assignment 4 lessons from the classroom

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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:


My instructional language is often too lengthy and unclear	Unclear instructions lead to wasted classroom time and decrease the sense of orderliness and purposefulness in the classroom		"
I don't handle error well	If learners are not guided by a focus on key errors, learning and development is inhibited		"
I get stumped too often by grammar and meaning questions	Nobody, not even your tutors, knows everything but it's important to be on top of your subject and plan ahead for possible questions and problems. Knowledgeable teachers inspire confidence and the opposite is true.	but I will follow up questions I can't answer on the spot and come back to people – always.
and so on

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.

The CELTA written assignment guides:

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CAPPELLO CAMBRIDGE CELTA ASSIGNMENT 4 Lessons from the classroom

2020, CAMBRIDGE CELTA

CAPPELLO CAMBRIDGE CELTA ASSIGNMENT 4 - Lessons from the classroom *-*This assignment is my original work and I have acknowledged all sources. Please use it freely as a personal reference for your own assessment writing, do not copy and paste it, be respectable with copyrights. If possible please refer to it in your references' sources. Thank you and good luck with your CELTA. ©Cyro CAPPELLO Jr @ [email protected] CAPPELLO CAMBRIDGE CELTA ASSIGNMENT 4 - Lessons from the classroom *-*This assignment is my original work and I have acknowledged all sources. Please use it freely as a personal reference for your own assessment writing, do not copy and paste it, be respectable with copyrights. If possible please refer to it in your references' sources. Thank you and good luck with your CELTA. ©Cyro CAPPELLO Jr @ [email protected] This assignment is linked to my experiences and progress in teaching practice, observation of peers, ‘live’ observations of experienced teachers and the filmed lessons during Cambridge CELTA Certificate Blended Course at ILC - Summer/ Autumn 2020 in Paris. This assignment is linked to my experiences and progress in teaching practice, observation of peers, ‘live’ observations of experienced teachers and the filmed lessons during Cambridge CELTA Certificate Blended Course at ILC - Summer/ Autumn 2020 in Paris.

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Lessons from the Classroom: CELTA Assignment

The Lessons from the Classroom CELTA assignment is slightly more accessible than other assignments on the course, but it still deserves your full attention to complete it to a high level.

This assignment is also a great opportunity to show that you have been continuously learning and applying what your tutors have told you throughout your CELTA course.

Either way, this post follows the rubric and guidance from the Cambridge CELTA syllabus, as found on their official site. In short, it will all be relevant for you.

So, to give you a brief outline, throughout this post I will go through the following:

What is the word limit for the ‘Lessons From the Classroom’ CELTA assignment?

As stated in the Cambridge CELTA syllabus, the word limit for the Lessons From the Classroom assignment is 750 to 1000 words .

This is the same as the Focus on the Learner assignment , as well as other CELTA course assignments .

What do you have to include in this assignment?

In this written assignment on your CELTA course, you will have to show the following:

How can you evidence or demonstrate the points above in the Lessons from the Classroom CELTA Assignment ?

Tips for the lessons from the classroom celta assignment, keep a diary.

Keep a diary throughout the course to help you reflect on all that you have learnt and the journey that you have been on.

You will have the CELTA 5 booklet that contain some space for this, however I would recommend using a diary or journal of your own in addition to this.

If you do not like writing in this way, you could equally keep a video or audio record on your smartphone or other device . Just hit record and go over your thoughts for the day in 30 seconds to 1 minute. You can’t say that would be too much!

You could even post to Instagram with a hashtag like #celtadiary (although there’s not much there yet!) and take a selfie each day. It doesn’t have to be a chore!

Without a diary or journal , you may struggle to remember these things, not least because you feel so tired with all that you have learnt throughout the CELTA course!

Be Specific

Hopefully you’ve got this message from the bullet points in a previous section, but just in case, here’s a little bit more on it.

You will also have many moments and experiences to reflect on. So, if you can, state the exact language point at a certain part of a lesson during a specific teaching practice session. For example:

“Near the start of TP3, I was eliciting information from the pre-intermediate students’ to confirm their prior knowledge of the past perfect. From their answers, I realised I had assumed that they would know more about this language point than they did, which caused problems for the rest of my lesson. This made me realise that making such assumptions could be problematic for future lessons, and therefore I decided to pitch subsequent lessons at a slightly lower level for that group.”

Using Clear, Accurate and Appropriate Language

If you’re concerned about your ability to write clearly, accurately and appropriately for this assignment, as is a key part of the rubric for this, below are a few things you can do.

I know timing can be an issue which makes you think this is not possible, but even if you do it quite quickly by hand, I’m sure you will identify more issues than by spending the same amount of time checking it on a screen.

When checking on paper, treat this as if you were marking a student’s written work, take a red pen and add any corrections as needed.

I also quickly become aware of awkward language of sentences through doing this, again something which I don’t always sense when I am looking at it on a screen.

Another thing you can do here is to swap your work with someone else on the course whom you trust. Obviously, this is a judgement call on your part but if there is someone who you feel you can trust in this way, then just ask and see what they say.

Useful Links & Relevant Resources for this CELTA Assignment

For further recommended reading and resources, below are some useful links for you:

Books for the Lessons from the Classroom Assignment

In terms of books, you will certainly benefit from reading around the topic. Here are the most useful books to check out:

Example ‘Lessons from the Classroom’ Assignments with PDFs

Here are some examples frrom around the web that you might like to read. Remember – if you want to download from most of the sites below, you will either need to create a free account or possibly have to pay. It is up to you whether you want to do that but all documents are free to view!

I should also add that these are examples which students have uploaded. It does not mean that they are exemplary, rather that they can give you an idea of the finished work.

If you also have this assignment in mind throughout your course, then you should have little trouble in writing it since you will be thinking in this way from the start. On the CELTA, self-reflection will help you, just as it will in your future work.

PS You may also like to get your assignments or application checked by Scribendi – an online proofreading service (affiliate link) I used to work for that provides high-quality work.