celta assignment 2

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CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks – Clear Guide

Introduction.

This post intends to give an overview of CELTA assignment 2 and what is expected. It uses a generic example to work through answers so please be aware that not all centres would give exactly the same question but there should be many similarities.

Included in this post are the following points with comments and explanations:

Learning objectives for this CELTA assignment
Assignment guidelines and rubric from Cambridge
Main points to note
One for a point of grammar
followed by one for an item of lexis

After reading this article, you should have a clear idea of how best to answer the points in this assignment.

Please refer to your centre or tutors in case of any doubts about the points made in this article if they are different to what you have been told on your course.

As a rule, always go with what they say as they are the ones who are going to mark your work!

One a further point to note is that links in this article are affiliate links. This means no difference in price to you but clicking through these links means a small commission for CELTA Helper to keep the site running. If you do not wish to use these links, you can easily find the books online.

This assignment usually comes after the Focus on the Learner assignment .

The key to completing this ‘Language Related Tasks’ assignment successfully is by thinking about it as if you were preparing to teach the points that come up.

If you write with students in mind, you will stay focused on the task and should have clear and precise answers as a result.

What you have to do for CELTA Assignment 2: Main Idea

For CELTA Assignment 2, you will need to focus on language skills and awareness .

To complete this assignment, you will likely be given a short text with examples of language to ana lyse .

These examples are usually pre-selected for students

The texts shown in example versions of this assignment which are available online are often from pre-intermediate or elementary coursebooks.

These extracts focus on simple parts of grammar and vocabulary.

However, you will still need to explain these points clearly and succinctly to get a good score on this assignment!

You will usually have to analyse the following points:

two items of grammar
two items of lexis (which relates to vocabulary)

Instructions for the Language Related Tasks in CELTA Assignment 2

Below are some points to help you get familiar with the instructions/rubric for CELTA Assignment 2 , as appearing in the CELTA Syllabus document:

Word count for the ‘Language Related Tasks’ assignment

Length: 750–1,000 words

This might seem like a lot of words, but answering all of the points for all of the questions needs this amount of words!

My advice is to focus on answering each question thoroughly and systematically and not to worry about the words until the end.

Make sure you answer each part in enough detail and it will be fine.

However, if you often write too much, think of it as 4 different sections, with no more than 250 words per sectiswon.

Counting words per section should therefore help you to stay on task.

Learning Objectives for CELTA Assignment 2

The learning objectives from the Cambridge CELTA syllabus for CELTA assignment 2 are as follows:

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

a. analysing language correctly for teaching purposes b. correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analysing language c. accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about language to an appropriate source d. using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

With this in mind, you will therefore need to focus on correct identification and analysis of the language items you select.

You will also need to use terminology in the right way and from relevant books like:

Swan’s Practical English Usage
or Parrott’s Grammar for English Language Teachers

These books, among others, can also be used as references in your assignment, which you have to include, as stated above.

You can place references to these books at the end of the document, or perhaps at the end of a relevant section. Ask your tutors for their preferred way to do this.

For help with referencing, see the relevant section in a previous post to help you save time on your CELTA assignments .

The last thing to think about is using clear, concise language.

You can write in short sentences for this assignment, which are often clearest for the reader.

Now that you have an idea of what you need to produce, let’s look at how to answer the questions for the language related tasks assignment .

Answering Each Part of CELTA Assignment 2

You will likely have to explain the following aspects for the examples of language you are analysing:

Meaning Form Pronunciation Appropriacy (in parts) Anticipate problems learners might have Note all reference materials you have used

Let’s deal with each of these points using two examples, first for a point of grammar, and then for a point of lexis.

Example of a Grammar Point for Analysis

Let’s say one of your example sentences for grammar analysis is the following:

She’s just been to the shop

(I know, it’s a very short and simple sentence, but it should help to clarify things!)

The meaning answer needs to show a clear understanding of the key grammar point.

e.g. “In this example, “‘s just been” is used to show a recently completed past action.

One sentence should be fine here. Just make sure you summarise the main point of grammar and you will be fine!

Think of this as building blocks of language (which is the way I like to teach it when drawing it on the whiteboard!)

have/has + just + been + to + place She has (or ‘s) just been to the shop

You could write something like the following to answer this (but please also follow what your CELTA tutors tell you – they might have differing opinions on the styles and how to do this!):

This structure is called the present perfect (simple) tense.
The verb ‘have’ is always needed as an auxiliary verb for this tense.
‘has’ is the 3rd person singular form of the auxiliary verb for the subject ‘She’.
It is then followed by a past participle of the relevant verb, which is ‘been’ in the example sentence.
This is then followed by the preposition ‘to’ to describe the place visited.
The contracted form of the ‘has’ is ”s’, which is common in spoken English.
The word ‘just’ here shows that it is a recently completed action in the past.

It’s unlikely you would have enough words available to write all of the sentences above for one point, but it gives you an idea of how to do it.

And that’s all for the meaning section!

3. Pronunciation

There are 3 main parts to think about here:

Part 1: Phonemic transcription of the words to show ‘how’ they are spoken

Part 2: stressed words in the sentence.

Part 3: Connected speech

You do not have to write the pronunciation using phonemic transcriptions but you should get extra marks for using this correctly.

She’s been to the shop /ʃiːz ʤəst biːn tə ðə ʃɒp/

You might only need to transcribe the relevant parts of the present perfect tense – check with your tutor!

This may look difficult or confusing, but it actually only took me a few seconds. Here’s how I did it (start the video at 3m20s ):

You can also copy and paste individual words from the Cambridge online dictionary, if you like.

You could show the stressed words above the sentence as big circles and little cirlces (as I have done below), or as arrows/a line which shows upward and movement with the stress – hard to do on here but hopefully you get the idea!

O O o O

She’s just been to the shop /ʃiːz ʤəst biːn tə ðə ʃɒp/

Part 3: Connected Speech

This is simply when we connect words in a sentence when speaking and pronounce them slightly differently to when they are said on their own.

Looking again at our example sentence, we can see that the word ‘to’ is pronounced differently to saying it on its own, as follows:

You can see that ‘to’ in the sentence uses a schwa (/ə/) and is pronounced as /tə/.

By contrast, if saying ‘to’ on its own in an English lesson, or perhaps for emphasis, we would say it more like / tu :/.

Try to be aware of these small differences when planing a lesson as well!

4. Appropriacy (in parts)

For the appropriacy aspect of the assignment, you can think about two key points:

formal language
informal language

So if we look back at our example sentence She’s been to the shop, we can see it has a contraction (the apostrophe before the ‘s’) so we know it’s not appropriate for formal written language.

This is because all words should be written in full.

From there, you can add a sentence like the following:

This sentence is informal and would likely be used in spoken English only as it has a contracted form.

5. Anticipate problems learners might have

You only have to consider this where relevant – it should be clear when/where this is the case.

You should give a clear solution for each problem you identify. Concept checking questions (CCQs) are also very helpful here.

You can find examples of CCQs in Scrivener’s Teaching English Grammar book for each relevant grammar point.

All that is left for you to do is adapt the example CCQs in Scrivener’s book slightly and make them relevant for your assignment.

You can then also add this book to your reference list, showing that you’ve done reading and that you’ve got your ideas from a reliable source. Win win.

Let’s have a look at an example of each type of problem below:

She’s been to the shop

Meaning Problem: Students might not understand that this person has recently ‘been to the shop’. Solution : Ask two CCQs to elicit this from students. For example: 1. Question: Did she go to the shop today? Answer: Yes 2. Question: Is she at the shop now? Answer: No 3. Question: When did she come back from the shop? Answer: recently / just now / 5 mninutes ago / etc. (anything which converys recent past )

There are many ways you could approach this – it depends what you want the students to get from it (think lesson aims/objectives here) but you should be able to ask 1-2 clear CCQs to get the students to focus on what you want.

Problem: With the contraction, students might not realise that the apostrophe ‘s’ + been shows that this must be a present perfect sentence and is short for ‘has’ (this is because ‘She is been’ is not grammatically possible).

Solution: Ask students 2 x CCQs about this apostrophe + ‘s’ combination before revealing what the word is during the lesson. For example:

Question: (Point to the apostrophe ‘s’ on the board and ask) What is this word? (Not the letter – the word!)

Answer: ‘has’

2. Question: How do you know it is ‘has’?

Answer: because there is ‘been’ / a past participle after it / it is the present perfect tense / etc.

Pronunciation

Problem: Students might try to pronounce the contracted form of ‘has’ in the long form i.e. by saying ‘She has been’

Solution: Perform drilling with students when the sentence is on the board. Start with choral drilling, then choose paris/individuals, then back to choral drilling. Remind students that this should always be pronounced as it is written.

Appropriacy

Problem: Students might think that they can use this contracted form in writing.

Solution : Ask them for context about when they could use this. For instance:

Question: When can you use this ? (point to contraction). [hint – Yes or no: when you are speaking?]

Answer: Yes

2. Question: (continued from Q1 above) Yes or no: when you are writing (hint – in an exam/test)?

Answer: No

Then explain that all words should be written in full – for speaking it is fine to shorten them with contractions.

For problems with students who have specific native languages (or an ‘L1’), check out Swan and Smith’s Learner English book .

Note all reference materials you have used

Now, from the above, I have not used any reference materials directly. However, you will need to include references whenever you use them.

This is not as big of a problem as you might think.

For example, if you are using APA style referencing (which is quite common), you simply need to enter the author’s surname and year of publication after the point you have paraphrased from their work i.e. (Harmer, 2012).

At the end of the section, put a heading like ‘Reference list’ (APA style). You can see more on how to do it, check my article on time-saving for CELTA assignments here .

Summary of Grammar Point

And that’s it for the grammar item! From there, let’s move on to the example lexis item for analysis.

Example of a Lexis Item for Analysis

This time, we will use the following item of lexis for analysis:

“It is the best way to prevent more accidents in the future”

An example answer for ‘prevent’ would be something like the following:

“To do something that stops an action from happening in future”

This sounds a little awkward but as you can probably see, it is quite hard to describe ‘prevent’ succinctly without using the word itself!

This is a common problem in ELT so try to get used to explaining things like this succinctly and clearly.

Here you can write something like this:

“‘Prevent’ is the infinitive verb form.
It is used as the full infinitive in the sentence because it comes after ‘to’
It is a transitive verb therefore it requires an object, which is the ‘more accidents in the future’ in the example sentence

If you are not sure about transitive/intransitive verbs, all good (online) dictionaries should display this – I recommend Cambridge dictionary for the CELTA course for this reason.

See the ‘[T]’ in the screenshot below from the entry for the word ‘prevent’; this shows that it is a transitive verb.

You can also view the list of abbreviations used on the Cambridge dictionary website here (this is also quite useful as a general grammar reference – perhaps one for the reference list on this assignment, too)

Pronunciation:

Part 1: phonemic transcription.

Using Cambridge dictionary, we can copy and paste the phonetic transcription for the word into our assignment, as follows:

prevent /prɪˈvent/

Part 2: Word stress

To add to this, you can make points about the syllables and word stress. For instance:

There are 2 syallables in the word ‘prevent’
The second syllable is stressed.

That should be fine here!

NB – ‘Part 3’ for connected speech is likely not relevant here so has been skipped.

However, if you think it is relevant, in that the given word is likely to be pronounced in a connected way, then cover it in the same way as we did in the grammar point. If not skip it in your assignment, too.

As it states that this is only needed where relevant in the examples of this task online, you could probably skip this section.

The only point of note might be that it is acceptable as a formal/academic word.

Even so, that would only really be worth including if you are struggling to find other things to write about in the other sections of this lexis answer.

As such, let’s save our word count and move on to the next section.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

There will likely be fewer aspects to cover here than in the grammar section, but you will still need to be thorough.

Problem: Students may not realise this focuses on doing something before an event.

Solution: The following CCQ could help here:

CCQ: If you want to ‘prevent’ an accident, when do you take action? (Before)

(hint – you can say ‘Before something happens or after the accident?’)

It is unlikely that there will be an issue with the form here because this is an infinitive. You don’t have to answer every aspect so you could probably skip this section for this example.

NB – you will probably be given an adjective, noun or adverb as these will likely have more depth in terms of teaching than a regular verb.

If you are given a verb then it would likely be an irregular verb.

Because there wasn’t an obvious problem/solution for the form section above, you can make up for that by including 2 x pronunciation issues here.

Problem 1: Students might pronounce the first syllable as a long vowel sound as with words like ‘pre-sessional’ or ‘preach’ (this syllable would be transcribed phonetically as /pri:/).

Solution: When teaching the word, focus on the word stress and demonstrate this clearly both with hand gestures and by drawing syllable stress on board with word as below:

o O Prevent

You could also use the phonetic transcription here if you think the students will know it. If you are not sure, don’t use it.

Teaching students the correct stress should avoid (or ‘prevent’!) this problem.

Problem 2: Students might struggle to pronounce the ‘t’ (or /t/) at the end and simply leave it silent.

Solution: Take in a printed copy of the phonemic chart and point to each sound when working through it. Write the transcription on the board below the word and tap on /t/ if difficulty.

o O Prevent /prɪˈvent/

This /t/ sound could be practised through drilling on its own to confirm the importance of it.

The above should be enough for your problems and solutions.

Summary of Lexis Item

And that’s all for your lexis item for analysis, and for your analysis in general!

Once broken down, it’s not as difficult as it first seems.

Just be thorough and remember it will take longer than you think so don’t leave this until close to the deadline!

Examples of CELTA Assignment 2 Available Online

Here are some examples of CELTA assignment 2 available for free online.

Before you look at them please note that they do not often show the grade received and they vary in quality.

Some websites might also ask you to sign up or sign in, or even pay for downloading them.

This is up to you but all these links will show you at least a part of the assignment to give you a clearer idea of how it looks.

So here goes:

you will see that this blog post follows a very similar outline to the link above, but not all centres give the exact same assignment!)
From academia.edu: Assignment 2 (750-1000 words) LRT -Language Related Tasks (skip to page 2 for answers)
From scribd.com: CELTA Language Analysis Assignment
CELTA Assignment 2: Languag … on Scribd
From academia.edu: Assignment: Language Related Task (this example makes use of some nice timelines – which are a great visual way to explain points to students)
This is a template file with questions only.

You will see that these examples vary greatly but have similar types of questions to complete.

CELTA Assignment 2 Summary Points

To round up, here are a few key points:

Listen to your tutors – they will tell you how they like these assignment questions to be answered
The word count will easily be filled if you cover each point in depth
Remember that you can be far more creative than the ‘solutions’ suggested above in my worked examples.
Things like pictures, gestures, mimes, timelines and physical objects can all help to explain a point clearly and easily.

If you follow all of the above points, you should be fine when completing the ‘ language related tasks’ in this assignment!

One general piece of advice on the CELTA is to always keep your tutors happy.

Some of what they tell you to do may feel wrong at times at times but you will get through the course with less stress and resistance by following their advice. And you will likely get a better grade.

Useful Links for CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks

For an overview of the key points: CELTA Course Assignments
Writing style for the CELTA assignments: How to Write CELTA Assignments: Easy Guide
Quick tips to get through quicker: 10 Ways to Save Time On Your CELTA Assignments
CELTA Assignment 1 Guide: Focus on the Learner Assignment: Detailed Guide with Real Examples
More general tips to get your through your course: CELTA Course: Tech Tips and Tricks for Lessons and Assignments

Check out more CELTA Helper TV videos on YouTube here!

Best Books for CELTA Assignment 2

Some good books to help you here will be:

For clear grammar explanations and examples of concept checking questions (CCQs), Scrivener’s Teaching English Grammar
For clear grammar explanations, Swan’s Practical English Usage
For more good grammar explanations, Parrott’s Grammar for English Language Teachers
This will help to give context to the grammar point you are looking at

CELTA Written Assignments – Language Related Tasks (LRT)

Looking for help with CELTA written assignments? You’ve come to the right place.

Written assignments form a major part of the CELTA assessment process and are a compulsory part of the course. There are 4 written assignments in total but some centres conflate two of them to make one larger assignment. In this series we will look at each individual assignment and provide you with some advice and guidance as well as highlight some of the common pitfalls.

Disclaimer: All centres create their own written assignment rubrics, make sure you check with your centre exactly what is required. We can only provide general information here, rather than specific. With this in mind, do you think it would be wise to pay for other peoples’ assignments to help you write your own?

Although centres design their own written assignments, the CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines states that for the LRT assignment:

The design of the assignment to include:

identification of significant features of the form, pronunciation, meaning and use of language items/areas and the use of relevant information from reference materials

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

a) analysing language correctly for teaching purposes

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

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

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

All written assignments should be 750-1000 words

Source: CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines

With the above in mind, how can you make sure you can successfully complete the LRT assignment? Firstly, you need to start learning how and what to analyse. When writing your lesson plans you are required to analyse language and the LRT assignment is really just more of the same, possibly in more detail. I would recommend the following books to help you:

Practical English Usage by Michael Swan

Grammar for English Language Teachers by Martin Parrott

An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage by Geoffrey Leech

Below are a couple of examples that we give our trainees when preparing them to write their LRT assignment.

Target statement: It was going to be such an exciting adventure

Checking understanding (CCQs)

When was the adventure, in the past or in the future? (In the past)
When was the adventure, after this statement or before? (After)
Was the author excited about the trip before he went? (Yes)
Did the author enjoy the trip? (No)

Reference: Practical English Usage, Michael Swan

You can look at my previous Blog Post for help with CCQs

Target statement: ….before putting on our wetsuits

Checking understanding

Use visual and ask:

Has he been surfing already? (No)

Is he getting ready to go surfing? (Yes)

Common Pitfalls

In our centre, trainees often fall foul of the following:

they focus on the wrong part of the statement
analysis is not aimed at the level of the students (too high level)
CCQs don’t really check the students’ understanding
they forget to reference sources
they over-analyse and/or focus on irrelevant areas
trainees don’t anticipate enough problems
they anticipate problems that are very unrealistic
they go too far over the word count

Any one of the above can result in having to resubmit the assignment. Whilst having to resubmit is no bad thing, it does increase your workload and stress levels so should be avoided if possible.

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Author: Emma Jones

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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.

Exam Seekers

Content related to english exams and courses., |celta-010| assignment 2 – language related task.

Hello Exam Seekers,

Seeking some more information about the CELTA? Well, here it goes! 🙂

A friend has recently come to me to ask some questions about her first assignment in the CELTA. As I’ve already mentioned in a previous post, the CELTA first assignment according to the syllabus is the Focus on the Learner . However, centers have total autonomy to choose the order of the assignments, and as they can order the assignments as they please, it makes much more sense that the first assignment is “Language Related Task” than “Focus on the Learner”. Why?

Well… First, let’s try and understand how the Language Related Task works then I’ll answer the question above, ok?

First, we need to know what is the design of the assignment:

Length: 750–1,000 words >> identification of significant features of the form, pronunciation, meaning and use of language items/areas and the use of relevant information from reference materials.

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

analyzing language correctly for teaching purposes.
correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analyzing language.
accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about language to an appropriate source.
using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

Having that in mind, we have the following task:

This assignment involves analyzing language. On the next page, there is a typical text that you might use in class. Look at the items in the grids on the following pages (also underlined and boldfaced in the text). Choose 2 (two) grammar and 2 (two) vocabulary items and:

a) Analyze the meaning (in this context), form and pronunciation of the item;

b) Identify any problems students may have with meaning, form and pronunciation and provide realistic solutions;

c) State which references you have used to help you in your analysis.

By the end of your writing process your assignment should look like:

The image above just represents half of the assignment. Remember that you need to choose 2 (two) grammar and 2 (two) vocabulary items . Let’s follow the example above and work on the grammar item presented.

The first thing to do is to choose the grammar and vocabulary items that you want to work on. For example:

SHE HAD LEFT WHEN I ARRIVED.

When you have a grammatical structure to teach, you have to explain to the students some things about the items:

pronunciation

To teach the meaning of some words, or to work on students’ questions that might come up, you need to use CCQs . We have already written something about that, but for those of you who don’t remember, CCQs are the Concept Checking Questions . You can use them to teach a concept or to check students’ understanding of a concept, therefore it must be in your language analysis sheet.

Another important thing that you need to add to your assignment is the anticipated problems tab. If you are teaching any kind of concept, you need to be prepared for the questions that will come up, and it must be related to all of the aspects taught.

PART 1 – CONCEPT and FORM

While you are doing your assignment or preparing a lesson on grammatical points, you should have a grammar book with you. As you can see, the example above uses PARROT, M. (2000). Grammar for English Language Teachers. CUP.

What is the verb tense you are teaching? Check the grammar book and put it on the first tab. While you are checking the verb tense, you are figuring out if the verb tense you have has the same structure of your sentence, and that’s why the concept comes together with its form. So it should look like this:

Concept: Past Perfect
Form: Subject + had + verb in the past participle (irregular)

When you are teaching a grammatical item, you usually focus on affirmative, negative or interrogative independently. But sometimes, especially if you are working on the whole grammatical structure you should put the affirmative, negative and interrogative forms in your language analysis sheet, especially if you are writing an assignment on the topic.

And if you are working on a grammatical point, it should contain the timeline :

PART 2 – MEANING AND CCQs

Now that you know the form, what is the meaning of this sentence? Having the grammar book by your side and knowing the meaning of Past Perfect, you use what you know to translate the sentence that you have. Like in the example above:

Meaning: In this sentence, the event ‘left’ happened before the event ‘arrived’. The past perfect is used to refer to a completed action in the past that happened before another completed action. Therefore she left and he arrived right after.

When you are writing the meaning of this sentence, you have to think about how you are explaining the past perfect to your students. So you should come up with the following CCQs:

Did she leave after he arrived? (NO)
Did she leave before he arrived? (YES)
When did she leave? (BEFORE HE ARRIVED)

You can come up with more questions, but keep in mind that this should help you explain the meaning of the sentence you are presenting, ok? So it must be clear and simple and it should always be at the students’ level, for example, if you are teaching past perfect, your sentence must be in the simple past.

And don’t forget that next to the questions, you must put the answer in parenthesis.

As you can see in the example above, we have one YES question, one NO question and one OPEN question. Try to follow this structure, because having only negative questions/answers don’t show that your students know what the concept is, they might only know what it is not and not what it is.

PART 3 – PRONUNCIATION

There is a nice website to help you with the pronunciation: PHOTRANSEDIT . You write the word/sentence that you want and the website gives you the phonetic symbols. In our case, it shows this:

Pronunciation: /ʃid left wen hi əˈraɪvd/ – She had LEFT when he arRIved

However, pronunciation is not only the phonemic chart, but the intonation and the stress relevant to your sentence, and that’s why we added the sentence above with “left” and “arRIved” in capital letters.

You are not teaching your student the phonemic chart, but it is relevant for you to have this in your language analysis sheet because it guides you through teaching the sentences. Moreover, it is relevant that you teach your students that you say “she had LEFT” instead of “she HAD left”. They need to know which part of the sentence is stronger and also the pauses in the sentences so that they can speak well.

PART 4 – ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS (APS)

While you are teaching the meaning, form and pronunciation, there are always some students who don’t understand right away or show difficulties along the way, and that’s why you should have an ace up your sleeve.

When you’re planning your meaning, pronunciation and form, think of questions or problems students might have, write them and add the possible solution:

P: Ss may understand that she left after he arrived.

S: CCQs & Timelines.

Pronunciation:

P: Ss may pronounce /hedʒiː/ instead of /həd/.

S: Drill and t ranscription on the board.

P: Ss may use leave as a regular verb, as in ‘leaved’ .

S: Refer Ss to the chart of irregular verbs.

Now can you see the importance of the CCQs, the timetable and the phonemic chart? Because they should all be ready for you to use if the time comes.

Some important things to keep in mind: If you are teaching one word, for example, APPLE, how do you plan on writing your meaning and APS on your language analysis sheet? You can simply show a picture of an apple. When you are teaching a concrete concept you can always show a picture or use realia to teach, and you won’t be needing any APS for meaning since the meaning is quite obvious with the picture. It’s not necessary to be redundant or put lots of thing in your assignment and language analysis sheet. It should be concise and helpful for the person who is teaching that specif lesson.

PART 4 – REFERENCE

This is another important aspect of your assignment, you must write the reference from where you took the information you wrote. Here are some examples of good bibliography for you guys:

PARROT, M. (2000). Grammar for English Language Teachers.
WORKMAN, G. (2006). Concept Questions and Timelines. Chadburn Publishing.
CAMBRIDGE Dictionaries Online. Available at: <dictionary.cambridge.org>.
ESL Base. Teach English. Available at: <www.eslbase.com/grammar>.
OXFORD Advanced Learners Dictionary (2013). 8. ed. (app edition).
SOUNDS: The Pronunciation App (2011). MPL . (app edition)

When you’re done, make sure you included everything:

What about the vocabulary items? It works very similarly. The difference is that you are working with one or two words, so you need to say if it is a phrasal verb, an adjective, conjunction, etc . If you want an example of a vocabulary analysis, write in the comment section below for us to know and help, ok? As for now, I hope I have cleared some questions about the topic.

—–

Now answering the question posed at the beginning of the text, it makes much more sense that centers start by Assignment 2 – Language Related Task than Assignment 1 – Focus on the Learner , because it doesn’t matter if you are taking the full-time course or the part-time course , you should know how to organize your language analysis sheet from day 1 of the CELTA, because you will be teaching very soon. Meanwhile, getting to know your students is a process and it should be gradual. I mean… before choosing a specific student to interview and making your assignment you should be watching them and analyzing them.

Is it clear for you?

Once you know how to do your language analysis sheet and you are using it properly after writing Assignment 2, then you can focus on your learner and write an assignment on him/her.

I hope that this text has helped you. If you still have questions don’t forget to send us a message. Leave a comment in the comment section below or on our social media:

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Have a great weekend, Patty

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Amazing post! Thanks for sharing, Patty!

I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for the comment !!!!

Fantastic! Thank you a lot! I would be even more grateful if you could provide an example of vocabulary analysis 🙂

As soon as I have some time I’ll have something prepared for you. Thanks for following and thanks for the feedback.

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.

16 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).

CELTA Assignment 2

Language Related Task

Aim of the assignment

This assignment requires you to research and reflect on aspects of language. The types of target language considered include grammar and vocabulary . You will be asked to analyse meaning , form and pronunciation as you need to do when planning lessons. Please complete both Section one and Section two .

How to do the assignment

Part A & B: For each of the grammatical structures and functional language expressions numbered from 1 to 4 in italics you need to:

analyse the meaning of the structure as used in the given context . Give a clear definition of what it means / the situation it normally Look at the learner level given and grade your description accordingly.
show an effective way(s) of checking understanding . Write concept-checking questions (with answers) and/or time lines, to show how you would check learners’ understanding of the
analyse the form as you would on the board highlighting any aspects of phonology which would require attention e. sentence stress, intonation, transcription of any difficult sounds, features of connected speech, as you would on the board.
anticipate any problems students might have with meaning, form and pronunciation at the given

Part C: For each of the vocabulary items from 4 to 6 analyse the word or phrase in italics in the following ways:

Briefly describe the meaning of the word or Look at the learner level given and grade your description accordingly.
Briefly describe a context or present a short dialogue which would contextualise the most common use of the item and which would illustrate this concept for the Explain how you will use this context to convey the meaning .
Show how you would check understanding g. concept questions, clines, synonyms etc.
Show the written record that you would put on the board for the students to copy Discuss the form and any phonological features.
Comment on any anticipated difficulties with meaning, form and

Part A: Grammar

i’ve been to spain, italy and germany. (elementary).

I really like my job. It’s very exciting and I travel a lot. For example, I’ve been to Spain, Italy and Germany.

This is the present perfect simple used to describe actions / experiences at an unspecified time in the past.

Checking understanding

include: CCQs with answers, timelines if applicable

Did I go to Italy, Spain and Germany? (Yes)
Do we know when? (No)
Was it in the past?
Is it important to know when? (No)

Include: The marker sentence with the form rule written above. Ensure: That the rule would apply to all sentences that contain this target language.

I’ve been to Spain, Italy and Germany.

Subject + have (‘ve) / has (‘s) + past participle + rest of sentence.

Pronunciation

Write the marker sentence below and indicate relevant aspects of phonology. Write the TL in IPA and indicate linked sounds, sentences stress and schwas.

/aɪvbɪntə/ /jən/

/aɪv.bɪn.təˈspeɪnˈɪt(ə)lɪjənˈʤɜːmənɪ/

Primary stress on the country
Potential weakening of the ‘to’ to a /tə/.
Possible weakening of ‘been’ to / bɪn/.
Possible intrusion of /j/ between ‘Italy and…’

Anticipated problems

Problem #1: Students may not understand the difference between Present Perfect and Past Simple. They might think that the present perfect needs a specific time reference. Solution #1: Use CCQs 2 & 3 (above) to show that the time is not stated / necessary.

Problem #2: Ss may not understand the difference between “I’ve been to Spain” and “I’ve gone to Spain”.

Solution #2: I will provide a couple of examples and check meaning with CCQs for each

Problem #1: May use past simple instead of past participle. i.e, ‘I’ve went to Spain…’ Solution #1: Elicit the right form and highlight it on the board followed by controlled practice.

Problem #2: May omit the auxiliary i.e. ‘I been to Spain…’

Solution #2: Use finger-modelling to highlight the missing auxiliary. Use a substitution drill to keep the auxiliary constant.

Problem #3: May use ‘to be’ instead of ‘have’, i.e., ‘I’m been to Spain’.

Solution #3: Use finger-correction to highlight the error. Elicit the correct form and board it.

III. Pronunciation

Problem #1: Learners may produce /aɪf/ rather than /aɪv/ due to L1 interference. Solution #1: Elicit the correct model, highlight and drill the class.

Problem #2: Learners may put unnatural stress on the auxiliary leading to a slightly impolite model.

Solution #2: Use finger-correction to elicit the correct stress. Then drill.

Items for Analysis

Please analyse the following grammar items. Write your answers in the provided template.

1. a) The plane leaves at 10am. (pre-intermediate)

Rose: Are you leaving on Saturday? Lynn: Yeah, the plane leaves at 10am. Rose: Have a safe trip!

Meaning: Present simple talking about planes time table A scheduled future event

Checking Understanding:

x x past x x x x present x x x x future x x

CCQ: 1. Is the plane going now ? (No)

Is the plane leaving at 12 pm? (No) Not a CCQ
Is this a repeated action ? (Yes)
Is the plane leaving at 10am? (Yes) Not a CCQ

BThere needs to be something that highlights future and schedules.

Phonology and Form (written record on the board):

The plane leaves at 10 am.

Form: Subject+ verb (present simple 3 rd person) + rest of the sentence

The plane leaves at 10 am. It ought to be a schwa for “at”

/ðə/ /liːvz æt/

/ðə pleɪn liːvz æt 10 æm/

Primary stress on the subject and
Potential weakening of the “ The ” /ðə/ before plane
Possible weakening of ‘leaves at’ to /liː vz æt/ No. I think it;s a schwa in “at”

Anticipated problems and solutions:

Problem: Student may not understand that the action is in repetition.

I don’t think this is the meaning. This isn’t a commentary on the airline’s scheduling but a comment about a future event.

B: agreed, future scheduled / timetabled event.

Solution: Use CCQ 2 and 3 (above ) to show when the action takes place

Part B: Functional Language

“what do you recommend” (intermediate).

Derek: I fancy seeing a film tonight? What do you recommend?

Clive: You should watch Snatch!

This is a semi-fixed expression. We say this when we want to ask someone to suggest a film for us.

Do I know what I want to watch? No

Do I think you have some good ideas? Yes Am I asking for your opinion? Yes

& (iv) Phonology and Form (written record on the board) what + do/does/would + subject + recommend (infinitive) + ? This is a semi-fixed expression to ask for

“What do you recommend?”

/,wɒdjərekə’mend/

Potential elision of the /t/
Assimilation of /djə/ to a possible /ʤə/
Weakened ‘you’ to /jə/

Problem: Ss might not get the future time reference here and think that it’s something currently being recommended.

Solution: I’ll ask relevant CCQs (see above).

Problem: Ss may forget the auxiliary, producing “what you recommend?”

Solution: I will highlight the form on the board and provide relevant oral and written practice.

Problem: Students may stress the auxiliary producing an unnatural and perhaps aggressive- sounding utterance.

Solution: Elicit the correct model (perhaps with a finger-modelling) and drill the full expression

3. Would you mind …ing ? (pre-intermediate)

Jane: It’s really hot in here! Would you mind open ing the window? John: Of Assignment not!

We use the phrases would you mind + - ing to ask people politely to do things. Would you mind is more polite and more common than?

Is it a rude way of asking to do something? (No)
Is it an order for you to open the window? (No)
Am I polite in the questions? (Yes)
Am I asking you to do something? (Yes)

Would + subject (you) + mind + V ing + rest of the sentence.

Would you mind opening the window?

Intrusion of /j/ sound in would you as wəd jʊ

wəd jʊ maɪnd ˈəʊpnɪŋ ðə ˈwɪndəʊ ?

Primary stress on Would, opening, and window. Potential weakening of the before window

Problem: Students might get confused between the uses of would you mind as a polite request and polite permission.

Solution: CCQs 2 & 4

Problem: Students might add past form after would you mind as it is also used for polite permission.

Would you mind if I opened the window?

Solution: I will write the forms on board and explain it to them by highlighting them.

Problem: Students may have a problem in pronouncing intrusion in pronouncing, would you? I think it’s assimilation

Solution: Elicit the correct model with finger – modelling and drill the full expression

Part C: Vocabulary

Please analyse the following items appropriately for the level indicated. Write your answers in the provided template.

Total word count: words (750 - 1000)

Do not include bibliography, instructions, appendices, headers or sub-headers. Empty template =

1659 words.

Bibliography B: this will need resubmission too. Include sources you relied on to do this assignment (e.g. dictionaries, grammar reference books, etc).

(e.g. Thornbury, S (1999). How to teach grammar. Longman, UK)

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Transcription
About language

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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Assignment 2 (750-1000 words) LRT -Language Related Tasks

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CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks
What you have to do for CELTA Assignment 2: Main Idea. For CELTA Assignment 2, you will need to focus on language skills and awareness. To complete this assignment, you will likely be given a short text with examples of language to ana lyse. These examples are usually pre-selected for students.
CELTA Written Assignment 2 Language Related Tasks
CELTA Written Assignment 2 Language Related Tasks For this assignment you should refer to grammar reference material (e.g. 'Practical English Usage' by Michael Swan or 'Grammar for English language Teachers' by Martin Parrott) and learner dictionaries, as well as 'Learner English' by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith to help you ...
CELTA Assignment 2
Laura Woodward (CELTA tutor and assessor/Cambridge Assessment; Phonology & TEFL Young Learners Trainer) discusses "CELTA Assignment 2 - Language related task...
CELTA Assignment 2: Language Analysis Tasks
Perry, Martin - Grammar for English Teachers, CUP, 2000; p. 209 2. Scrivener, Jim - Teaching English Grammar, Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001; p. 249 Grammar and Functions Analysis Sheet II CONCEPT / MEANING What is the language point?
PDF CELTA Syllabus and assessment guidelines
1. Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context. Planning and teaching - Written assignment 1. 2. Language analysis and awareness. Planning and teaching - Written assignment 2. 3. Language skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Planning and teaching - Written assignment 3.
CELTA Assignment Two
Learn how to answer CELTA assignment two step by step.
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A CELTA Tutor based in Munich and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to CELTA View all posts by Emma Jones Author Emma Jones Posted on 29/04/2019 16/09/2020 Categories CELTA Course , written assignments Tags CELTA , CELTA Course , CELTA Language Related task , CELTA written assignments , LRT , WA 2 , written assignment
Language-related tasks
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 ...
|CELTA-010| Assignment 2
This assignment involves analyzing language. On the next page, there is a typical text that you might use in class. Look at the items in the grids on the following pages (also underlined and boldfaced in the text). Choose 2 (two) grammar and 2 (two) vocabulary items and: a) Analyze the meaning (in this context), form and pronunciation of the item;
Getting a CELTA Pass A: Example CELTA Lesson Plans
They'll deny you a certification at the end of the course if they detect that you reused someone else's work. Example assignments: 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 2: Language Related Tasks
Download Free PDF. View PDF. CELTA 2 Language Related Tasks ALAA Albishri CELTA Assignment #2 Language Related Tasks 1:...everything that has happened to us during the day. (Grammar) Meaning: This is present perfect simple which states action or experience in unspecific time in the past and has connected to the present.1 CCQs: • Did ...
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CELTA. Assignment 2 - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free.
CELTA Assignment 2
CELTA Assignment 2 - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document provides an analysis of two sentences from a CELTA assignment: 1) "sooner or later we have to sleep" - It examines the use of "have" to express necessity rather than possession. ...
CELTA Assignment 2
II. Form. Problem #1: May use past simple instead of past participle. i.e, 'I've went to Spain…'. Solution #1: Elicit the right form and highlight it on the board followed by controlled practice. Problem #2: May omit the auxiliary i.e. 'I been to Spain…'. Solution #2: Use finger-modelling to highlight the missing auxiliary.
Assignment 2
Assignment 2 - Language Related Tasks_2 - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document provides a rubric for an assignment that requires students to analyze and summarize key grammar structures and vocabulary from a sample text. For two grammar items and two vocabulary items selected from the text, students must: [1] Analyze the meaning and check ...
ELT Concourse guide to CELTA: assignment focus on learner
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.
CELTA Assignment 2
View PDF. CELTA July 2014 Assignment 2: Language Related Task (LRT) Name: Adamantia Lambropoulou peckish Level of instruction: According to the "Macmillan Online Dictionary", the adjective "peckish" is a rarely-used word, as it is not contained within the 7,500 most frequently-used English words and it is not graded with a star.
CELTA Assignment 2
This confirmed the efficacy of storytelling aloud on improving the accuracy of preintermediate Iranian language learners' oral production. Assignment 2 - Focus on the learner Learner's Background The student I am focusing on is a 16 years old boy called Gianni. He is now at the stage of IGCSE B2.
(DOC) CELTA Assignment 2.docx
ASSIGNMENT TWO RE-submit CELTA 5 JUNE, 2014 INTERNATIONAL HOUSE LONDON MARIE WILLOUGHBY word count Language related tasks assignment Answer sheet Meaning: 1….. a 60 year old person has spent almost 20 years asleep (Grammar) Present perfect is used to talk about situations continuing up to now, especially when we say how long they have lasted.
Assignment 2 (750-1000 words) LRT -Language Related Tasks
Trainee: Tutor 1: Tutor 2: Soraia de Paula Santos Assignment 2: Language-Related Task Example 1: Grammar …everything that has happened to us during the day Meaning: Pertaining to, or being a verb tense or form indicating that the action or state expressed by the verb was completed prior to the present or that it extends up to or has results ...

CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks – Clear Guide

What you have to do for CELTA Assignment 2: Main Idea

Instructions for the Language Related Tasks in CELTA Assignment 2

Word count for the ‘Language Related Tasks’ assignment

Learning Objectives for CELTA Assignment 2

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

Answering Each Part of CELTA Assignment 2

Example of a Grammar Point for Analysis

3. Pronunciation

Part 1: Phonemic transcription of the words to show ‘how’ they are spoken

Part 3: Connected Speech

4. Appropriacy (in parts)

5. Anticipate problems learners might have

Pronunciation

Appropriacy

Summary of Grammar Point

Example of a Lexis Item for Analysis

Pronunciation:

Part 2: Word stress

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

Summary of Lexis Item

Examples of CELTA Assignment 2 Available Online

CELTA Assignment 2 Summary Points

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CELTA Assignment 2

Aim of the assignment

How to do the assignment

Part A: Grammar

Checking understanding

Pronunciation

Anticipated problems

III. Pronunciation

1. a) The plane leaves at 10am. (pre-intermediate)

Checking Understanding:

Anticipated problems and solutions:

Part B: Functional Language

3. Would you mind …ing ? (pre-intermediate)

Would you mind if I opened the window?

Part C: Vocabulary

Bibliography B: this will need resubmission too. Include sources you relied on to do this assignment (e.g. dictionaries, grammar reference books, etc).

CELTA written assignment: focus on the learner(s)

The purpose of the assignment

Choose one structure or the other. Do not mix them up or you'll be incoherent.

Assignment 2 (750-1000 words) LRT -Language Related Tasks

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