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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.

17 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).

Dear Steven Levithan, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for sharing your valuable experiences regarding the CELTA course. Your approach and the exchange of ideas and information reflect your distinguished and noble character, which is highly appreciated and deserving of recognition. I have a few questions about the lesson plans you’ve designed. Firstly, are the topics of these plans requested by teachers, or do you select them personally? Secondly, after designing these plans, is it necessary to execute them live in the classroom? Lastly, during the live execution of these plans in class, is it permissible to use the template of the lesson plan, or should they be presented from memory? I would appreciate a comprehensive explanation, as well as any additional advice you may have for the first and second weeks of the course that I should implement or observe in the classroom. Thank you for your guidance and support. Sincerely, Hamid

CELTA written assignment: lessons from the classroom

The purpose of the assignment

The CELTA handbook explains that this assignment allows you to demonstrate that you can:

note your own teaching strengths and weaknesses in different situations in light of feedback from learners, teachers and teacher educators
identify which ELT areas of knowledge and skills you need further development in
describe in a specific way how you might develop your ELT knowledge and skills beyond the course
use written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

Your centre will probably give you a set of instructions for your assignments. You'd be foolish to ignore these. What follows is generic advice. In this assignment, you are pretty much on your own in terms of content but the structure is predictable from its purposes (above). This assignment has two main parts. You do not need an introduction because it is clear what it is about.

The first thing to do is to look back over your feedback from tutors, students and fellow participants. From that you need to identify strengths and weaknesses and categorise them in some way. Here are some suggestions:

Planning and preparation. Think about: Did you choose suitable material? Was your planned timing accurate? Was the lesson structure coherent and appropriate?
Presenting language and skills: Were you clear? Did you do the analysis before the lesson? Did you explain clearly and accurately? Did you focus on pronunciation adequately?
Providing practice: Was there enough of it? Did it work? Did the learners get to use language relevant to them? Was the level of challenge right? How are your drilling skills?
Classroom management: Were your instructions clear? Did you organise the room appropriately? Did you group learners well and re-group them unfussily?
Handling error: Did you intervene at the right times? Did you explain why something was wrong? Did you give the learners the opportunity to correct themselves and each other?
Developing skills: Did you teach skills as well as practising them? Do you understand the nature of skills work in all 4 areas? Can you list three subskills in each of the four areas?
Developing language systems knowledge: Do you have a firm enough grasp of the grammar of English? Can you explain grammatical points clearly and simply? Can you define words unambiguously? Can you transcribe phonemically? Do you understand discourse?

If you would like to have that list as a form for you to fill out, it's available here . The form has extra spaces for you to add areas of concern. The form also has 4 numbers at the end of the second page for you to list the priorities for action. After you've filled in the form, look through it to identify what they should be. Anything with a tick in the Not usually and Never columns is a suitable candidate. The last page of the form is optional and focuses on the roles you are able to take on the classroom and how good you think you are at them. The guide to teacher roles will tell you more about how you should assess your abilities in this area.

Now you need an Action Plan. They usually come in four parts and can be helpful presented as a table, like this:

Notice that

The first column states the problem
The second column explains what effect on learning the weakness has (i.e., why it is important)
The third column says what you will do
The fourth column explains how you will measure the outcomes and see any improvement.

There is an important distinction between columns three and four. There is little point in taking action if you have no way of measuring whether it is effective.

There is an entire section of this site devoted to teacher development . Go there for more ideas.

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.

my own insight
the responses of the learners
my colleagues' feedback
my tutors' feedback
planning and preparation
presenting language and skills
providing practice
classroom management
handling error
developing skills
developing systems knowledge and ability
I have prioritised three areas for development
I have said why they are priorities
I have said what actions I shall take
I have said how I will measure my success in improving in these areas

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.

Exam Seekers

Content related to english exams and courses., |celta-013| assignment 4: lessons from the classroom.

Hello Exam Seekers,

We are about to end a semester and with a semester on the verge to finish, there are lots of courses finishing and lots of exams coming up.

I’ve already given you tips on how to write your Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner , Assignment 2: Language Related Task and Assignment 3: Language Skills-Related Task . Today I’m going to give you tips to write Assignment 4: Lessons from the classroom.

This assignment shouldn’t be hard, it is based on the previous lessons that you taught. Therefore, if you still have some lessons to teach, make sure you are aware of the items from this assignment because it will make it easier for you to do it later.

By now, you must have taught at least 80% of the lessons you are supposed to teach, right? So you have had a good amount of feedback given to you. You should choose three aspects of classroom teaching that have been raised during input and feedback sessions, and reflect on them.

This assignment is assessing your ability to:

identify your own teaching strengths and development needs;
reflect on your teaching;
reflect on the implications for your own teaching from the observation of experienced ELT professionals and colleagues on the course.

According to Cambridge, Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

noting their own teaching strengths and weaknesses in different situations in light of feedback from learners, teachers and teacher educators;
identifying which ELT areas of knowledge and skills they need further development in;
describing in a specific way how they might develop their ELT knowledge and skills beyond the course;
using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

Step 1: You have to choose three aspects of your lessons, they can be:

instructions / planning / monitoring / TTT / board work / drilling / conducting feedback / rapport / correction / setting tasks / warmers

Step 2: State what you believe to be the key features of the issue you have chosen:

For example, in my case, I decided to talk about Presentation of the Target Language (ECDB & MPF), then I described what happens in my classes:

Presenting the TL has been a complicated issue for me. Sometimes I feel confident about it, especially when giving a vocabulary lesson, but sometimes it seems that it won’t work and I can’t figure how to do it properly. This problem occurs not only when I’m actually presenting the TL to a class full of students, but it also happens when I am planning the lessons and I see myself taking too much time to do so. This is simply not good in either of the cases.

Step 3: Describe and evaluate how you have dealt with each issue in your own teaching practice and what you have seen your colleagues and experienced teachers do in their lessons. Include specific examples.

It is a piece of good advice for you to try and use your peers and tutors as examples. This is a nice way to show that you are paying attention to the course and that you are observing people around you:

I’ve been paying attention to my peers during the class observations and it seems that PEER1 has been very good in presenting the TL to the students. It seems natural for her to ECDB even in grammar lessons, which earned her positive feedback on her lessons. On the other hand, it seems to me that PEER2 is having some problems with the same situation. While I observe my peers’ classes, I try to write down some notes and compare the way they do it so that I can replicate the good aspects of their lessons, and while PEER2 usually gives the students the target language instead of eliciting, PEER1 tries to make them figure out the rule by themselves. I’ve seen the tutors doing the same procedures: they give us a good context and elicit the TL in a very subtle way, that makes us give them what they want without their handing us the answer.

Step 4: Specify how you plan to develop in this area after the course , including an objective and measurable plan of action. Do not mention what you have already been doing. Write a simple plan of action with three or four suggestions as follow.

At this point, it is a good idea for you to use sentences like: In order to improve in this area after the CELTA course finishes, I will… Be straight to the point:

On the whole, drilling and boarding aren’t real issues for me, but eliciting and clarifying (meaning) are areas that I feel that I have to develop a bit more. I do have a good understanding of the main principles, but I am not completely comfortable putting them into practice. In order to improve in this area after the CELTA course finishes I will:

Read the chapters “Eliciting” from Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching and “Presentation, Practice, Production ” from Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching ;
Ask my peers at work and friends in the field some tips;
Ask some colleagues at work to observe my classes and make notes about this issue then give me feedback.

Remember that you have to hand in a 750-1000 words assignment . So be careful on how you divide the paragraphs. I would divide each part into 300-350 words. This way would make things balanced.

I hope that this text was really helpful for you to write your assignment 4. If you still have questions don’t forget to send us a message or leave a comment in the comment section below. There’s also ExamSeekers social media:

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The Ultimate Guide to CELTA

CELTA Written Assignments – Focus on the Learner (FL)

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 every centre creates their own written assignments, the CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines states that for the FL assignment:

The design of the assignment to include:

investigation of the learning context and assessment of learner needs with reference to a specific learner or group of learners
identification of sources for language and/or skills development and, where appropriate, personal support
suggestions for specific language and/or skill focused activities and an explanation/rationale for the use of these activities with the specific learners identified

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

showing awareness of how a learner’s/learners’ background(s), previous learning experience and learning preferences affect learning
identifying the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills needs
correctly using terminology relating to the description of language systems and/or language skills
selecting appropriate material and/or resources to aid the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills development
providing a rationale for using specific activities with a learner/learners
finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources 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

Some useful books to help you get started:

Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and other Problems (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)

This book looks at errors that speakers of different language make and why they make them. An example taken from the book is that in Spanish there are few consonant clusters. This means when Spanish speakers are speaking English they have difficulty in producing English clusters. As a result express might be produced as espres or breakfast as brefas. Another example, still thinking about Spanish speakers, is that in Spanish to form a negative there are no auxilliairies, so lower level speakers might say I no understand rather than I don’t understand .

Ideas for pronunciation activities:

Ship or Sheep by Ann Baker
Pronunciation Games by Mark Hancock
Sound Foundations by Adrian Underhill

Ideas for grammar activities:

English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy
Teaching English Grammar by Jim Scrivener
Teaching Tenses by Rosemary Aitken

Ideas for vocabulary activities:

English Vocabulary in Use by Michael McCarthy and Felicity O’Dell
English Collocations in Use by Felicity O’Dell

Common Pitfalls

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

identifying errors that are pre-systematic (language that has not yet been taught) and therefore require a full lesson before it can be remedied rather than a remedial activity
provide activities that don’t remedy the error in question
provide activities that are too high/low for the level of the learner
forgetting to include a bibliography
forgetting to provide a rationale for the choice of activity
label errors incorrectly

In our centre, we encourage trainees to make a short recording of their student (with their permission of course) while having a short chat with them in the break or after class. This gives them plenty of material to analyse when tackling this assignment.

Have you already written your Focus on the Learner assignment? What tips would you add?

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Author: Emma Jones

A CELTA Tutor based in Munich and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to CELTA View all posts by Emma Jones

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Focus on the Learner Assignment (1): Detailed Guide with Real Examples

Hi there! In this post, let’s go through the ‘Focus on the Learner’ CELTA Assignment.

I’ve had many questions about this, from people who are preparing for their CELTA or for those who are battling their way through the first few weeks. Fear not – help is at hand!

First, here’s a brief outline of what we’ll talk about in this post.

In short, the post will cover each of the following key points in detail:

the different types of ‘Focus on the Learner’ assignment, because different centers may do it differently
what you need to include to get a good grade
the different parts of the assignment
other things you can prepare in advance to help you succeed
examples of this assignment available for free online (and why should be careful using them)

Let’s get started!

Before We Begin: Quick Background Point

Some CELTA centres offer this as CELTA assignment 1 , but others do it at a different point in the course.

It depends, but this assignment is usually set early on in the course, but the deadline can vary – I have heard of students being given this as CELTA assignment 1, but told to submit it after CELTA assignment 2 and 3, for example!

With this assignment coming so early on the CELTA, it can cause people problems since the assignment requires some careful thought about logistics an planning.

It is essential to be prepared and organised for your Focus on the Learner assignment, not least because this comes while you are still getting used to the whole course and how it works.

This can catch people out, but it doesn’t need to if you are prepared!

Obviously, if you’re reading up on things like this on websites that should help you and you should remove that element of stress from your CELTA experience .

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Different Types of Focus on the Learner Assignment

Let’s start by looking at the 3 types of ‘Focus on the Learner’ assignment .

These are the ones that I know about; as I’ve said before, I’m not a CELTA trainer, but I have done the course and I speak to people about CELTA regularly.

The main three types of Focus on the Learner CELTA assignment are:

Type 1 – to focus on an individual learner
Type 2 – to look at a pair of learners , where you can compare and contrast them
Typ3 – to focus on a group of learners or entire class

So, you’ve got 3 distinct approaches to this particular CELTA assignment. Let’s have a look at some points for each below.

Assignment Type 1 and 2: Focusing on an Individual or Pair of Learners

For the versions this assignment which focus on an individual or pair of learners , CELTA trainees will usually have to perform an interview with one (or two) learners.

Therefore, you will need to think about things like:

The right questions to ask the student/learner

How to record the interview

Getting the student’s permission, and making sure they understand what they are signing up for (think about this for low-level students – harder than it sounds)

Arranging a time and a place to conduct an interview

Choosing a student who you think will actually turn up

Also, think about what the student will get out of coming to meet you for an interview in their free time. If there is something in it for them, they are more likely to come and meet you outside of class.

You need to make the student(s) aware that doing the assignment is helping you on your CELTA course, but you also need to show them the benefits of coming for an interview , because if they don’t see any benefit, they’re unlikely to come (bad news for your assignment!).

Something you can do here is to offer them extra input into their learning as part of your interview , so you need to think of it from that perspective.

For example, you could offer some pronunciation advice based on what they say in the interview, or give them photocopies of some relevant worksheets based on what you’ve heard.

Interview Questions for Your CELTA Assignment

If you have to interview two learners, it’s going to be slightly different from just working with one, so think carefully about how you will ask the questions and whether it is best to have them there together or at different times. Your CELTA trainers can likely tell you which they recommend here.

Try to keep interview questions open-ended and avoid asking questions which have just a Yes/No answer.

For example, it would be better to ask ‘ Why do you like English? ‘ to a low-level student than to ask ‘ Do you like English? ‘.

Yes, they could understand both of the above questions, but consider which one is likely to allow the student to talk the most.

After all, you will need them to speak so that you can analyse their language!

This document from ISE Hove* , a CELTA centre in the south of England, is very useful as it provides both a letter template to invite a student to an interview and a list of possible questions you can use when interviewing a student. Very handy!

*I don’t work for ISE Hove and have no contacts there – it’s just a great document!*

My Experience of the Focus on the Learner Assignment

I should add that I had to do the individual learner for mine, and I interviewed a student from Eritrea. His native language was Tigrinya, which I’d never heard of before!

I’d studied Spanish and French for my undergraduate degree but nothing close to an East African language!

I didn’t know anything about Tigrinya, and there wasn’t really much online about it, bearing in mind that this was in 2007, so there were even fewer websites, so it was really quite hard to find information. However, I did find some in books in the end and these helped me to get through.

Actually, thinking about it, that was one time where it was really helpful to do my CELTA course at a university – the library had so many books available (as you would expect) and the online journal articles we had access to were very useful – but that’s for another article!

See here for more on recommended CELTA course books , or keep reading this article for the section on my recommended books for the Focus on the Learner Assignment!

Choosing the Right Students for Your CELTA Assignment – Types 1 & 2

Another point to note is that, if you are on a CELTA course with students speaking many different languages, the tutors will specifically say that you cannot interview an individual, or a pair of learners, who speak any of the same languages as you.

Now, although this might sound a bit unfair, the tutors want you to work out of your comfort zone.

T hey want you to show that you know something, or are able to learn, about different languages, as well as just your own, because it’s very easy if you’re on a CELTA course as a non-native speaker, to talk about your own language or if you’re a native speaker to talk about a language you’ve learned.

Try to take this as a challenge and an opportunity to learn new things and broaden your horizons. I remember doing a case study on a Japanese learner as part of a TESOL module I did at university.

The idea that a basic Japanese sentence is Subject + Object + Verb, rather than Subject + Verb + Object like English blew me away. For more on Japanese, check it this detailed post I’ve just found on Japanese sentence structure (looks interesting!)

Having to learn about a completely new language may seem a bit scary but it is good training for your future career as an English teacher, and a great way to learn new things about languages around the world.

However, not everyone will have to do this as it is not always logistically possible.

For example, if you consider an Arabic speaker on a CELTA course in an Arabic-speaking country , with a CELTA course where all the students speak that same language, then it’s highly likely that CELTA trainees there will focus only on students who speak the Arabic language.

That is not a guarantee that you will be able to focus on a language you know, but studying the CELTA in certain countries can increase the chances of this.

Type 3 – Focus on the Learner s : Using a Whole Group or Class

Moving on to the final type of assignment, using a whole group or class, which could involve the whole class of students who you will be teaching in your assessed teaching practice sessions.

It depends how big the group is, but you will have to do a profile of the group in terms of where they’re from and their language backgrounds.

Key points to consider when writing a group profile include the following:

Do they all speak the same first language?

Are they from many different countries?

Do they have similar reasons for learning?

Is there a mix of ages?

There are all kinds of dynamics that you can pick up on here, largely based on demographic information, which give insight into the students’ learning.

Focus on the Learner: Word Count and Key Points

In terms of what you need to include, here are the main points:

Generally, the first 300 to 350 words should be about learner(s) background .

Then, the next 300 to 350 would be an analysis of the student’s language problems

This will then be followed by another 300-350 word section suggesting activities for them to improve their English .

Learner Background Section

In the background section, you need to cover things like the learner’s motivation for learning English.

That obviously gives us insight, as mentioned previously, into the following points:

why the students are in the class
whether they are likely to be a good learner
and whether their reasons for coming to class are likely to help them in their language learning.

In terms of learner motivation, for example, some people are coming to class to enhance their career or job propsects.

The above appears to be better motivation for language learning than for somebody who’s been forced to go by their parents after school (but not always!).

You can also pick up on things like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation if you like, which helps to add to the learner profile, and set the context for their learning.

Other points to cover include a learner’s previous language learning experience.

Some key questions to consider here are:

Are they learning English for the first time as an adult or have they been learning English right through from school?

If you are asked to focus on a group of learners (Type 3), try focusing on students who show difference or contrast to the majority, while also describing the main group of learners.

Needs Analysis Section

Another point you need to think about in the analysis of the students’ language problems is their actual strengths and weaknesses in English.

Think of a learner’s strengths in terms of the different skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Again, the document by ISE Hove have this covered and have provided a self-assessment grid for learners to complete themselves (see page 3). It’s simple, but it should work!

However, it can be quite hard to judge their errors because you have very little time to do this. That said, you should still be able to identify different points that you’ve heard them produce or you’ve seen them write, in the class.

Also, you should mention language points that you’ve seen these learners have difficulty with during CELTA teaching practice sessions; you can then identify errors (both from their spoken and written language) to analyse as part of your assignment.

Choosing the Right Language Points for Your Assignment

Interestingly, a student recently emailed to ask me the following question:

“How do I know which language points to focus on when writing the Focus on the Learner Assignment?”

What I would suggest is to try to make a note of lots of different points of language during the time you are watching lessons (but not teaching).

From your extensive notes (hopefully), you can then choose only the language points that you know how to explain, because there will be probably many, many different points if you have taken lots of notes!

For this reason, Swan and Smith’s book Learner English is really useful for this assignment.

Suggested Activities for Improvement Sections

Following on from the previous section, you will then need to start looking at how you can proivde activities to help these learners improve.

These suggestions don’t need to be anything out of this world, however. You could just simply suggest that the students try to spend more time speaking with native speakers to improve their confidence, or focus on improving their knowledge of article rules – whatever is relevant.

It depends, but it’s all part of a needs analysis – and you have to think of the interview experience from the perspective of the student , how it will help them

If you’re doing the above, then you should cover all the key points for your CELTA tutors.

Using Books to Help With CELTA Assignment 1

You will need to refer to different books to show that you’re reading around the topic and that you are aware of the different academic thoughts on these things.

That way you can give good, educated ideas and suggestions to help the students, which are really practical as well.

My top books to help you with this assignment would be Michael Swan’s Learner English (Amazon UK – affiliate link) or Practical English Usage , also by Micheal Swan (Amazon UK – affiliate link).

**Top tip: If you are going to buy CELTA books, I’d suggest getting second-hand or used books from Amazon as they are generally very good quality and it can save you a lot of money!)**

PS See here for more on recommended CELTA course books

In terms of referencing, you should refer to texts and books at relevant points, but not all the time; just a couple of clear and consistent references or citations should be enough here.

If you are not sure about referencing, I have written more on this in the following posts about the writing style for the CELTA assignments and also on saving time on your CELTA assignments.

Examples of the Focus on the Learner Assignment

Finally, where can you see examples of the Focus on the Learner Assignment?

Now, there’s one thing to note. Remember, these examples do not mean they are perfect or they are exemplary. They vary in grades – in fact, the grades are not stated on them.

Hopefully, you’ll see a range of different ways of tackling this question, and you’ll see the different types of answers to the relevant questions for CELTA assignment 1.

Now, although the following examples are available online, that does not mean they are of high quality.

Hopefully, you will be able to discern between the parts they have covered quite well, and others which are lacking.

Some appear to also ignore the given word count for CELTA assignment 1 (if I dare call it that!), which I find quite strange but it may be something that your tutors are not too worried about – best to ask them that one!

So, in order, you will find examples of each type of assignment for the individual learner, a pair of learners and a group of learners, with links to the original document below.

Think of this as general background reading as your CELTA centre might ask you to cover different points or use a different layout altogether.

Example of Assignment Type 1: Individual Learner

Example of assignment type 2: pair of learners, example of assignment type 3: group of learners, summary – focus on the learner celta assignment.

So, hopefully, you’ve found the information above useful and now have a better idea of how to approach this CELTA assignment!

If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments on this page or on Twitter @stephenbeale , and I will talk to you soon. Good luck with the CELTA course and your Focus on the Learner assignment!

PS Here’s a quick summary video over on the CELTA Helper Youtube Channel: