A Postcard from... London, England

Greetings from London!

I never imagined when I completed my CELTA in December 2007 that I would enjoy teaching enough to pursue a Master’s degree. But here I am! After graduating from CELTA, I stayed in New York and taught at a private language school for just over a year and a half. What an amazing experience! I met people from all over the world, and was able to help them integrate into our culture. During that time I realized how important my CELTA training was - all those activities, teaching methods, and needs analyses were invaluable - and decided it was time for more.

Yashmeen in London

Starting the Master’s Program at King’s College in ELT and Applied Linguistics has been an eye-opening experience. I’m finally getting answers for all those questions in the classroom that I couldn’t answer. I’m also realizing that often times there aren’t any definite answers!

I decided to attend a program in London for a number of reasons. I knew that I wanted to be in a country where English is the main language. After some research, I found out that a Master’s program in England could be completed in one calendar year, as opposed to two in America, with the cost coming out to about the same. I met the prerequisite of a minimum of three years teaching experience (including my time in Korea pre-Celta) and a CELTA, so decided to go for it!

London is a great backdrop for this experience (second only to New York!). My campus is located right in the heart of the city, close to the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. I only attend lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but usually spend four to five hours reading every day. Lectures are two hours apiece, two per day. This strict schedule leaves my weekends free to explore.

Some example classes are:

Principles and Practice – this really explores the theory and methodology of teaching EFL (for example, it shows us how PPP and TTT were developed)

Linguistic Analysis – this is separated in four parts: Discourse, Lexis, Grammar and Phonology.

The lectures are supplementary to the readings that we need to do for all of the subject areas. In addition, we have a graded paper for each class (eight in total) and our dissertation is due at the end of the year. Overall, this is an extremely INSIGHTFUL experience. Everything I read, I think: We touched on this in CELTA, and here’s where it came from! In writing the papers, I am forced to reflect on my experiences, and this leads to an understanding that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The small holes are being filled. It’s also extremely helpful meeting fifty other people in the same situation, yet arriving here from all different contexts. I have classmates – all EFL, ESL, or ESOL teachers – from Iran, Turkey, Korea, China, Thailand, Greece, Italy, and the UK to name a few. The opportunity to meet one another in this setting and discussing our different teaching contexts sheds so much light on this profession.

Yashmeen's students

I would recommend this to anyone that’s interested in pursuing this career path. I would however, also say not to act too fast. If I hadn’t taught for some time after completing my CELTA, I wouldn’t have a lot of the understanding that I have now. It’s important to gain some experience before diving right in. My CELTA enable me to teach effectively, and was an amazingly thorough introduction to EFL.

Overall, this is a wonderful experience, wonderful city, and wonderful program.

Yashmeen Brar
CELTA Teaching House Graduate, December 2007