skills related task assignment celta

Lesson Plans and Ideas

CELTA – language skills related tasks

On CELTA you are asked to complete four written assignments. Even though you get plenty of help from your tutors, time is pretty tight, and you need to do a lot of individual research. I’d like to show you my assignment 3 with hopes that it will give you some help and inspiration on your CELTA journey.

Written assignment 3 – language skills related tasks was definitely one of my favourites. In this task, you are asked to find authentic material – a video, a song, an article – the sky is the limit, and make a lesson plan around it. I knew exactly what type of article I wanted to work on.

You see, when I first started teaching I was given the opportunity to teach a B2 group of adults at a private company. They were all great and loved discussing difficult and at times controversial topics. Since the company was located in Extremadura, Spain – the region of jamón and in general meat-lovers, I decided to bring an article on vegan burgers. The class went wild, students were engaged and brought a lot of great points to the table. That’s why when our tutor presented us with CELTA written assignment 3, I knew what to do.

Firstly, we had to select two or three pieces of authentic material and present them to our tutors. I selected two different articles from reputable websites (go for good sources with no grammar or spelling errors!):

Charity shops will be full of ‘treasures’ and ‘gems’ following lockdown clearouts – a very topical and hot topic back in June 2020 by Independent . An article about people doing clothes clearouts while stuck at home and donating them to charity shops.
Burger King ‘plant-based’ Whopper ads banned – an article by BBC News about false and misleading advertising. Another interesting and topical piece of authentic material that can lead to discussions on veganism, misinterpretation of information, fine print and many more.

I presented both of my articles and pushed hard to get a green light on the second one as I’d already had a scaffold of the lesson plan in my head. Luckily, it got approved, and I started working on it immediately. I think that out of all of the tasks, this was the easiest one and the one that took me almost no time to prepare. Scroll down to the end of the post to see the effect of my work and download it for inspiration!

So with the task being chosen and justified, I got on with planning. Following everything I’d learnt by that point, I decided to start with a lead-in by topic prediction based on visuals. Draw or show a burger, vegetables and a TV with a cross/ban sign. Give some time to discuss what they think the article is about.

It, of course, leads nicely to the next activity – reading for gist. Since the article has about 300 words, your students can quickly skim through it to see if their predictions were correct. It is also a good opportunity for them to underline any new vocab, so you can discuss and explain any new words in the next part.

In this written assignment you are asked to prepare all the activities yourself! I decided to go with true, false, or information not given . I thought that putting this tiny twist on this exercise would make this activity a bit more challenging. I decided to go with eight sentences, so the task is long enough but not too long so students can stay focused.

To finish this part students discuss some general questions about the article topic. The main topic is who is in the wrong – Burger King for putting fine print or consumers for not reading it. I only prepared three questions, but in a classroom situation, I would be more than happy to put more emphasis on a discussion part.

Lastly, I wanted to put a creative spin. I asked students to change the controversial Whopper and make their own, brand new BK item with the list of ingredients, the name and last but not least, the slogan! For this, I went on the Burger King website and took a screenshot of the way they present their burgers. Students follow the example and prepare their very own burgers.

I had a chance to do this class in September 2020 with my B2 teenage group. It worked out well, and my students came up with the burger called The Cheesy Queen ! I don’t think I need to share the list of ingredients as the name speaks for itself.

Good luck with your CELTA ventures! If you feel like you need some help or just an inspirational guideline to follow, don’t be shy and take a look at my assignment.

If you have already done CELTA, don’t be shy and tell me the topic of your language skills related task!

Published by joannaesl

A CELTA certified ESL teacher based in Altea, Spain. I share my experience regarding teaching in Spain, getting into ESL from scratch, but I also like to prepare lesson plans and classroom content. View all posts by joannaesl

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Home › CELTA tips › CELTA tip: the language skills assignment

CELTA tip: the language skills assignment

By Pete on April 28, 2015 • ( 16 )

I think the language skills topic on the CELTA is incredibly useful. As someone who rarely uses textbooks, I’m always searching for authentic reading and listening materials to use in class. Topic 3 on the CELTA gave me a solid overview of how to plan a receptive skills lesson, and the basics I learnt from this module still underpin my practice.

I’ve written an overview of the assignment and a few tips below. Here is a copy of my assignment , and here is a link to the authentic text on the BBC website.

What do I have to do?

Basically this, as the CELTA syllabus states:

That’s a snippet from the CELTA handbook . It only mentions the criteria for reading lessons, but there’s a breakdown for the other skills too. You’ll find this on page 8, and further info on page 17.

So, you have to prove you can do all of the above in a written assignment. This means designing your own lesson based on an authentic text (reading or listening). You must include opportunities in your lesson for students to also practise their productive skills (speaking or writing).

The assignment outline I was given was something like this:

Total words: 1000

Task: Choose one authentic text from the options your tutor will give you

Consider your students needs, ability, etc.
Don’t adapt or grade the text – if you do then it’s not authentic

Part 1: justify your choice of text (150 words)

Why is it suitable for your learners? Reference your background reading (Harmer, Scrivener, etc.)

Part 2: Receptive skill task design (550 words)

Talk about how you will introduce the text topic
Design an initial reading task for the students (e.g. a gist task)
Talk about any vocabulary that you need to pre-teach
Design a task where students read for specific detail
Explain what the tasks achieve and why they are suitable/useful. Mention background reading when you do this

Part 3: Productive skill task design (300 words)

Think of a follow-up task based on the text. This should be either a speaking or a writing activity
Write a little rationale on why you’ve chosen this task, how it exploits the text, why is it good for your learners, etc.

That’s an abridged version of the assignment, you’ll no doubt get more detailed info from your tutor, but that is pretty much it.

Tips for task design

My lesson was for upper-intermediate learners.

Part 2 : for a lead-in, get the students to talk about the topic. My text was about crazy things that people do while they are sleepwalking. What better way to get students interested in the text than having them discuss that very thing?

What crazy things might people do while they sleepwalk?

I got their ideas up on the board

If you do something like this then you have the basis of your first task.

You have 2 minutes to read the text. Does the text mention any of your ideas on the board?

Students scan the text for relevant information, but also they read for general meaning (gist) as the topics above may appear in the text but worded differently.

I find this is a great initial task for reading/listening texts. Using student ideas gives them a bit of investment in the text too. I use this all the time:

(Another CELTA lesson based on a listening text about New Zealand)

Lead-in: what do you know about New Zealand? (elicit and board responses)

Orientate students to text

Gist Task: Are any of your ideas mentioned in the text?

(A lesson I made last year on a listening text about biscuits injuring people)

Lead-in: what injuries might you get from biscuits (elicit and board responses)

You can find another example in my lesson about Boudica

Detail task:

True or False questions are generally a good idea for a detail task. I won’t go into much detail here as you’ll get plenty of input about this on your course, but what I would say is this. T/F questions don’t always need a clear answer – you can manipulate your questions in such a way that will provoke discussion among students. By making the answer to a question slightly ambiguous, students may express their opinions, and in doing so they

a) might show a deeper understanding of the text

b) engage more in the text and topic

c) practise more English!

You can see an example of this in my assignment. Another idea is to include a question which may involve your pre-taught vocabulary . This is a good way to check that they really did understand it!

Part 3: On reflection, I think my productive skills task was a bit rubbish to be honest. You could do better I’m sure. However, whether it’s good or not, you can still get a good mark if you justify WHY you chose that task. My task involved creativity, my students were very creative, so…

a) it was relevant to the learners

b) it showed I learnt a bit about my learners in previous classes

c) it showed that I used what I learnt to inform my practice

So, I guess my main tip for this assignment is to justify everything you do. Think carefully about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Mention your learners throughout the assignment – think about what they gain from the tasks you’ve set. Get a few quotes in the assignment from experts but don’t go overboard – 1000 words isn’t much. Finally, remember what you do in this assignment as it’s extremely useful when you’re starting out!

CELTA Skills Related Tasks Assignment

Published by awalls86 on july 12, 2022 july 12, 2022.

For more tips and advice about CELTA, click here .

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The skills related task is usually the third assignment on the CELTA. By this point, you have hopefully already had two assignments back with a pass (if you’re following these guides) and are getting into the swing of writing these assignments.

What do you have to do?

For this assignment you need to outline a lesson based on authentic listening or reading material. Depending on the course provider, you may be given a choice of material to use or you may have the freedom to choose any authentic material you wish.

You are required to write between 750 and 1000 words. This does not include the listening or reading material or the tasks that you design.

Choosing materials

Either your CELTA provider will give you a number of materials to choose from, or you may have complete freedom to choose any authentic material. Remember that authentic materials are those that are not designed for language learners and, therefore, have not been graded for students.

You will need to justify why you are choosing these materials for the particular students at their particular level. The centre may or may not require you to pick materials for the students you are teaching on the course. However, even if this is not required, it is a good idea because then you can actually use the lesson for one of your TPs.

When I did my CELTA, I picked rental adverts in newspapers (I had total freedom to choose). My justification for this is that I was teaching students living in the UK who were likely to need to find a place to live at some point. As upper intermediate students, I felt they could deal with a lot of the vocabulary, but that there were certain phrases that were particular to this topic and genre that could cause students problems.

And when I did this lesson as my final TP (as I say, you don’t have to teach the lesson if you don’t want to), despite suffering from a terrible cold, I can confirm that it was my strongest lesson on the course. Most notably, two of the students in the lesson were whispering to each other at one point “listen, we need this for when we move next year!”

When choosing the material, keep in mind the interests of your students and what they would like to do with English outside of the course. You also need to make sure it is of a reasonable level for the students. Of course, what really determines the level is not the text itself, but the tasks that you devise.

That said, for most tasks students will need to understand around 95-98% of the words to gain any benefit. In other words, there shouldn’t be more than one new word in every twenty. It can be a useful activity to go through the text and highlight what you suspect will be new words.

There are also tools that will tell you what CEFR level the words are in a text. You can copy and paste the text here for example and get a breakdown of the level of each word. You don’t need to reference if you use such a tool, but it can stop you making the claim that a lexically dense and difficult text is suitable for a low level.

Introducing the Material

After justifying the choice of material, you will likely need to say how you would introduce this material. Basically, you need to describe a lead in to the material that will activate the students’ schemata (their pre-existing knowledge).

It may make most sense to deal with this aspect of your lesson outline last. When you know where your lesson is heading, then it becomes easier to see what is important in a lead in.

When you’re ready to describe the lead in, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. Strong lead ins could include activities like:

discussing questions in pairs
watching a video clip with a question
ranking some ideas or pictures
sharing a personal anecdote (with a question for students)

Pre-Teaching Vocabulary

The next step of the assignment is likely to ask you about the language you would choose to pre-teach and why. Contrary to popular belief, it is not important to pre-teach every word that students may not know, and in fact this may be undesirable.

The main reason why we wouldn’t want to pre-teach a word is because we would then be depriving students of an opportunity to work it out for themselves. Generally, when we work things out ourselves, we tend to remember them better, so it is better if students are able to do this.

Look at these two sentences. In each a made-up word is highlighted. Can you guess the meaning:

1) The coach grawled the team in front of the media for not working hard enough.

2) She put the book on a monpurain .

Probably, you can guess that the first word means something like criticised, since this is what a coach can be expected to do if his team doesn’t work hard. The second is much more difficult; it could be an item of furniture, but it could equally be something else. Of course, another sentence could reveal this meaning in a text, not just the sentence it first appears in.

The other important consideration for pre-teaching is whether a word is necessary to complete the task you want students to do. Of course, you won’t know that until you have designed your tasks.

Once more the three considerations for pre-teaching vocabulary are:

– Does the student know this word? (If so, why teach it?)

– Does the student need it for the task? (If no, teach it when they need it)

– Can they guess the meaning from the text? (If yes, give them the opportunity to guess)

Designing Tasks

The real meat of this assignment is devising some tasks to do with the materials. You will need to have at least two tasks and these should focus on two different “sub-skills”.

The sub-skills you may cover are reading or listening for:

specific information
detailed information

You need to make sure you understand what these three sub-skills are and that you use these labels correctly within your assignment. You are advised to read about them in more detail in the recommended books. However, in short:

Gist concerns the overall meaning of the text. A gist task therefore tests whether students have understood this correctly. For example, a gist task could be to listen to a conversation and say who the speakers are, where it is taking place and the broad topics that are covered.

Specific information is about key points of information such as a price or a fact. Such tasks test the students’ ability to distinguish these. An example could be finding the prices in a menu to price up a meal, or to listen for a reference number.

Detailed information concerns more nuanced information such as a person’s opinion or reasons. Such tasks require a deeper understanding of the text to distinguish these. Such a task could be to listen to a complaint from a customer and pinpoint the reasons why the customer is upset and what they want to happen.

When choosing tasks, we would ideally try to emulate what we really do with such texts. However, this isn’t always possibly and so our tasks often end up being somewhat artificial.

Two things you certainly shouldn’t do are:

Plan to have students read or listen to the text without any task at all. Always ensure students listen/read and something. This could just be answering a question.
Don’t plan to have students read the text aloud. They can read the text to themselves.

Post-Reading/Listening

You will also likely be expected to say what you will do after the reading or listening. This can be either writing or speaking. It is often expected listening will be followed by speaking and reading with writing but there is no reason why it has to be. Listening to a phone call, you may decide that writing a letter is a sensible follow up task. Similarly, if the students read a letter, a telephone call could be a sensible speaking task.

As with other parts of this assignment, you will need to justify why this task is applicable to the text and to the students.

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Written Assignments

Written assignment cover page & resource.

Please use (and complete) a Written Assignment Cover Page for the first page of ALL of your written assignments.

ALL Written Assignments must be submitted in Word (doc or docx) format.

Download the Written Assignment Cover Page (docx)

If you don't have Word, use this Written Assignment Cover Page (Google Doc - Go to "File" (top left), then "Download" to download in various formats).

Before you get started on your Written Assignments, you can refer to this handy Written Assignment Resource that we've put together to give you a starting point for your research and other helpful resources for getting started with and completing each of the tasks below.

LSRT - Language Skills Related Task

Download the LSRT Rubric

Download the LSRT Guidelines

Download the LSRT Sample

For this assignment, choose an authentic reading text to practise and develop your learners’ reading skills. Choose a text which is suitable for one of your teaching practice classes.

Design a receptive skills lesson and describe the procedure of your lesson in prose, including the following information:

Say why you have chosen the text, comment on its suitability for use in the classroom and say which level you would use it with. Submit a sourced copy of the text with your assignment.

Design a lead-in , saying how you would raise your learners’ interest in the topic of the text.

Design an initial reading task and state which sub-skill(s) it practises. Include the task (with answers) on a separate handout.

Design a second reading task and state which sub-skill(s) it practises. Include the task (with answers) on a separate handout.

Design one or two productive skills follow-up tasks (speaking or writing) which capitalise on the interest generated by the text. Include the task(s) with your assignment.

Provide a rationale for doing each stage and task. Reference at least one methodology text to support your ideas.

Assessment criteria

The assignment should be written in continuous prose, with clear headings and paragraphing.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Language skills related tasks assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

correctly using terminology that relates to skills and sub-skills

relating task design to language skills practice

finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

Word count: 750 – 1000 words

LRT - Language Related Task

Download the LRT Rubric

Download the LRT Guidelines

Download the LRT Sample

Download the LRT Rubric and you will see a typical text that you might get students to read in class. It contains some useful language for Part 1 of your assignment. ( Your TP Language Analysis Sheets will be Part 2 ; read the rubric for details – link above).

Look at the items from the text in the box below. Choose one of the grammar structures and do the following:

analyse the meaning , describing how you would check students’ understanding. Use concept checking questions and some other clarification techniques if necessary, e.g. timelines, personalisation.

highlight the form

highlight key pronunciation features

focus on appropriacy where necessary

anticipate problems that students might have with meaning, form, pronunciation and appropriacy and suggest solutions . The solutions for problems with meaning could include some of the same techniques you used to analyse meaning, e.g. concept checking questions, timelines and personalisation

state which references you have used to help you in your analysis.

…everything that has happened to us during the day. (grammar)

…but sooner or later we have to sleep . (grammar)

If scientists invented a pill which, if you took it, would keep you awake for ever, would you take it ? (grammar)

Two example answers, one grammar and one lexis, have been done for your guidance. These can be found in the Guidelines for Assignment 2 link above.

Cambridge ESOL specifies that for the Language related tasks assignment , successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

analysing language correctly for teaching purposes

correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analysing language

accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about to an appropriate source

using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task.

FOL - Focus on the Learner

Download the FOL Rubric

Download the FOL Guidelines

Download the FOL Sample

In this assignment it is possible to focus on an individual adult learner or a group of adult learners (age 18+).

Part A: Write a profile of the learner(s)

In the profile it is important to include the following information about the learner(s):

Level, nationality and mother tongue.

Background and learning experience, with particular regard to learning English.

Reasons / motivation for learning English and what you consider to be their needs.

Preferred learning style(s) and the activities which they enjoy most and benefit from in class.

Details of their strengths and weaknesses. There should be a balance of grammar, lexis, pronunciation and the four skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing). This analysis will help you prepare for the second part of the assignment.

Refer to at least one reference book to support your observations.

Word count for part A: 550-700 words

Part B: Identify language problems and provide suitable activities from published material to address these.

For this part of the assignment choose two specific language problems. Use your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in part A to help you identify two key areas which the learner(s) need help with. Focus on problems with grammar, lexis and pronunciation, but avoid choosing two problems from the same area, e.g. two problems with grammar.

Find one activity that could be used with your learner(s) for each problem . You need to find two activities in total. You should hand these in with your assignment. These activities must be from other published material, and not from coursebook material you are using, or have used, on the course. Give a rationale for why you chose each activity stating:

Why you have chosen to focus on that area of grammar, lexis or pronunciation.

What exactly the activity you have chosen practises. Do not include a description of how you would use the activity.

Why you believe the activity is appropriate for your learner(s). Consider whether it is engaging, meaningful and culturally suitable.

Word count for part B: 200-300 words

The assignment should be written in continuous prose, with clear headings and paragraphing. Although it might be necessary to discuss and share data with your colleagues, assignments must be written independently.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Focus on the learner assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

showing awareness of how a learner’s / learners’ background(s), previous learning experience and learning style(s) affect learning

identifying the learner’s / learners’ language/skills needs

correctly using terminology relating to the description of language systems and language skills

selecting appropriate material and / or resources to aid learner’s / learners’ language development

providing a rationale for using specific activities with a learner / learners

finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources.

Total word count: 750 – 1000 words

LFC - Lessons from the Classroom

Download the LFC Rubric

Download the LFC Guidelines

Download the LFC Sample

This assignment is linked to your own experiences and progress in teaching practice, your observation of peers, your ‘live’ observations of experienced teachers and the filmed lessons in the Observation Room .

Please organise your assignment under the following headings:

Your teaching strengths Identify at least three areas of teaching which you have improved on during the course and state how you have achieved this progress. You should include specific examples from lessons you have taught and feedback comments from trainers, other trainees and your teaching practice students.

Areas for improvement Identify at least three areas of teaching you need to work on and make suggestions on how to improve on these after the course. Give examples from your teaching and include comments from trainers, other trainees and your teaching practice students to justify your suggestions.

Observations of other trainees and experienced teachers Identify particular strengths and skills you have observed, commenting on both your peers and experienced teachers. You should include specific examples of skills and techniques you would like to use in the future, and say how you will incorporate them into your own teaching.

Further development after the course Say how you intend to increase your knowledge of ELT after the course. State which sources you intend to use to find out information about new methods and approaches. You should also say how you intend to develop your teaching skills in the future.

Cambridge English specifies that for the Lessons from the classroom assignment, successful candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

noting their own strengths and weaknesses in different situations in light of feedback from learners, teachers and tutors

identifying which ELT areas of knowledge and skills they need further development in

describing in a specific way how they might develop their ELT knowledge and skills beyond the course

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Transcription
About language

CELTA written assignment: focus on language skill

The purpose of the assignment

The CELTA handbook explains that this assignment allows you to demonstrate that you can:

correctly use terminology that relates to language skills and subskills
relate task design to language skills development
find, select and reference information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

That's a lot to cover in 1000 words so you need to be concise and stay focused. This is not the place to discuss generalities.

This is an overview only. For more on skills, go to the initial-plus training section on skills .

The skills look like this:

The 4 main skills can be broken down into subskills (and should be). These include, very briefly and incompletely:

skimming (reading for general gist)
scanning (reading to locate details)
intensive reading (reading for the fullest possible understanding)
extensive reading (reading to follow the gist or get the general picture)
listening for relevance (rather like reading for gist)
monitoring (listening to spot something important)
intensive listening (trying to understand as much as possible)
extensive listening (listening to follow the main points of what is being said)
interaction (speaking to oil social wheels and maintain relationships with people)
transaction (speaking to get something done such as getting a service, asking for information, giving an explanation etc.)
turn-taking (understanding when to speak and when someone else wants to speak)
long turns (holding the floor, giving presentations etc.)
brainstorming
understanding the audience
planning what to write

We may focus on individual subskills but should not lose sight of the fact that people use many of them in combination or that, of course, most speaking also involves listening and much writing involves reading.

For the two receptive skills in particular, the knowledge that we use to understand can, very roughly and very briefly be divided into two sorts:

our knowledge of how a text is structured and where the important information will be
our knowledge the world around us
our knowledge the intentions of the writer or speaker
our ability to predict what will be heard or read
the sounds and writing systems of English (phonemes, connected speech phenomena, spelling, punctuation etc.)
the meaning of the lexis and idioms of the language
the grammar of the language
how links are made in texts using pronouns, conjunction and other devices

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.

Some centres give you a choice of skills to write about, some may oblige you to focus on two specific ones and some may even give you a free hand.

This assignment is quite broadly based because the regulations require you to focus on both receptive and productive skills in relation to a piece of material or text (and for our purposes, the term 'text' applies to both written and spoken language). Before you start, review the guide to Topic 3 of the CELTA syllabus .

This is in the genre of an Information Report and it has two parts:

A brief introduction stating the focus of the assignment and why you think the area is important. For example, I have chosen to focus on reading skills using the text in the appendix, specifically on reading skills needed by elementary learners (A1 and A2 level) operating in an English speaking environment because the abilities to extract the gist of what they encounter and decide on its relevance to them are crucial. I shall also be suggesting ways to use the text as a basis for a lesson on writing a short email to a friend.
For example, if you are using the text to practise identifying the topic and reading for gist, you will need to suggest what sorts of activities you would use and, crucially, why.
Now you need to go on to outline how you would use the text as a stimulus for writing, in our example. You need to say why the text is appropriate, what skills of writing you are targeting and what the outcomes in terms of developing the learners' writing skills are going to be.
If you have the space, you may like to include a brief conclusion saying why the skill(s) may cause problems for learners. You can also include this in the discussion above, of course.
For reading Grellet, F, 1999, Developing Reading Skills , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hudson, T, 2007, Teaching Second Language Reading , Oxford: Oxford University Press
For listening Field, J, 2008, Listening in the Language Classroom , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wilson, J, 2008, How to Teach Listening , Harlow: Pearson Longman
For writing Hedge, T, 1990, Writing , Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Harmer, J, 2011, How to Teach Writing , Malaysia: Pearson Education
For speaking Bygate, M, 1987, Speaking , Oxford: Oxford University Press Thornbury, S and Slade, D, 2006, Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy , Cambridge: Cambridge Language Teaching Library Thornbury, S, 2005, How to Teach Speaking , Harlow: Longman Pearson
For all skills Hedge, T, 2000, Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Graphically:

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.

I have chosen a suitably limited area to analyse
I have made it clear in the introduction and the title what it is
I have analysed the subskills learners need for the skill in question
I have linked the analysis of subskills to the activities I suggest to develop each one
I have said why the skill and its subskills may present problems for learners

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.

This site is a good place to start but you will also, presumably, have access to references of one kind or another (see the list above). Once you have decided (or been told) which skills you are analysing, use these links to find what you want on this site:

Exam Seekers

Content related to english exams and courses., |celta-012| assignment 3: language skills-related task.

Hello Exam Seekers,

there’s been a while since I post something about the CELTA , so I decided that today I would give you some more hints about the assignments.

I’ve already given you tips on how to write your Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner and Assignment 2: Language Related Task . We are in April, May is almost there, so I believe that for those taking the part-time CELTA, assignment 3 will be required very soon. Therefore here are some tips for it.

youtube: watch?v=krZkDTxutdk

Well, differently from assignment 2 which focuses on an analysis of the language (grammar, pronunciation, and form), the Language Skills-Related is much simpler.

You are expected to write an assignment divided into four parts using 750–1,000 words. According to Cambridge, the design of the assignment includes :

evidence of the candidate’s background reading in the topic area
identification of the receptive language skills and/or subskills that could be practiced and developed using coursebook material or authentic text
identification of productive language skills that could be practiced and developed in relation to that text
task design in relation to the text with a brief rationale

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

correctly using terminology that relates to language skills and subskills
relating task design to language skills development
finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

I’m going to dive this assignment into steps so that you can follow it properly.

Choose one of the CELTA groups that you are teaching and provide a class profile which includes names, age range, professional and educational backgrounds, linguistic strengths and development needs, interests and reasons for studying English.

Keep in mind that you don’t have many words to write a profile on all of your CELTA students, só try and choose around 6 students and write something like that:

This is a pre-intermediate heterogeneous group of volunteer students in the CELTA course at _____. We follow Total English Pre-Intermediate as a course book, and sometimes we use authentic and supplementary materials.

Regular attendees

Chose a type of material to provide them (a text or an audio/video) and justify why you have chosen this text for this particular class based on the class profile.

According to my class profile, most of my students are retired and they like to travel, so I chose a video about traveling tips and I rationalized my choice:

I’ve chosen a video called Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!!! ( appendix1 ) because I think it’ll be interesting for this group of students since most of them love traveling abroad: Angelina loves England and every year she goes there. This year she is taking Maria Ester with her. (…) As Harmer(1988:84) says, adults “often have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it”. Therefore, I believe they would all profit on having some tips about discounts on airfares.

The video contains a large range of vocabulary on the topic, and grammar points (present tenses, giving instructions) which they’ll have the opportunity to recognize in an authentic context.

This was just a snippet of my assignment part 2 rational. As you could see, I provided the video source (you should attach it to the appendix) and I explained why I chose that video relating my choice to my students’ likings and to a reference.

After having chosen the text/video, you should d esign and submit a reading/listening for gist and for detail tasks for practicing these skills and provide answers to these tasks . Don’t forget that you have to provide reference all the way long. “According to….”, “this author believes that…”, by doing that, you show that you are making conscious choices and not random.

The length and content of this video make it ideal for students to practice listening for gist and detail, because the topic matches the students’ interests and the vocabulary and structures match the pre-required knowledge for pre-intermediate students.

It would be a good idea to have a skimming task of this video, for students to be more aware of the general idea, they’d be “trying to extract a mostly general understanding of what, superficially, the audio […] is all about”(HARMER,2005:271). In this case, understand that the video is about discounts on airfares .

Task 1 (Reading for Gist)

1) Watch the video and circle the best title for it:

Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!
Flight Tips: How to book your flight?
Watch out: What makes a flight expensive?

Answer key: a.

As you can see in my example, I explained why it would be interesting for students to have a gist and detailed activity based on the video, and why that specific task. I provided the task and the answer key.

This was the gist task, the example of one of the exercises, remember that you have to provide at least two, okay?

Do you remember that a lesson plan should provide 4-5 tasks? Warm up/Lead in , Read/Listen for gist/detail, and follow up. Well, part 3 was focused on receptive skills, now part 4 is focused on productive skill. So at this part, you should say which productive skills could be practiced in relation to this text in a follow-up activity. Design and submit the follow-up tasks with the rationale.

As this group of students would benefit from further development of speaking skills and given their general interest in travels and tips for trips, for productive skills, I have devised some questions for the students. They have some questions related to the context (trips, tips, and pre-traveling suggestions) as exercise 3 on their exercise sheets, which they should discuss in pairs and exchange information. They would do this activity with more than one pair so that they would practice speaking and exchange personal information several times and later on expose to the class their peers’ answers as feedback and conclude the productive stage.

1) Discuss the questions below about trips and tips :

Do you like traveling? How often do you travel?
When you travel, do you use any search engine to book flights?
Do you think it is cheaper to book a flight online or in person? Why?
What was the price of the cheapest and the most expensive flight in your life?
Do you think that Sonia Gil’s tips were good? Why?
Do you think you might use her tips in the future?

Extra steps:

These extra steps are the basics: REFERENCE and APPENDIX.

At the end of your assignment include the reference to your background reading and include at least two methodology sources in your list of references. Make sure these references are cited in the body the assignment.

Mine was like that:

Bibliography

GIL, Sonia (2014). Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found!!!. Available at: < https://www . youtube.com/watch?v=jgbrVzEMolA>. Access on: 24 Jan. 2015
HARMER, Jeremy (2005). The practice of English Language Teaching. e. Pearson.
HOGAN, Jonathan T., IGREJA, José Roberto (2004). Phrasal Verbs.
SCRIVENER, Jim (2005). Learning Teaching. e. Macmillan.

And since you had an authentic material (a text/video/audio) from which you created your gist/detailed task, you should also provide it in your appendix. Since mine was a video, my appendix was like that:

By the way, this youtube channel ( Sonia Travels ), is fantastic for you to use as authentic material for classes based on trips and travels.

I hope that this text was really helpful for you to write your assignment. If you still have questions don’t forget to send us a message. Leave a comment in the comment section below or on our social media:

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Language Skills Related Task

Articles on the use of authentic materials

Authentic materials in the classroom: the advantages (Blog post from Lewis Lansford- Cambridge University Press)
Authenticity (ELT Journal- Oxford Academic)
Using authentic materials (British Council / BBC)
Using Authentic Materials in the Classroom (old article by Vivian Cook, but still very good)

Articles on receptive skills

Article on listening skills from Cambridge Assessment
Advice on reading skills from the British Council
Tips on Teaching Reading from Howtoteach.com

Articles on productive skills

Cambridge Papers in ELT- How much time should we give to speaking?
The British Council / BBC on Teaching Speaking Skills
Principles for speaking tasks (elttguide.com)
Useful ideas for developing writing skills

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Language Skills Related Tasks - help with CELTA Assignment 3

Language Skills Related Tasks Assignment

Language Skills Related Tasks is often set around the mid-point of a CELTA course . Like all CELTA written assignments, it is 750 to 1000 words long, and like all CELTA assignments, it's based on the course content and doesn't require a lot of background reading. However, unlike other CELTA assignments, it does explicitly require you to reference at least some background reading. This doesn't mean you need a library full of books. It does mean that you'll need a methodology book to consult, preferably one that has a chapter on receptive skills and one on productive skills. Any of the titles that your CELTA tutors recommended at the beginning of your course is fine. If you're wondering which book might suit you, here are some of our recommendations .

In the assignment, you'll be asked to design a skills lesson (or a set of skills tasks). These might be based on a text your tutors have given you or they might be based on a text you have chosen yourself. If your tutors ask you to select a text, you need to choose carefully. Think about how long the text is, how difficult it is and how culturally appropriate it is. You'll also need to think if it works for your students - is it something you can imagine they'd actually be interested in? You don't need to pick a very simple text, but it does need to be achievable for the students.

The key part of the assignment is task design. You'll be asked to design some receptive skills tasks. These should practise different sub-skills. Typically, these might include a gist task and a detailed comprehension task. You need to be very careful here. In my experience, it's most often in the design of receptive skills tasks that CELTA trainees trip up. Do the tasks yourself. Do students really need to understand the text in order to complete the tasks? Are the tasks doable by students at the level you're teaching? And do the tasks match the sub-skill you identified? It's important to make sure that a gist task actually does check if students have got the gist of a text. It's also important that a detailed comprehension task tests if students have got a detailed understanding of the text. You'll also be asked to design productive skills tasks.

As mentioned above, this is often the only assignment when you'll be asked to explicitly quote from your background reading. Make sure that you choose relevant quotations that show that you understand why students should practise whatever you're looking at in that section of the assignment, whether it's gist reading tasks or longer writing tasks.

Overall, this tends to be one of the more straightforward CELTA written assignments. So long as you can show an understanding of how receptive and productive skills lessons work, it's likely that you will have a good chance of success. It's not as "bitty" as the Focus on the Learner or Language assignments and so this can mean it doesn't take as long to write either - which is a relief!

About the author :

Dr Connor O'Donoghue hails from Ireland and he started teaching English as a foreign language in Poland in 2003 and he became a CELTA trainer in 2008. He has taught and trained in Ireland, the UK, France, Italy, Slovenia, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. Connor also holds a Masters and a PhD in Education from Trinity College in Dublin. He has previously managed large teacher training centres in Vietnam and in London before founding DC Teacher Training.

CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks – Clear Guide

Introduction.

This post intends to give an overview of CELTA assignment 2 and what is expected. It uses a generic example to work through answers so please be aware that not all centres would give exactly the same question but there should be many similarities.

After reading this article, you should have a clear idea of how best to answer the points in this assignment.

As a rule, always go with what they say as they are the ones who are going to mark your work!

One a further point to note is that links in this article are affiliate links. This means no difference in price to you but clicking through these links means a small commission for CELTA Helper to keep the site running. If you do not wish to use these links, you can easily find the books online.

This assignment usually comes after the Focus on the Learner assignment .

If you write with students in mind, you will stay focused on the task and should have clear and precise answers as a result.

What you have to do for CELTA Assignment 2: Main Idea

For CELTA Assignment 2, you will need to focus on language skills and awareness .

These examples are usually pre-selected for students

However, you will still need to explain these points clearly and succinctly to get a good score on this assignment!

Instructions for the Language Related Tasks in CELTA Assignment 2

Word count for the ‘language related tasks’ assignment.

Length: 750–1,000 words

My advice is to focus on answering each question thoroughly and systematically and not to worry about the words until the end.

Counting words per section should therefore help you to stay on task.

Learning Objectives for CELTA Assignment 2

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:.

a. analysing language correctly for teaching purposes b. correctly using terminology relating to form, meaning and phonology when analysing language c. accessing reference materials and referencing information they have learned about language to an appropriate source d. using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

You will also need to use terminology in the right way and from relevant books like:

These books, among others, can also be used as references in your assignment, which you have to include, as stated above.

For help with referencing, see the relevant section in a previous post to help you save time on your CELTA assignments .

The last thing to think about is using clear, concise language.

Now that you have an idea of what you need to produce, let’s look at how to answer the questions for the language related tasks assignment .

Answering Each Part of CELTA Assignment 2

You will likely have to explain the following aspects for the examples of language you are analysing:

Meaning Form Pronunciation Appropriacy (in parts) Anticipate problems learners might have Note all reference materials you have used

Example of a Grammar Point for Analysis

Let’s say one of your example sentences for grammar analysis is the following:

She’s just been to the shop

(I know, it’s a very short and simple sentence, but it should help to clarify things!)

e.g. “In this example, “‘s just been” is used to show a recently completed past action.

One sentence should be fine here. Just make sure you summarise the main point of grammar and you will be fine!

have/has + just + been + to + place She has (or ‘s) just been to the shop

You could write something like the following to answer this (but please also follow what your CELTA tutors tell you – they might have differing opinions on the styles and how to do this!):

3. Pronunciation

There are 3 main parts to think about here:

Part 1: Phonemic transcription of the words to show ‘how’ they are spoken

She’s been to the shop /ʃiːz ʤəst biːn tə ðə ʃɒp/

You might only need to transcribe the relevant parts of the present perfect tense – check with your tutor!

Part 2: Stressed words in the sentence

You could show the stressed words above the sentence as big circles and little cirlces (as I have done below), or as arrows/a line which shows upward and movement with the stress – hard to do on here but hopefully you get the idea!

Part 3: Connected Speech

This is simply when we connect words in a sentence when speaking and pronounce them slightly differently to when they are said on their own.

Looking again at our example sentence, we can see that the word ‘to’ is pronounced differently to saying it on its own, as follows:

By contrast, if saying ‘to’ on its own in an English lesson, or perhaps for emphasis, we would say it more like / tu :/.

Try to be aware of these small differences when planing a lesson as well!

4. Appropriacy (in parts)

This is because all words should be written in full.

This sentence is informal and would likely be used in spoken English only as it has a contracted form.

5. Anticipate problems learners might have

You only have to consider this where relevant – it should be clear when/where this is the case.

You should give a clear solution for each problem you identify. Concept checking questions (CCQs) are also very helpful here.

All that is left for you to do is adapt the example CCQs in Scrivener’s book slightly and make them relevant for your assignment.

You can then also add this book to your reference list, showing that you’ve done reading and that you’ve got your ideas from a reliable source. Win win.

Meaning Problem: Students might not understand that this person has recently ‘been to the shop’. Solution : Ask two CCQs to elicit this from students. For example: 1. Question: Did she go to the shop today? Answer: Yes 2. Question: Is she at the shop now? Answer: No 3. Question: When did she come back from the shop? Answer: recently / just now / 5 mninutes ago / etc. (anything which converys recent past )

Problem: With the contraction, students might not realise that the apostrophe ‘s’ + been shows that this must be a present perfect sentence and is short for ‘has’ (this is because ‘She is been’ is not grammatically possible).

Solution: Ask students 2 x CCQs about this apostrophe + ‘s’ combination before revealing what the word is during the lesson. For example:

Answer: ‘has’

Pronunciation

Solution: Perform drilling with students when the sentence is on the board. Start with choral drilling, then choose paris/individuals, then back to choral drilling. Remind students that this should always be pronounced as it is written.

Appropriacy

2. Question: (continued from Q1 above) Yes or no: when you are writing (hint – in an exam/test)?

Answer: No

Note all reference materials you have used

Now, from the above, I have not used any reference materials directly. However, you will need to include references whenever you use them.

For example, if you are using APA style referencing (which is quite common), you simply need to enter the author’s surname and year of publication after the point you have paraphrased from their work i.e. (Harmer, 2012).

At the end of the section, put a heading like ‘Reference list’ (APA style). You can see more on how to do it, check my article on time-saving for CELTA assignments here .

Summary of Grammar Point

Example of a lexis item for analysis.

This time, we will use the following item of lexis for analysis:

“It is the best way to prevent more accidents in the future”

“To do something that stops an action from happening in future”

This sounds a little awkward but as you can probably see, it is quite hard to describe ‘prevent’ succinctly without using the word itself!

Here you can write something like this:

See the ‘[T]’ in the screenshot below from the entry for the word ‘prevent’; this shows that it is a transitive verb.

You can also view the list of abbreviations used on the Cambridge dictionary website here (this is also quite useful as a general grammar reference – perhaps one for the reference list on this assignment, too)

Pronunciation:

Part 1: phonemic transcription.

prevent /prɪˈvent/

Part 2: Word stress

To add to this, you can make points about the syllables and word stress. For instance:

NB – ‘Part 3’ for connected speech is likely not relevant here so has been skipped.

As it states that this is only needed where relevant in the examples of this task online, you could probably skip this section.

The only point of note might be that it is acceptable as a formal/academic word.

As such, let’s save our word count and move on to the next section.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

There will likely be fewer aspects to cover here than in the grammar section, but you will still need to be thorough.

CCQ: If you want to ‘prevent’ an accident, when do you take action? (Before)

NB – you will probably be given an adjective, noun or adverb as these will likely have more depth in terms of teaching than a regular verb.

Problem 1: Students might pronounce the first syllable as a long vowel sound as with words like ‘pre-sessional’ or ‘preach’ (this syllable would be transcribed phonetically as /pri:/).

o O Prevent

Teaching students the correct stress should avoid (or ‘prevent’!) this problem.

o O Prevent /prɪˈvent/

This /t/ sound could be practised through drilling on its own to confirm the importance of it.

Summary of Lexis Item

Just be thorough and remember it will take longer than you think so don’t leave this until close to the deadline!

Examples of CELTA Assignment 2 Available Online

Some websites might also ask you to sign up or sign in, or even pay for downloading them.

CELTA Assignment 2 Summary Points

If you follow all of the above points, you should be fine when completing the ‘ language related tasks’ in this assignment!

One general piece of advice on the CELTA is to always keep your tutors happy.

Useful Links for CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks

Check out more CELTA Helper TV videos on YouTube here!

Best Books for CELTA Assignment 2

Some good books to help you here will be:

CELTA Written Assignments – Focus on the Learner (FL)

Written assignments form a major part of the CELTA assessment process and are a compulsory part of the course. There are 4 written assignments in total but some centres conflate two of them to make one larger assignment. In this series we will look at each individual assignment and provide you with some advice and guidance as well as highlight some of the common pitfalls.

Disclaimer: All centres create their own written assignment rubrics, make sure you check with your centre exactly what is required. We can only provide general information here, rather than specific. With this in mind, do you think it would be wise to pay for other peoples’ assignments to help you write your own?

Although every centre creates their own written assignments, the CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines states that for the FL assignment:

The design of the assignment to include:

investigation of the learning context and assessment of learner needs with reference to a specific learner or group of learners
identification of sources for language and/or skills development and, where appropriate, personal support
suggestions for specific language and/or skill focused activities and an explanation/rationale for the use of these activities with the specific learners identified

Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:

showing awareness of how a learner’s/learners’ background(s), previous learning experience and learning preferences affect learning
identifying the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills needs
correctly using terminology relating to the description of language systems and/or language skills
selecting appropriate material and/or resources to aid the learner’s/learners’ language and/or skills development
providing a rationale for using specific activities with a learner/learners
finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task

All written assignments should be 750 – 1000 words

Source: CELTA Syllabus and Assessment Guidelines

Some useful books to help you get started:

Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and other Problems (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)

This book looks at errors that speakers of different language make and why they make them. An example taken from the book is that in Spanish there are few consonant clusters. This means when Spanish speakers are speaking English they have difficulty in producing English clusters. As a result express might be produced as espres or breakfast as brefas. Another example, still thinking about Spanish speakers, is that in Spanish to form a negative there are no auxilliairies, so lower level speakers might say I no understand rather than I don’t understand .

Ideas for pronunciation activities:

Ship or Sheep by Ann Baker
Pronunciation Games by Mark Hancock
Sound Foundations by Adrian Underhill

Ideas for grammar activities:

English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy
Teaching English Grammar by Jim Scrivener
Teaching Tenses by Rosemary Aitken

Ideas for vocabulary activities:

English Vocabulary in Use by Michael McCarthy and Felicity O’Dell
English Collocations in Use by Felicity O’Dell

Common Pitfalls

In our centre, trainees often fall foul of the following:

identifying errors that are pre-systematic (language that has not yet been taught) and therefore require a full lesson before it can be remedied rather than a remedial activity
provide activities that don’t remedy the error in question
provide activities that are too high/low for the level of the learner
forgetting to include a bibliography
forgetting to provide a rationale for the choice of activity
label errors incorrectly

In our centre, we encourage trainees to make a short recording of their student (with their permission of course) while having a short chat with them in the break or after class. This gives them plenty of material to analyse when tackling this assignment.

Have you already written your Focus on the Learner assignment? What tips would you add?

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A CELTA Tutor based in Munich and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to CELTA View all posts by Emma Jones

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CELTA Skills Related Tasks Assignment

What do you have to do?

Choosing materials

Introducing the Material

Pre-Teaching Vocabulary

Designing Tasks

Post-Reading/Listening

Related Posts

CELTA: Lesson Aims

CELTA: Assisted Lesson Planning

Written Assignments

LSRT - Language Skills Related Task

LRT - Language Related Task

FOL - Focus on the Learner

LFC - Lessons from the Classroom

CELTA written assignment: focus on language skill

The purpose of the assignment

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Language Skills Related Task

Articles on the use of authentic materials

Articles on receptive skills

Articles on productive skills

Language Skills Related Tasks - help with CELTA Assignment 3

Recent Posts

CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks – Clear Guide

What you have to do for CELTA Assignment 2: Main Idea

Instructions for the Language Related Tasks in CELTA Assignment 2

Learning Objectives for CELTA Assignment 2

Answering Each Part of CELTA Assignment 2

Example of a Grammar Point for Analysis

3. Pronunciation

Part 1: Phonemic transcription of the words to show ‘how’ they are spoken

Part 2: Stressed words in the sentence

Part 3: Connected Speech

4. Appropriacy (in parts)

5. Anticipate problems learners might have

Pronunciation

Appropriacy

Summary of Grammar Point

Pronunciation:

Part 2: Word stress

Anticipated Problems and Solutions:

Summary of Lexis Item

Examples of CELTA Assignment 2 Available Online

CELTA Assignment 2 Summary Points

Useful Links for CELTA Assignment 2: Language Related Tasks

Best Books for CELTA Assignment 2

More Helpful Content For You:

CELTA Written Assignments – Focus on the Learner (FL)

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