Bringing the World Closer

First Assignment

Hello everyone! Congratulations on completing your first task: successfully logging in to the MyTeachingHouse.com site!

We arepresently developing Generation 2 of the MyTeachingHouse site. It’s a great resource both on the course and after the course (in finding workand keeping up with friends you’ve made during the course). As this site is under development, we’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions that you have.

I have a few more tasks for you to complete—it may take about an hour or two. Please read the instructions below and complete it before next Monday.

Directions: All written answers must be posted on this thread (First Assignment) within the discussion forum in your course group. Since there are many of you, it's important to post only on this thread (click "Reply toThis" at the bottom) so that we can keep the forum from getting full and messy-looking. However, if you have any other comments or questions you are welcome to start a new thread.

1. If you haven’t already, edit your profile with your current location, status and photo

2. Browse through our international directory of English language schools (hoverover "RESOURCES" in the toolbar at the top of the page and click "SCHOOL DIRECTORY" ). Post the name of a school that you think you might be interested in applying to after the course, and (briefly) why you liked that school.

3. Go to Course Forms and find a word from one of the glossaries that you do not know.

4. Post one idea or recommendation for MyTeachingHouse.com.

5. Post a personal goal related to taking our Teaching House CELTA course.

6. Post a comment about someone else’s comments, for example, “Lizzy, I agree with your comment about the job listings section…” or “Abby, I saw thatyou wanted to work in Paris. I was thinking about that myself—is it hard to find work in France?” If you're one of the first people to post, come back later with a comment after your peers have caught up.

Good luck and keep coming back to our site! You can email me at christen@teachinghouse.com with any questions.

All the best,

Christen

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marshalette Wise on January 12, 2011 at 9:23am

A personal goal I have related to taking the Teaching House CELTA course is to keep an open-mind and maintain a positive attitude. I sincerely aspire to learn as much about language teaching and effective strategies as possible. I aim to meet my goals while hopefully interacting and communicating with other professionals in the field.

Permalink Reply by Marshalette Wise on January 12, 2011 at 9:32am

One idea or recommendation I have for MyTeachingHouse.com is to have a way for individuals taking the January 18th course to plan to meet and travel together. My reasoning for this suggestion is due to this being my first time traveling to New York. Perhaps, individuals who are already residents of New York and/or already familiar with commuting within the city can assist individuals, such as myself, traveling to and within New York for the very first time.

Permalink Reply by Tatiana Vorotyntseva on January 15, 2011 at 3:32am

Marshalette, I think this idea is really nice as I'm also a person, who has never been to NY and for me it's always more interesting to discover something not from a guidebook, but from someone who lives in this place.

Permalink Reply by Marshalette Wise on January 12, 2011 at 9:56am

A word from the CELTA specific glossary that I did not know is Guided lesson planning. The definition is the time from 9-9:30 or from 3.30-4pm where the trainers will be available to help you with your lessons. This is a very important word to know because I will certainly utilize this available resource to ensure my lesson plans are accurate and following CELTA standards.

Permalink Reply by Marshalette Wise on January 12, 2011 at 10:06am

A school that I might be interested in applying to after the CELTA course is the American Cultural Centre located at 3 El Pharana Street, Alexandria in Egypt. I liked this school because I was impressed with the information I discovered about it after doing an online search coupled with my heartfelt desire to travel and work in Africa.

Permalink Reply by Tatiana Vorotyntseva on January 15, 2011 at 3:30am

Hi everyone!

2. Speaking about a language school where I'd like to continue my studies - I would choose the one in Barcelona. I have a friend who completed a course there last summer and she was very impressed by qualifications of the people who work there. And of course the city itself - I've already been there and I'd like to visit it again.

3. I find both dictionaries very useful.

Inflection is one of the words that I didn't know as a synonym to pronunciation, specific to American English.

4. I like the site and in my opinion it's easy to use. Sorry for not suggesting any ideas yet. Maybe during the course I have some and put them here.

5. Getting acquainted with American way of teaching. As I heard it differs a lot from Russian one.

Permalink Reply by Jane Woodside on January 16, 2011 at 10:42pm

Hi Tatiana,

I'll also be interested in getting your perspective on American teaching methods--and I really don't know anything about Russian methods. By the way, I made a very, very short visit to St. Petersburg (9 hours, to be exact) two years ago, so I was pleased to see that one of my fellow students is from there.

Permalink Reply by Colin Thorpe on January 15, 2011 at 12:14pm

2. I'm likely to apply to Kim & Joe Recruiting after this class. I have a friend who used them when she went to teach English in South Korea and she only had good things to say about them. Apparently, they are not only very helpful in finding job placement, but very friendly throughout the entire trip.

3. A term from the glossary that I had never heard of was "back-chaining". It seems like a practical technique for teaching, but I've never heard of it. I'm curious about what exactly it is about teaching a piece of grammar backwards that helps people understand it.

4. The suggestions here are actually very good. If you were to give people access to the website earlier to be able to set things up, like you did with the pre-course task, and then when you have the date they will be attending the course solidified you can invite them into their respective groups. As for the other suggestion, it would be nice to get a list of where people are from in the course you are taking. Then when you have people who are taking the course in an unfamiliar city, they can contact other people in the course - even if no one from the city is taking the course it is easier to explore and discover things in the city with a partner.

5. As for a personal goal, I feel like I have a good grasp on English enough to help people. But I've found that whenever I help people whose second language is English I have trouble getting the exact words out that I need to help them understand and overcome their difficulties. I'm hoping that CELTA will help me with those more practical elements of teaching English.

6. Tatiana, I take it you're from Russia, I have a friend who just finished the Fullbright scholarship in the states and returned to Russia. She was offered a teaching job at a university near St. Petersburg, but I never considered the fact that there would be different ways of teaching. I would love to hear more about these little cultural differences, especially pertaining to education.

Permalink Reply by Tatiana Vorotyntseva on January 15, 2011 at 7:24pm

Colin, it's great to hear that someone is interested in a thing I thought I would be the one interested in.

And it's a funny match - I'm from St. Petersburg.

Permalink Reply by Demetrius Stott on January 15, 2011 at 8:01pm

A word from the ESL glossary that I did not know was Back- Chaining. Back- Chaining is when one breaks down a longer sentence in chunks, starting from the end of the sentence and working back chunk by chunk. I will definitly use this information when drilling a longer sentence.

Permalink Reply by Demetrius Stott on January 15, 2011 at 8:12pm

A personal goal of mine, I hope to achieve, by taking the Teaching House CELTA course, is to learn English on a more technical level in order to help others achieve there dreams of learning English as a second language. I look forward to obtaining and projecting a positive, confident, and secure class room presence, as a teacher, that my students will find comforting and stimulating.

Permalink Reply by Meira Gottlieb on January 17, 2011 at 6:02pm

Demetrius, I second the goal to learn English on a more technical level. I think it is an excellent goal. I too would like to be more technically proficient. It is easy when English is your primary language to forget the "why's" of grammar, but for English language teachers it will be important to be able to actually explain to students the proper way to speak. I believe it will make for a more comfortable teaching experience for both the student and the teacher, when the teacher feels a full grasp of the material.