UCLES Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) Pre-Interview Task Name CELTA applicants need to complete this pre-interview task and return it (either by post or email) to the Centre for English Language and Foundations Studies (CELFS), University of Bristol with their application form. After receiving and processing your application, CELFS will contact you and you may be asked to an interview. This task is designed to provide us with some idea of your approach to certain aspects of language, learning and teaching. It may, therefore, be referred to in the interview. Please write in sentences and not in note form. You can extend the spaces under the questions if you wish to write more. 1. Have you ever experienced learning a second language? Was it successful? What positive and/or negative feelings did it involve? 2. Have you ever taught anyone to do something (e.g. to drive / sew)? How would you rate the success or lack of it and can you think of a reason for this? 3. What qualities would you expect a language teacher to have? What skills should he / she have? 4. What do you think most students would expect to learn on a language course? Give reasons for your answer.
5. Consider the following questions: a) You teach an evening class of tired adults. How would you motivate them / keep them engaged? b) In your class of 16 students, one has not understood what you are teaching. What would you do? 6. Identify which of the following sentences contains errors by circling either correct / incorrect. If the sentence does have an error, then correct it AND explain why you think the speaker made the mistake in each case. a) We ve lived here since three years. b) It s high time we finish this. c) He asked me what can he do for me. d) The hotel s comfortable and the weather s attractive. e) There was far less people at the match than I expected.
f) If I was you, I d get more sleep. 7. Look at these questions and answers. The words / parts of words in italics are those that a native speaker would naturally stress in his / her answer. Example: a) Is it half past two? No it s a quarter past two. b) Is it a quarter to? No, it s a quarter past. 7 (a) Now match the numbered questions with the lettered responses. 1. Is that Helen s brother? A) No, that s my brother. 2. Is that your nephew? B) That s my brother. 3. Where s your car? C) I haven t got a car. 4. Let s drive there. D) I haven t got a car. 5. What news of John? E) He s just been to Italy. 6. Why doesn t he go to Italy? F) He s just been to Italy. 7 (b) What are the implications of this for teachers and students in the classroom? 8. Look at this word family and the marked stress pattern. Photograph photographer photographic What are the implications of word stress for teachers and students in the classroom? 9. How might you check that a student has understood the following words or sentences that you have taught in class? a) Trumpet b) Sad c) He s been to Sweden / He s gone to Sweden.
d) I wish I had more free time. 10. People use language to express many different social meanings, i.e. functions. From the list of functions provided, indicate which function is being expressed in the numbered phrases in the following dialogue. Some functions may be realised by more than one expression. Functions: a) Making a request b) Asking for an opinion c) Giving advice d) Making a promise e) Making a deduction f) Making an invitation g) Making an offer h) Making a suggestion i) Accepting an invitation j) Refusing an invitation k) Asking a favour You look exhausted. 1 Shall I give you a hand with those bags? All right then. Thanks. So what are you doing round here? I m waiting for my sister, Anna, to arrive. Her train s due in any minute now and then we re off to the town for a drink. 2 Would you like to come along with us? 3 I d love to, but I m afraid I ve got to get back to halls I ve arranged to meet Almila at seven there. Oh. That s a shame you d get on really well with Anna. 4 Why don t you give Almila a ring and get her to come down to the town? 5 There must be campus buses still around at this hour. Good idea. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Can you think of any other phrases used to make suggestions?