Interview Tasks

CELTA course
Interview Tasks

You have 20 minutes to complete sections A and B before the interview. Please review the
points in Section C. You will be asked questions about this section during the interview.

The four-week Cambridge CELTA is an intensive course and demanding, both physically and
mentally. It requires long hours of preparation, planning and research for the teaching
practice and the written assignments.

Please sign below (a typed, e-signature will suffice) to indicate that you understand this and
are able and willing to undertake the course if offered a place.

Name:

Signature:

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

Section A: Writing Task

Please write a few paragraphs in answer to these questions. Please write in full
sentences rather than in note form.

 What is it about language teaching that excites you?

 What strengths can you bring to this pre-service teacher-training course?
 What do you think your weaknesses, as a teacher will be?

What is it about language teaching that excites you?

Answer:

Being a student of Linguistics I have always been interested in the field of Language
Teaching. The usage of different methods for language teaching, the different approaches
towards teaching and the prospect of interacting with people who have come to learn excites
me. It makes me happy when I see someone has learnt something right from me and will be
able to use that knowledge in his future.

What strengths can you bring to this pre-service teacher-training course?

Answer:

Apart from being a student of Linguistics I am very well acquainted with computers and I can
make full use of this device in my classroom. Since most of the learners these days are more
comfortable with gadgets I would like to use this gadget in my advantage and use it for
teaching in the class. I would like to make power point presentations, use short films from the
internet etc. to make the language learning sessions more exciting in the pre-service teacher-
training course.

What do you think your weaknesses, as a teacher will be?

Answer:

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

Section B: Learner Errors

The following sentences are typical mistakes made by students. Can you identify the type of
error and correct them?

1 She’s having a brother.

Answer: This is an error of overgeneralization. The concept of a boy child being born to the
mother of a child who will have a brother has been over generalized and the L2 user has
extended the concept of birth giving to the sibling.

2 You like Kerala, isn’t it?

Answer: In the above sentence there is an error of false concept hypothesized which occurs
when a learner derives faulty comprehension of distinction in the target language. The
learner does not have a clear understanding on usage of correct question forms. So he uses
‘isn’t it’ instead of ‘don’t you’.

3 The manager explained me the

problem.

Answer: In this sentence the error of incomplete application of rules happen where the
learner is unable to fully develop a certain structure to produce acceptable sentences
because his learning is incomplete in some way. This is the reason the learner fails to use
the correct structure – ‘The manager explained the problem to me’.

4 Feedbacks should be detailed and

objective.

Answer: In the above sentence there are two errors –

a. Error of over generalisation where the learner uses one form or construction in one
context and extends its application to the contexts where it should not apply. So he
extends the concept of adding suffix ‘-s’ to make a plural number ‘Feedback’ which
itself is an uncountable noun and cannot have a plural version.
b. Secondly the error of false concept hypothesized occurs here and this happens when
a learner derives faulty comprehension of distinction in the target language.
‘Feedback’ is an uncountable noun and thus cannot have a plural form. The learner
here uses the concept of adding suffix ‘-s’ to make a plural number ‘Feedback’ which
itself is an uncountable noun and cannot have a plural version.

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

5 If you would have come early, we

would have got the tickets.

Answer: There is grammatical error in this sentence which has occurred due to
oversimplification of structure where the learner chooses to use simple forms and
constructions instead of complex ones. The learner here uses the ‘conditional perfect’ tense
in the ‘if’ clause, instead of ‘past perfect’ tense. The ‘if-then’ clause should have been used.
The correct way to say this is with the past perfect in the “if” clause, and the conditional
perfect in the “then” clause – ‘If you had come early, [then] we would have got the tickets.’

6 They went to airport to receive

their guests.
Answer: The error of avoidance takes place in the above sentence. Some learners find it
difficult to produce certain syntactic structures. These learners tend to avoid those structure
and use instead simpler structures. Thus, in the sentence given the learner omits the article
‘the’ before ‘airport’.

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

Section C: Teaching and Learning Issues

Imagine you have to teach the following language items – grammar, vocabulary or functions -
from your pre-interview tasks. Be ready to demonstrate your ideas of how to teach any one of
the items.

1. He stopped to call her back.

He stopped calling her back.

2. Any one of these pair of words:

assertive/aggressive
affect/effect
gourmet/glutton

3. I’m afraid I am not satisfied with the service, or

You could’ve fed the cat

Useful Tips:
- Think about how you would illustrate the meaning of the item in the classroom. E.g
definition, example, visuals, context, mime, timelines, etc.
- What aspects of pronunciation will you need to highlight? E.g. any sounds,
contractions, weak forms, etc.
- What grammar points or rules of form will you need to cover? E.g. parts of speech,
type of structure, verb tense, etc.

Here are some other questions that will be discussed in the interview.

a). We should not teach students a British accent, but only improve their pronunciation. Do
you agree or disagree with this statement? Is there a difference between ‘accent’ and
‘pronunciation’?

Answer:
Accent is a distinctive way of speaking a language, which is especially associated with a
particular country, area and social class. Every person who can speak has an accent. Accent
is the way each phoneme is realized, that is – how a language is produced in a particular
place. Accent is dependent on factor like voicing etc. Accent is dependent on intonation of a
person and is not related to articulation of a language. Accent also refers to the stress or
emphasis that has to be placed on a letter in a particular word.

Pronunciation refers to the production of phonemes together in form of words and is

dependent on the accent of a person. Pronunciation is the physical articulation and
production of a word and is the manner in which a word should be articulated for the better
understanding of it.

One language can be spoken in several different accents in one country. Accents are
acquired by a person at a very early stage of language acquisition and it is difficult to change
the accent of an adult learner. But pronunciations can be changed. An accent cannot be bad

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

or good, right or wrong. Pronunciation can be bad or good and right or wrong. An accent is
acquired at a very early stage of language acquisition and is very difficult to change once fully
acquired. Though, pronunciation can be changed in case it is faulty. So I agree to the
statement that we should not teach students a British Accent, but only improve pronunciation.
Having a different accent does not mean that one is speaking a language wrongly. However,
if someone is not pronouncing the word as it should be pronounced then one is speaking a
language wrongly

b). Do you think it is important to correct students’ errors immediately during a group
discussion activity?

Answer:
I think correcting student’s immediately during a group discussion is not a good method of
correction. The interruption might make the students tense and they might end up making
more mistakes. Pointing out individual mistake in a group can also be embarrassing at times.
I feel the trainer should observe the group activity and note down the errors that the students
are making. Once the discussion is over the teacher should write down the errors in the
board and should ask the students to identify the mistake and correct them. If the students
are unable to identify the mistake then the teacher should help them out. This way an
interactive environment is built in the classroom and student’s can interact freely thus
creating a positive learning environment.

c). What are the benefits of being observed by your tutors and by your fellow CELTA
trainees? How do you think you will feel being observed and receiving and giving feedback?

Answer:
I feel it will be very beneficial if I am being observed by my tutors and fellow CELTA trainees.
Proper mentor review as well as peer review is very important for learning. Also this kind of
communicative environment would make learning more exciting.

d). Should we use translation in the classroom to teach English? Why or why not?

Answer:
I feel Translation method is not a proper way to teach English. This method uses translation
and grammar study as the main teaching and learning activities. This is an old English
Language teaching methodology and not appropriate for modern day language learning
classrooms. This methodology emphasises on written language more than on speech
production. Since teaching is not done in target language the contextual exposure is
practically absent. Since students have to translate to learn the language they often make
literal translation from L1 to L2 and end up making inter language errors. The teacher is
dominant figure in this kind of classroom and very less interaction happens in the class.

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 Interview Tasks

e). What are the main differences between teaching adults and teaching children?

Answer:

Different approach should be adopted while teaching children and teaching adults.

It is easier to teach new concept to a child because children’s brain have more elasticity than
an adult’s. A child does not have a preconceived notion and he can learn new concepts very
easily. An adult learner already comes to a classroom with certain understanding and pre
conceived notions. This earlier knowledge might create certain obstructions for an adult
learner while learning a new concept. An adult learners’ learning is mostly need based unlike
the child.

A children’s classroom is initially mostly teacher directed. The children need to be taught and
prepared so than can start deciding their future activities and interact later on.

For an adult learner, the classroom should be more interactive and it should be a learner
centred classroom. Learners must be allowed to express their opinion in the classroom so
that the teacher is well acquainted with the student’s needs and his deficits.

Learning activities can be used for both adult and children classrooms, but the level of
difficulty and kind of activities will be different for different kind of learners. Children’s
activities might consist of singing, colourful handouts, cartoon films etc. For adults activities
are mostly worksheet based but activities like role plays, theatres etc. can be used to make
language learning more interesting.

© The British Council, New Delhi 2014

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.