Bringing the World Closer

First Assignment

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

We are presently developing Generation 2 of the MyTeachingHouse site. It’s a great resource both on the course and after the course (in finding work and 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 manyof 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 acomment about someone else’s comments, for example, “Lizzy, I agree with your comment about the job listings section…” or “Abby, I saw that you 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 Maria Denzer on January 13, 2011 at 12:08pm

2nd Task: back-chaining is a term I'd never heard of. It's used for drilling longer sentences. I'm curious about it because I'm not quite sure I understand how it works.

3rd Task: I'm new to the whole online forum kind of thing. So far everyone's suggestions are great and I can't think of another at the moment. If I do, I will surely mention it.

4th Task: My personal goal for the course is to be better at using the board and at giving instructions. I'm notorious for having scribbled a few notes on a board after a 2 hour lesson. I'm not really a visual learner so it's hard for me to visualize what my board should look like before I've written on it. This will take practice.

5th Task: I'll address the grammar comments since there are quite a few of those. I think one way to feel less intimidated by grammar is to learn what you need to teach and start from there. I've tried memorizing grammar for other languages and I only really learn it when I have to use it. It's sort of the same idea with teaching grammar in your native language (though of course one knows how to use it just not why). When you're expected to teach it in a class then look it over and/ or learn it. Otherwise, you'll have a million rules in your head but not really know how to communicate all of it to your students. Those are my two cents :)

Permalink Reply by Claire Anna O'Brien on January 16, 2011 at 10:55am

2. The school directory doesn't seem to work in Explorer and I've no access to Firefox or Safari. From the posts I've seen thus far, however, I gather that there is an ILA Vietnam? I would be very interested in that school, as I've always wanted to spend an extended period in Vietnam. I would also be interested in posts in Thailand, Laos, Romania, France, and Spain. To tell you the truth, I'm interested in a lot countries: that's why I'm taking this course! I hope this certificate will enable me to find work over the course of many years, in many different locations. I'm sorry I cannot be more specific but using Explorer has limited my answer.

3. I don't know most of these words/terms! I found Cuisenaire Rods to be interesting. I saw it several times in Scrivener and Google gave me some good pictures: they look like a Jenga/Lego hybrid :) I'm not sure I'd be up for using something so adventurous early in my teaching career but I will definitely remember them for later :)

4. It's a bit early in the course for me to offer serious recommendations for MyTeachingHouse.com but an obvious one that comes to mind is to fix the broken links and make the school directory compatible with Explorer. Also, I know they're very busy people but it would be nice to see an active teacher presence on the webpage (although to be fair, there are so many resources out there--such as Dave's Cafe etc--that it might not be necessary on here.

5. I have a few personal goals associated with obtaining the CELTA certification. THe most obvious is that I hope to use it to travel the world. I think, though, that I would take this course even if I planned to to stay in NYC forever. Teaching an ESL class allows me to meet and interact with such a wide range of people: people with whom I might normally share a subway car with but not, perhaps, a conversation. ALso, I would very much like to learn another language some day (I speak/read/write basic Spanish but nothing else) and a part of me believes that if I learn how to teach someone else a language I'll pick up some points on how to best acquire one myself.

6. Rachel, I like your idea about an FAQ page. It would be immensely helpful. And Nyr, I think it's a great idea to work for a school that has many different branches/outposts. It would provide a sense of continuity and security whilst allowing for the differences and adventures of travel abroad.

I'll see everyone in class!

Claire

Permalink Reply by Kate Krupka on January 16, 2011 at 10:24pm

2. English First's China branch looks like a company I may want to apply to. They're big, they advertise benefit packages, and they're in Shanghai (a city I'd love to experience).

3. Apodosis - a term for the main clause in a conditional sentence

4. The site needs some technical help. I was unable to join the group in FireFox, but could do it with Internet Explorer. I was unable to search for schools in Internet Explorer, but could do it in FireFox.

5. I really want to live abroad, but never got the chance. Teaching English seems like a great way to do it.

6. Claire: I don't know most of these terms either! It seems like there's a word for everything!

Permalink Reply by Simona Balan on January 17, 2011 at 8:45am

2. I would like to work in Spain, ideally in Barcelona. In fact when deciding where to take my CELTA certification course I chose Teaching House NY over International House Barcelona. It would be quite something if I could be a part of the IH Barcelona team.

3. cloze exercise- interesting term for quite a familiar type of exercise

4. I've just started using myteachinghouse so I'm not very familiar with the site yet. One thing that I've noticed so far is that it would be useful to make it compatible with Internet Explorer. I had to download Firefox in order to access the Schools list.The funny part is that I ended up liking the new browser so I do have to thank you :)
5.Since I am not a native speaker I face tough challenges but my goal is to absorb as much as I can from our Instructors as well as everybody in the class and combine it with my own experience of being an ESL student.

6.Claire , you have a long list of countries that you would like to visit. I find that very inspiring. Since Romania is one of them and I'm from there, let me know if you ever have any questions.