April 2019

Quality training begins with quality trainers, and the CELTA program at ILSC offers a crack team to guide trainees through the rigours — and surprising delights — of CELTA.

James Meanwell is a CELTA tutor at ILSC and teaches and evaluates trainees during the intensive 4-week course as well as the online and part-time CELTA programs.

Get to know… James Meanwell

James Meanwell of ILSC-Montréal’s CELTA team.

Q: How/Why did you get into ESL teaching?

Accidentally, kind of. I had a friend teaching in Korea who recommended it and I’ve been doing it since!

I started off teaching in South Korea for two and a half years teaching young learners. Since coming back to Canada I’ve been teaching adults in general English, exam preparation, and doing a lot of CELTA training.

That CELTA Life

Q: How did you break into the rockstar world of CELTA?

LOL at rockstar! Right place, right time for me. There was an opening at my previous workplace in Toronto and they paid for me to do the DELTA and then trained me up to be a CELTA tutor.

Q: What does an average day in the CELTA department look like for you?

On course, the days are quite similar: input sessions, lesson planning, marking assignments, and observing teaching practice. Working with such great people makes it easy to come in.

Q: What’s the skill most CELTA trainees need to work on?

Language analysis and clarification FOR SURE. When I first started teaching my technical knowledge of the language was verb = action word, noun = person, place, or thing. Ironically, most of the progress for many will come AFTER the course when grads get hired and have to teach a range of grammatical points at different levels.

Personal Colour

Q: What is the one grammar mistake that makes your blood boil?

I’m learning to let go! Language evolves and I enjoy the idiosyncrasies of individual language use. Intelligibility is the ultimate goal.

Q: What is your favourite English word? (Bonus points if it’s rutabaga)

How could you choose just one? Conceptually, probably ‘neuroplasticity’.

Q: What is one grammar mistake you can’t stop making?

Does mumbling count?

Q: What is your favourite thing about teaching CELTA?

Selfishly, probably the small moments of levity on each course. I love stories of triumph and seeing people take risks in order to push their boundaries. The laughs—I can still remember moments with groups from years ago having too much fun.

Next Up

Get to know the rest of the CELTA team at ILSC-Montreal in interviews with Christopher Cooke and Breana Sproul.

Does teaching English to adult learners sound like an adventure you can see yourself taking? ILSC offers the Cambridge CELTA as an intensive 4-week program and a flexible online format.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

It’s never too late to put experience to work. Whether you’re just coming out of a fruitful career or years into an equally fruitful retirement, there are always new experiences on the horizon. After years of work, though, who doesn’t want to do something new and valuable? With CELTA, you can continue to do meaningful work and experience the world in a whole new way.

A quality certification

CELTA is the University of Cambridge’s highly respected Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults and is the most recognized certificate of teaching English as a second language worldwide.

CELTA is offered in a variety of formats and covers five essential language teaching and learning topics. Theory-based input sessions with experienced teacher trainers are combined with practical teaching practice—with real students—to ensure you know what you’re doing and how to do it. There’s no preparation for teaching quite like teaching under the watchful eye of practiced instructors.

The program is offered in a variety of formats to fit your schedule. Get started quickly with the 4-week intensive course or take the more flexible approach of the new online CELTA course.

Whichever variety of CELTA, new teachers leave with the confidence to teach students from diverse backgrounds in a variety of settings. Not everyone ends up teaching daily to classrooms full of students; many get involved in community organizations or simply offer private instruction.

Make a difference, or just do something different

Everyone’s motivation is different, and if you want to help refugees and new immigrants feel at home, CELTA offers the tools to complete that mission. If you want to travel and experience and learn from a different culture, that’s also available to you.

With a widely recognized qualification like CELTA, it’s as easy to travel the world as it is to welcome it to your neighbourhood. In many cases, it’s not even necessary to become a full-time teacher at a school or training centre.

Put years of experience to work

Retirement doesn’t have to mean leaving behind a lifetime of knowledge, in fact, a former career can bring a lot of value to teaching ESL. There is an increasing demand for teachers who can tailor lessons to students who require instruction in English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This means new teachers with experience in domains like business, tourism, medicine, science and technology can put their experience to work for students.

Whether you’re planning to teach abroad or at home, students looking for careers in these industries may require this kind of ESP instruction and teachers with relevant experience are more attractive than those without it.

Next steps?

All that’s left is to decide where and when to take life’s next adventure!