CELTA online or face to face? What's the difference?

Long long ago, before CoVid, CELTA was only a face to face course. You couldn’t do it online. But as with many things, that all changed in March 2020. The fully online CELTA was born..and grew.. and has flourished. If you’re thinking about doing CELTA and wondering what the differences are between the face to face and online version of the course, keep watching.

I’m Jo Gakonga I've been teaching on CELTA courses for over 20 years and I'm also an assessor, so I’ve been to over 70 centres in lots of different countries to moderate them. Basically, I know a lot about CELTA! If you like this, don’t forget to like and subscribe, I make a new video every week and visit my website at ELT-Training for lots more CELTA support.

What’s the difference between CELTA online and face to face.

Let’s start at the beginning. CELTA was traditionally only a face to face course, so you had to do it in a centre near to you. There WAS what Cambridge called an Online CELTA, but actually it was a blended option. The input was online but the teaching practice- well over half of the course-was still in a real classroom. At the start of 2020, though, - everything changed and the Fully Online CELTA was developed. Moving on past the pandemic, there are now three ways to take CELTA.

Face to face- with input and teaching practice in a classroom.

Fully online- this means you access the whole course remotely with teaching practice in an online classroom such as Zoom or Teams.

Mixed Mode- there’s a third way you can do the course and that’s half online and half face to face. It’s a great way to get experience of both kinds of teaching, but it does mean you have to be living near the centre for the face to face part.

Are they all the same?

At the beginning, when the online version was introduced, a lot of tutors were sceptical. Would it be the same? But people quickly realised that it genuinely was possible to develop exactly the same teaching skills in an online classroom as in a face to face environment.

Cambridge have been very careful about making sure the two versions are equal. The time required is the same- 120 hours- the syllabus is the same. The amount of teaching practice you have to do is the same. The assessment criteria are still the same. The assignments are the same. CELTA is carefully standardised and you’ll be expected to develop exactly the same skills and achieve to the same level.

Finally, and not least of all,  perhaps something that worries you- The Cambridge certificate is the same- it won’t say on it anywhere that you did the online course. The certificate and reference that you get from your centre WILL stipulate whether you did the online, face to face or mixed mode course.

What’s different?

Well what IS different, you’re probably asking, apart from the obvious lack of physical contact? Not too much, in honesty. Online courses are usually run over a slightly longer time- maybe 5 weeks instead of 4 and you’ll have some input from your tutors on using the tools in the online classroom before you start teaching.

 in some centres, they’re giving you the opportunity to do a bit of unassessed teaching practice to get used to the online classroom and how it works. But apart from that, there aren’t many significant differences.

How does it work?

CELTA courses consist of input- where the tutors teach you how to teach- and teaching practice- where you actually get to jump in the pool and swim, so to speak. In the online course, the input might be asynchronous- watching videos, doing tasks and interacting in forums in your own time- or it might be in real time in an online classroom with a tutor, or it might be a mixture of those- that depends on the centre.

That’s input- let’s look at teaching practice- that’s where you get to teach and to watch your peers teach. This will be in a virtual classroom like Zoom or Teams. You’ll still be observed by your peers and a tutor for the same amount of time and you’ll still have feedback in a group afterwards.

Advantages

The big advantage of doing the CELTA online is that you have a lot more of a choice of centre. CELTA is a very standard product- Cambridge are very careful to make sure everything is kept this way- but you can choose a centre with dates that suit you more easily-time zones permitting, of course.

For many people the online option has made CELTA possible when otherwise 4 weeks off work and the location would mean they couldn’t do the course.

And finally, of course, there’s the fact that there is so much online teaching now- the online course gives you experience of this and it’ll be a strong selling point when you’re looking for work.

Problems?

Are there any problems, then? You do have to be a bit more tech-savvy than doing a face to face but tutors will help you to learn the systems. There may be technical problems that you face in teaching practice, but your tutors will be understanding of this and help you, so I wouldn’t worry about those things too much.

For me, the big thing to be aware of is that you’ll be spending a lot of time in front of a screen- it that IS more tiring. CELTA is pretty intense however you do it and this will add to the strain, I think, so you need to be aware of that and get ready for it!

And then, there’s the 64 million dollar question-

won’t it be difficult to transition to face to face teaching?

The main worry that trainees seem to have is whether they’ll be able to make that transition to the classroom and whether employers will be suspicious of the course online?  I can’t speak for all employers, of course, but the online CELTA is very established now and  although there are some differences, the principles of good teaching and the techniques you learn ARE the same.

Remember that  post-celta many people are asked to do things that they weren’t trained for- teaching young learners, business, academic English etc and you CAN learn on the job- that’s why we try to teach you to reflect on your practice.

You also need to remember also that CELTA is only designed as a pre-service course- not a ‘full qualified and ready for anything’ qualification. Employers should realise this, too.

I hope that this has been of some help. Check out elt-training for support with all aspects of the course- grammar, lesson planning, concept checking and lots more and good luck with whatever kind of course you decide to do.