CELTA Syllabus
Topic 1: Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context

classroom

In what follows, you will find everything you need to know about this area successfully to complete a CELTA course.
It's not enough, of course, so there are links to other guides at the end of each section where you can go for a bit more information.

This is what this area includes. Click on the area which interests you for more.
Click on to come back to this diagram.

topic 1

Cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds

There are, as you see, three parts to this section of the syllabus.
You are not being asked to train as an ethnologist but you are required to be aware of how the three aspects (culture, language and education) may impact your classroom.
You will, as a matter of course, be dealing with people whose cultures you do not share and whose motivations and ways of seeing the world may be alien to you.
All that is required at this stage is an appreciation of that fact.

Cultural backgrounds

Culture can be defined as:

the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society

The first obvious problem is to define what is meant by 'people' and 'society', of course, but most will equate these in some way with nationality for the purposes of English language teaching. The term is still, however, rather slippery because we talk of the culture of nations and also of parts of nations: German culture, American culture, the culture in the north of England, European culture and so on.

The second obvious problem is that we need to be careful to avoid national stereotyping. Talk of someone being typically French, typically Chinese, typically Asian and so on is easy but all of these sorts of stereotypes are fraught with danger:

Very few people actually consider themselves to be typical of their own culture. Do you?
China is a nation of more than 1.3 billion people speaking at least 12 distinct languages and including a huge amount of cultural variety. There can be no talk of Chinese culture, therefore.
Asia is even more of a uselessly loose term. That means everyone from Siberia to Sri Lanka, Turkey to Taiwan and Japan to Jakarta – over 50 countries and 4 billion people. To speak of Asian culture is plain silly.
Talk of cultural stereotypes can lead quickly to value judgements which have no place in our profession.

We need, therefore, to identify what parts of which cultures we need to consider in the English-language learning setting.

Task 1: For the purposes of looking at the way learners from non-English-speaking backgrounds behave in language-learning classrooms, can you think of two or three elements of culture that will be important?
Click here when you have made a note of something.

Educational culture

Schools operate very differently in different cultures.
In some, discipline is harsh, independent thought is not encouraged and rote learning of facts is the norm.
In others, discipline is lax, the relationships between teachers and students are informal and facts are less important than the acquisition of thinking and learning skills.
Even were it possible, this is no place to try to list which cultures embody which characteristics but it is important to be aware of what sorts of educational backgrounds your learners have.
It is also important to recognise that:

educational norms exist on a cline from lax to harsh, informal to formal and
even within cultures schools and teachers vary widely.

People's educational backgrounds will often determine how they feel about you and your teaching.

Learners who come from an educational culture in which the teacher is always an authority figure whose views are automatically accepted may be disoriented and confused if you ask them for their opinions about what to learn and how to learn it. Some will, however, find a more relaxed approach refreshing and novel.
Others will be comfortable with a much more equal relationship and be frustrated and lose motivation to learn if they feel that their views are not being given adequate weight and consideration.

Power relationships, risk taking and fear of losing face

In some cultures, such as Scandinavian countries, Britain and the USA, power relationships are narrow and people will be unafraid to criticise teachers, question them and demand answers. In these cultures, too, risk taking is more prevalent so learners will be more likely to have a stab at language and be less afraid of making errors.
In other cultures, notably Pacific rim nations, Greece and South America, power distances are larger and risk taking is less common so people from those cultures are less likely to criticise others or ask questions and more likely to avoid just having a go at language until they are sure they have it right.
There are consequences for the classroom, of course:

Learners whose cultures have narrow power relationships will be happy to interrupt others (including you) and suggest their own ideas.
Others, from cultures with wide power relationships may well feel uncomfortable asking for clarification and may be reluctant to ask questions at all, even when they are confused and unsure.
Learners whose cultures tolerate risk will be prepared to 'have a go' at producing language in the classroom, even when they aren't sure it's well formed. They will respond well to free communicative activities in which the emphasis is on communicative success not accuracy. They will be less afraid of losing face and even being the butt of some ridicule.
Others, whose cultural backgrounds are risk avoiding in general may be very reluctant to say anything until they are sure that it is correct and well formed for fear of losing public face and being seen to have made a mistake. They will often respond well to controlled exercises in which they know that there is only one correct answer and they can display the fact that they know what it is.

If, naturally, you are teaching a group in which there is a mixture of these types of cultural characteristics, you need to plan for it and include activities which will appeal to everyone at some time in the lesson.

Collectivism vs. Individualism

In so-called collectivist societies, people define themselves by their social roles:
    I'm a father
    I'm the youngest daughter
    I'm a doctor
etc.
In individualistic societies, people are more likely to define themselves by reference to their personalities:
    I'm a patient, tolerant person
    I'm a hard-working, perfectionist
    I'm generous but often too tolerant
etc.
There are some implications including:

Those from highly individualistic cultures will
- often be happy to express their views openly
- often be happy to accept newcomers in a group and judge them on their merits
- view task completion as important
Those from highly collectivist cultures will
- be less happy to express an opinion and prefer to wait until a consensus is reached
- be less happy to welcome newcomers and will judge them on their backgrounds
- prefer to focus on reaching a consensus together and focus on their relations within their groups.

It bears repeating that:

People as individuals often behave outside their cultural norms
Even defining what constitutes culture is perilous

More information

There are two short articles on this site looking at cultural types:
Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance	Collectivism vs. Individualism

Linguistic backgrounds

As a rough estimate, some 35% to 50% of all errors made by adult learners are traceable to the influences of their first language(s).

Task 2: Can you think of the sorts of things that will be affected by people's first language patterns?
Click here when you have made a note of something.

Grammar: If an adult doesn't know how a particular structure works in English he or she is likely to assume that it will be the same as in the first language. Here are some examples of the kinds of error one might encounter based on the learners' first languages (the use of the '*' is the conventional way to identify something wrong, by the way):
    *I have arrived yesterday (speakers of almost all other European languages and many beyond Europe)
    *Because it was raining so I took an umbrella (speakers of most Chinese languages)
    *I looked up it in the dictionary (speakers of Romance languages like Italian, French and Spanish)
    *It is wonderfuller (speakers of Germanic languages such as German, Dutch and some Scandinavian languages)
    *Tourist industry is important my country (speakers of languages such as Turkish or Japanese which have very different [or no] article and preposition systems)
Words and vocabulary (Lexis): Learners are less likely to transfer a word from their first language into English because we all know that it doesn't usually work. However, if a word looks like the same word in both languages, learners will be tempted to think that it means the same in both languages [it's called a false friend]. Examples include:
    *Don't get upset. You are too sensible (in many languages, the meanings of sensible and sensitive are reversed)
    *I had a cup of coffee at a snack (Japanese speakers [snack = snack bar])
    *Write it in your note (Korean speakers [note = notebook])
    *He may eventually come (in many languages, eventually means possibly)
Pronunciation: This is the most obvious area. For example:
Pronouncing ship as sheep is common to many speakers of languages which don't have a short 'i' sound such as Greek and Italian
Pronouncing 'th' as 's', 'z' or 'f' is common to a range of learners

More information

For more in this area, you will find Swan, M and Smith, B, (Eds.) 2001, Learner English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press a usually reliable guide.
On this site, you will find:
A guide to false friends	A guide to first language influences
Most of the language guides in the initial plus and in-service sections include some consideration of problems caused by the influence of first languages.

Motivation

Motivation for us refers to people's reasons for learning English.

Task 3: Can you think of three reasons why people might want to learn English?
Click here when you have made a note of something.

For pleasure and leisure

Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy learning another language and get a buzz from speaking it. They may also feel they need it because it is the No 1 international means of communication around the world. Most people will have trouble travelling widely without at least some competence in English.

For study

Many learners aspire to study in an English-speaking college or university.
There are also many higher education institutions outside English-speaking countries that nevertheless use English as the medium of instruction. These learners are said to be studying for English for Academic Purposes (or EAP).

For work

A basic or even quite advanced knowledge of English is often a requirement for work in many countries. People in this category are often described as learning English for Special Purposes (ESP).

Because it is necessary in our world

The British Council and others reckon that:

English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science, technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising
over two-thirds of the world's scientists read in English
three quarters of the world's mail is written in English
eighty per cent of the world's electronically stored information is in English
of the estimated 4.66 billion users of the Internet, some thirty-six per cent communicate in English
60.6% of the 1.2 billion or so websites out here are written in English (the next most popular languages are Russian (6.7%), German (5.7%), Japanese and Spanish (5.1% each) and French (4.1%))
(Figures from https://siteefy.com but the numbers change all the time and are only estimates, anyway.)

There are four basic forms of motivation:

Intrinsic: I.e., that which comes from inside the learner. People who enjoy learning and speaking English for its own sake fall into this category.
Extrinsic: I.e., that which comes from outside the learner. People who need English for work will fall into this category as will people who are in compulsory education and those who have been instructed to learn English.
Instrumental: This is often considered a form of extrinsic motivation and refers to people learning the language to do something else, e.g., a person learning English to read books or fit in with a culture.
Integrative: This is also often classed as a form of extrinsic motivation (and sometimes not) and refers to the need to learn a language to integrate into a society.
It applies to immigrants (who are sometimes referred to as ESOL students (English as a Second or Other Language)) but also to people living, studying or working in a country for a short time.
It may also refer to people who want to integrate into businesses and large multi-national corporations who use English as the internal language, whatever countries they operate in. There are lots of those.

People will rarely have only one motivation for learning English so might, for example, have been told to learn it (extrinsic pressure) but find it enjoyable (intrinsic feelings) and so on.

Rather obviously, the more you know about your learners' reasons for learning, the better able you are to plan accordingly. The CELTA course will assess your ability to do this.

More information

On this site, you will find:
An essential guide to motivation	A more advanced guide to motivation

Learning and Teaching styles preferences

We need to start with a precautionary note:
Once upon a time, people in English language teaching were convinced that their learners could be classified according to how they preferred (and, indeed, were able) to learn.
The argument went, usually, along the lines of having four recognisable learning styles (called VARK for short):

Visual
describing people who learn well from visual stimuli such as images, diagrams, video clips and so on.
Auditory
describing people who take in information through their ears and respond well to lectures, discussion, recorded material and so on.
Reading-writing
describing people who will respond well to written exercises and presentations and to procedures which reinforce the language through getting them to read and write.
Kinaesthetic
describing people who will respond well to activities and procedures which allow them to manipulate objects (such as plastic rods and cut-ups of texts or physical-object matching exercises such as matching a word to a visual image printed on cards).

There were other theories concerning multiple intelligences and activators, pragmatists, reflectors and theorists and a zoo of other ways to analyse people's personalities and learning styles.
The argument was that people have unique mixes of learning styles and that teachers should match their approaches and the tasks they set to take advantage of (or at least accommodate) the various styles and preferences of their students. There are those who doubted the validity of all this from the outset, too, and, more recently, the whole area has been vigorously attacked as meaningless, damaging and invalid pseudo-science. Tread carefully.

If your tutors are in the learning styles camp (as Cambridge English seemed to be until quite recently), you may be well advised to go along with them, whatever your personal view and make it clear in lesson plans and elsewhere (particularly the written assignment focusing on the learner) that you are aware of the learning styles of the people you are teaching and, incidentally, of your own style.
From 2018, the CELTA syllabus has been revised in the light of criticisms of learning-style theories and the word styles has been expunged from the CELTA syllabus to be replaced by learning preferences. That is, you may feel, simply a fudge.

There is little doubt that learners do have preferences for how they are taught and much of that may stem from their educational backgrounds and experiences (see above). You'd be foolish not to take preferences into account, of course.

More information

On this site, you will find:
Guide to learning styles	A guide to how learning happens
from where there is a link to an article debunking the theories	which considers what influences determine how people learn

Context for learning and teaching English

This is not rocket science.
You need to take into account when you are planning and teaching (and show that you have done so):

What resources are available to you to make your teaching lively, interesting and engaging

This may include the use of aids to learning such as projectors, whiteboards, video players and so on and there is a guide to using aids linked below on this site which you should follow for more help.
If you are teaching online, of course, other aids may come to your rescue.
At CELTA level, you need only to be able to use the aids professionally and appropriately. For example:

projectors in classrooms and screen-sharing options online for:
- showing images and diagrams
- showing whole texts that it would be too time-consuming to write out or too isolating for each learner to have a copy
- building time lines
whiteboards
- to highlight important models
- to act as a record of what's been presented (vocabulary etc.)
- for the learners to use
video and audio recorders and players (including smart phones)
- to set language in a realistic context
- to supply a repeatable, unchanging model
- to introduce a scene
- to provide data for analysis
- to allow learners to hear and see themselves using English
libraries
- to encourage reading outside the classroom
- for learners to do their own research
the web
- for learners to do their own research
- to find examples of real language use
- for planning and research for you

The learning aims and motivations of your students including their preferences and their styles (see above)

All learners have aims for learning even if they are, often, unable to articulate them clearly.
Some learners will have quite explicit aims of course and need English:

for Academic purposes, because they want to study something else in an English-speaking institution or culture. We call this EAP (English for Academic Purposes)
for Business, because they are operate or have ambitions to operate in an English speaking business culture where the ability to interact with customers and suppliers is valued along with the ability to write clearly in English and, perhaps, to give presentations and participate in or chair meetings. This is EfB (English for Business).
Professionally, because their occupation requires the use of English (tourism, the military, hospitality workers etc.). This is EfOP (English for Occupational Purposes).

You are not, at CELTA level, about to be asked to design a course from scratch for your learners and will mostly be focused on what is called GE (General English) so there is little need to go further (although there are sections on the site for teachers of Business English and English for Academic purposes should you ever feel the need).
You are teaching lessons, short ones at that, and not being asked to design a course.

The surroundings and layout of the classroom

Is it a pleasant environment?
What can you do to make it more so?
How are the tables and chairs arranged so that they are appropriate to the learning and the tasks you plan?
If you are teaching online, have you arranged for a variety of interactions including the use of break-out rooms and so on?

The environment

If you are teaching in an English-speaking country, are you taking full advantage of the opportunities it affords?
If you are teaching in a non-English-speaking setting, are you using on-line and other technical aids to make the language more vivid and authentic?

The special needs of any students in the group:

Physically: are there any with disabilities such as poor sight, mobility or hearing?
Mentally and emotionally: extreme shyness, boisterousness, dyslexia etc.
How have you taken these factors into account?

Task 4: There's obviously no right answer to this one. If you are doing a CELTA course currently or any teaching at all, pause now and list the factors you have identified and what you have done or intend to do about them.

The list may look something like the following:

Factor	Action
Jorge is hard of hearing	Make sure a) he sits near the front and b) I'm very clearly enunciating instructions and explanations while c) looking at him more than the other students
Felicity tends to be too enthusiastic and shout out answers all the time	Make sure I nominate (by name) other students fairly and be firm with her
Marcia tells me she is dyslexic and has trouble reading and writing	Pair her with Mary who is a good reader and will be sympathetic and helpful

and so on.
Such a table would be a good addition to a lesson plan.

You need to consider these factors both when you are planning and when you are delivering the lesson and also show that you take them into account in the written assignment focusing on the learner.

More information

On this site, you will find:
A guide to classroom organisation	A guide to grouping learners	A guide to 10 teaching resources

Varieties of English

Somewhere between 375 and 400 million people around the world speak English as a first language and an additional 750 million or so speak it as a second language.
It is, therefore, unsurprising that there are quite marked and identifiable varieties of the language.

There's no suggestion here that one variety is somehow 'better' than another and, in fact, the amendments to the CELTA for April 2018 make it clear that the focus is on varieties rather than the old-fashioned standard vs. non-standard variation.
It is a matter of appropriacy and an understanding of where and with whom your learners will use English. If, for example, your learners are only going to use English to communicate with people from India then teaching Indian Standard forms and pronunciation is entirely appropriate but in other circumstances, for example, if your learners need English as an international language, teaching regionally-specific forms, words and pronunciation will be harmful to them.

Here is a list of the what you should consider in this respect. It is not complete but is all you need to think about for a CELTA course:

You need to make sure that you consider which variety of English you should be using in your teaching. We should avoid (or at least be careful about) teaching regionally specific language.
We should know what our learners need English for. Occupational and topic registers (i.e., the professional or personal areas in which they will be using the language) are important here.
We should use language in the classroom which is not heavily influenced by our own dialect and accent. If that means learning to speak without such influences, so be it.
We should avoid teaching language which is confined to specific class- or topic-influenced settings. If that means cautioning students not to use non-standard grammar such as gonna or ain't, so be it.
We should expose our students to the main Englishes they are likely to encounter outside our classrooms.
We should be careful about the kinds of materials we use in class. If a song or other authentic text contains instances of non-standard or regionally-influenced grammar or lexis we should consider whether we should be using it and, if need be, warn the learners not to use it as a model.

Finally, you need to think about your dialect (yes, everyone has a dialect) and decide whether using dialect forms in the classroom is acceptable in your setting.

More information

On this site, you will find:

A guide to varieties of English

Additionally, there is a guide to English spelling which covers some of the main differences between British English (BrE, conventionally) and American English (AmE, conventionally).
There is also an answer to a question concerning differences in grammar between British and American English.
If you follow those guides, you will know all you need to know for the purposes of CELTA.

Multilingualism and the role of first languages

You may be surprised to learn that monolingualism (the ability only to speak one language) is actually rather unusual. The majority of people and the majority of countries speak more than one language. For a full list of languages spoken in most of the world's countries, try the Wikipedia article.
Britain and the USA are slightly unusual, in fact, in not having an official language at all and both nations are home to speakers of hundreds of other languages as well as the indigenous ones. Over 40 million Americans speak Spanish at home, for example.
Most of Africa is multilingual and the same can be said of Asia (with certain exceptions, such as Japan).

When it comes to the role first languages play in learning English, something has been said above but there are two concepts that are helpful in talking about this area:

First language interference: refers to the way in which a learner's first language(s) can negatively affect the learning and use of English, e.g., by leading to grammatical, lexical or phonological errors.
First language facilitation: refers to the way in which a learner's first language can actually help in learning English because of parallels in structure or vocabulary.
For example, there are many more words in German and English which both look similar and mean the same things than there are false friends and the same applies to many Romance languages such as French and Spanish. Clearly, the less closely related languages are, the less facilitation there can be.
Equally, e.g., if a learner from Japan already speaks another European language then she will find it easier to acquire English and vice versa.

Many of the language analysis guides on this site make reference to the learners' first language(s). In particular, a good example is in the consideration of word order.
Word order is an area in which the influence of people's first language(s) can be most striking and leads to errors such as:

*The vase most beautiful (by a speaker whose first language routinely puts the adjective after the noun, e.g., French)
*She walked the road along (by a speaker whose first language routinely uses postpositions rather than prepositions, e.g., Turkish)
*This is the house of Mary (by a speaker whose first language routinely places possessive structures after the noun, e.g., Spanish)
*She walks often to the shop (by a speaker whose first language routinely places adverbs of frequency after the main verb, e.g., German)

and so on.

More information

For more in this area, you will find Swan, M and Smith, B, (Eds.) 2001, Learner English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press a usually reliable guide.
On this site, you will find:
A guide to types of languages	A guide to first language influences
Most of the language guides in the initial plus and in-service sections include some consideration of problems caused by the influence of first languages.

The links below will lead you to guides to the other areas of the syllabus and to an overview unpacking what the syllabus means and how it is assessed.

Topic 1	Topic 2	Topic 3	Topic 4	Topic 5	Unpacking	The CELTA Index
Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context	Language analysis and awareness	Language skills	Planning and resources for different teaching contexts	Developing teaching skills and professionalism	Unpacking the syllabus and assessment	The index of all the CELTA guides

CELTA Syllabus Topic 1: Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context

Cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds

Cultural backgrounds

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Linguistic backgrounds

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Motivation

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Learning and Teaching styles preferences

More information

Context for learning and teaching English

More information

Varieties of English

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Multilingualism and the role of first languages

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CELTA Syllabus
Topic 1: Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context