CELTA -Mistakes to Avoid in Teaching Practice – Anticip… — Transcript

Learn how to anticipate and avoid common CELTA teaching practice mistakes by identifying learner difficulties with tasks and language.

Key Takeaways

Anticipate learner difficulties in both tasks and language to avoid common CELTA teaching practice mistakes.
Testing activities and instructions beforehand helps identify potential problems and plan solutions.
Thorough knowledge of the language being taught increases teacher confidence and clarity.
Planning for learner differences in ability and confidence improves classroom management.
Using available resources and training materials enhances preparation and teaching effectiveness.

Summary

Experienced CELTA trainer Jo Gakonga shares common predictable mistakes in CELTA teaching practice and how to avoid them.
Anticipating problems is about identifying learner difficulties in tasks and language, not worrying about personal teaching performance.
For tasks, consider potential confusion in instructions, language comprehension, and learner differences in speed and confidence.
Examples include clarifying reading questions, managing group tasks like jigsaw reading, and supporting varied learner abilities.
Try out activities yourself and say instructions aloud to better anticipate learner challenges and plan solutions.
For language, identify tricky vocabulary or grammar points, such as false friends or irregular verbs, that learners might struggle with.
Research the language thoroughly using course books or grammar resources to confidently explain and answer learner questions.
Complete controlled practice exercises yourself to understand why answers are correct and anticipate learner queries.
Planning for these issues in advance helps avoid confusion and stress during teaching practice sessions.
Additional resources and courses are available on ELTtraining.com to support CELTA trainees.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

As an experienced CELTA trainer, I see a lot of trainees falling into very predictable potholes in teaching practice, mistakes that are easy to make but actually also easy to avoid if you can see them in advance. If you want a road map to avoid one of

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the big ones, keep watching. I'm Joker Conga from ELTtraining.com. I've been a CELTA trainer and assessor for over 20 years, and I make videos like this one to help people like you through the what can be the fairly intense

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experience of CELTA. If you like this, I've got a whole series of similar videos about these avoidable mistakes on my site, and don't forget to like and subscribe. I make a new video every week. One of the things that your trainer will

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definitely talk about is anticipating problems, and it can be a bit difficult to know what's meant by this. So, in one of the very first courses that I ever ran, a trainee wrote on his lesson plan, "I don't anticipate any problems." Now,

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this is lovely and optimistic, it has to be said, but anticipating problems isn't about worrying about whether it'll all be okay or whether you're teaching in a good way. It's about clearly seeing what's inherently difficult for the learners in two areas. So, it's about them; it's not

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about you necessarily. These two areas are the tasks, the things you're going to do in class, and the language, the language that you're teaching them. If you can see the problems that they might have in these areas, then you can think about and plan

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how to address those in advance, and you won't be left in front of the class with your mouth open and your brain going at 20,000 miles an hour when a learner asks you a difficult question or things don't quite go according to

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plan. So, let's take these two areas into number one: anticipating problems with tasks. Now, some tasks in class are pretty straightforward, and they don't need a huge amount of thought, but others can be trickier. Let's have a look at some examples.

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Maybe you have a reading task and some questions, so it's pretty obvious if you're a learner what you have to do, but what about if you don't understand all of the language in the questions? You can't answer the questions if you don't

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understand what they mean. So, as a teacher, when you're preparing, have a look through the questions, think about what language might be problematic, and either pre-teach it or add a glossary. Another example: you're going to do a jigsaw reading, and if you're not sure

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what that is, then I've got a nice video here that will take you through it. This is quite a complicated task with different texts, different groups doing different things, grouping and regrouping, so there's plenty of opportunity there, plenty of potential for confusion. So,

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plan how you are going to give the instructions, about how you can label the groups A, B, C, etc., one, two, three within those groups to make things run more smoothly. A few more possible examples: think about the different learners'

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class and how their abilities and their personalities will affect how the class runs, because they will. So, if you do a reading, some people will read faster than others. What can you do about this? If you have a speaking activity, some

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people will be more confident, and they might dominate the conversation. What can you do about this? Maybe the course book listening is quite fast, and you think that they'll have trouble understanding. What are you going to do to help them

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and support them? Seeing these potholes does get easier with experience, obviously, but a useful way to start to see what the problems might be is to try the activities out, enlist the help of a friend or two if

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you can, and that's ideal, but otherwise do the task yourself. Say the instructions out loud, not just in your head; actually say them out loud. That makes a difference, and think about what your learners are going to have trouble with.

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Write these down on your plan in the procedure part of course, together with the solutions that you are going to use if these problems come up. Okay, let's move on to our second area: anticipating problems with language.

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If you're teaching language in your lesson, vocabulary or grammar, then you also need to think about what's difficult about that language so that you can help your learners with the tricky bits. Let's look at some examples again. Let's say you're teaching the word

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embarrassed to a group of Spanish speakers. What's going to be tricky? Well, it's a false friend, a word that looks very similar in Spanish. Paradado—I hope I pronounced that correctly—means pregnant in Spanish, so you want to make sure that they don't

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misunderstand because it would be easy to do. Maybe you're teaching the past tense, and they need to know that a lot of common verbs are irregular, so it's not "gold," it's "went." Maybe you're teaching the present continuous for future arrangements. I'm

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seeing him on Sunday. Your learners are quite likely to find it confusing because they already know that the present continuous is used for actions around now. I'm speaking to you now. So, anticipating problems with the language you're teaching means knowing

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about that language so that you can see what might be difficult, and you can help your learners not to fall into those holes. Pieces of advice for you on this one: the first is to research the language well.

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Make sure you know it. You can use the back of your course book for that; there's usually grammar explanations for each unit. You can use a grammar book, or if you like my approach, then I've got a course

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called Grammar for Language Teachers and another one called Language Analysis Made Easy, and both of those will help you with this. Feel free to check them out; there's links just below. If you know the language that you're teaching really well, you'll feel a lot

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more confident about teaching it and about answering their questions, and you're likely to be clearer and more concise too. Now, my second piece of advice here is to do the controlled practice exercises yourself. You'll find these in your course book,

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and they'll likely be multiple-choice type of things or gap-fill type of things. Make sure that you can answer them yourself. That bit should be very easy, but then more importantly, make sure that you can answer the question: why is that

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the right answer? So, here's a classic: you know the answer is "went," but why is it "went"? You need to know and list it for them if you can; that's better. But it's because we use the simple past, not the

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present perfect, with specific times like last year. So, make sure you go through those things and that you can answer those questions. I hope those thoughts have been a bit helpful. Do check out the links below and other material on my site, and I'll see

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you soon. Bye!

Topics:CELTAteaching practiceanticipating problemsELT traininglesson planninglanguage teachingtask managementlearner difficultiesgrammar teachingvocabulary teaching

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 'anticipating problems' mean in CELTA teaching practice?

Anticipating problems means identifying potential difficulties learners might have with tasks or language in advance, so teachers can plan solutions and avoid confusion during lessons.

How can I anticipate problems with classroom tasks?

Try out the tasks yourself, say instructions aloud, consider learner differences, and identify any potentially confusing language or procedures to plan clear instructions and support.

Why is it important to research the language before teaching it?

Knowing the language well helps you explain tricky points clearly, answer learner questions confidently, and avoid misunderstandings, which improves your teaching effectiveness.

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