2012 has been quite a year for celebrations in the UK with the London Olympics and International House World and International House London have also been celebrating – 50 years since the first ground-breaking teacher training course at IH London.  We caught up with David Carr, Director of Teacher Training at IH London, to find ...

We’ve had rather an interesting time delivering CELTA courses at IH London and we want to share some of our quirky, fun and sometimes gratifying experiences with you. While it’s been great doing input barefoot in Chiang Mai (culturally appropriate, and feels great!) and challenging going to midnight TP during Ramadan in Saudi Arabia, ...

After only a cursory glance online at initial teacher training courses, one recurring selling point immediately stands out: “Learn by doing!” As one website succinctly put it, [Because] CELTA training is based on experiential learning, or "learning by doing", teaching practice (TP) is at the heart of the course. And who am I to argue?  As ...

Below are some extracts of my written feedback to one particular trainee on the last CELTA course I tutored at IH San Diego. The teaching practice students were elementary level and all the CELTA trainees were American: Day 2: ‘…you established rapport by using students’ names and making eye contact…language grading was a bit of an issue ...

Many CELTA trainers I know have taken the foreign language class out of their CELTA timetables in favour of other more ‘practical’ input sessions such as classroom management. But looking back at the times when I was training up to be a teacher, I realised how some of the most valuable lessons I had learnt ...

English Language Teaching has come a long way in the time I’ve been teaching and teacher training.  It’s not so long ago (but before my time) that a native speaker could travel around the world and teach English simply on the basis of their status as a native speaker.  That is thankfully no longer the ...

Although much has been written, discussed and forwarded regarding teacher training and the benefits of reflection as regards teaching skills, it still surprised me to hear two qualified teachers state that “I had to unlearn everything I was taught on my course” and “you just need to do what they tell you on the course”. ...

Teachers must be encouraged – I almost said ‘freed’, to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding. [Howard Gardner] Speaking from bitter personal experience, I’ll never forget looking at the traffic-infested road I had to cross on the day of my first formal observation at IH San Isidro, and half hoping that I wouldn’t actually ...

Introduction When I arrived in Doha as the Academic Director of the new IH school last January, I was prepared to offer our academic team a fairly standard package for teacher training in an emerging market, including: the FTEB for Business English the IH Young Learner Certificate training to teach IELTS and TOEFL. According to Malderez and Wedell (2007), there ...