us a dialogue in Italian language that was intended to make us realize the problems of our learners and at the same time it taught us that even without using a single word from mother tongue you may convey the meaning. Gilato alla fragolla   was the first word I learned in Italian language. Can you guess what it could mean? It is Strawberry Ice-cream. Then 'limonata' and 'Panino con prosiutto' were a couple of other words which I can remember with their perfect pronunciation.

All the trainees started feeling a bit more confident and everyone started to respond in Italian. After that Ms. Dorothy presented many more Lexis items without using a single word in English language. Pronunciation drills were also given and we started using better pronunciation.

After finishing that phase, we were given practice of a dialogue in Italian language. We worked in pairs, groups and at the end, I even sounded Italian to myself. 

For the next few days we were all speaking Italian, atleast a few Italian words, with that exaggerated accent. It proves the point that the language teachers first need to be certain of what their students to achieve and how they could do it in the best way. 

The way is clearly not the easy one because it requires a lot of preparation and perseverance. Learners can always ask for clarification in their language, and they may even insist on that; however, good teachers should never give up, and they should maintain the belief that they can teach anyone anything.

See you soon with next episode.