The University of Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) is the oldest established ELT training certificate and was developed from a certificate launched by International House over 50 years ago. Most training courses now follow the CELTA model.
It is also the most well-known. Cambridge Assessment research by the university department which owns CELTA suggests it is the required qualification for one-third of TEFL jobs and it is certainly the most frequently named in the job ads we see.
The main advantages, apart from its reputation and the fact that it’s owned by a world-famous university, is that it has a clear syllabus followed by every centre and that Cambridge Assessment specifies the process of training teacher trainers, visits every course provider, most courses and assesses some of the work of every candidate.
The main disadvantage is that it’s focused on teaching adults – assessed teaching practice, for example, most be with over 16s – yet most of the students in the world’s language schools are now aged six to 16 and, increasingly, even younger.
Although there has been an online option for several years, until the pandemic all teaching practice had to be face to face, which is clearly optimum. Cambridge is allowing online teaching practice for the duration of Covid-19, but it is unclear if this will continue post-pandemic. We’ll try to keep you posted.
Click here to find institutions offering CELTA in the EL Gazette.
