CELTA is king for Apollo English

Western countries might complain hard that their jobs have been shipping overseas, they seem to forget that eastern world itself has transformed to be a large and valuable market segment, especially for those who enjoying living and working abroad.

There has been an upward trend for native English speakers to find their golden opportunity to work as teachers in dynamic developing countries like Vietnam, China and Korea. There is no shadow of doubt in their high and optimistic demand in studying the language of global citizens – English.

However, it is the matter of fact it is not easy to be qualified to teach English in foreign countries, candidates need to take standardised courses and tests to become English teachers. And the best available choice would be CELTA which is awarded by Cambridge ESOL, part of the world-famous University of Cambridge.

CELTA offers an accredited initial qualification for participants with little previous teaching experience and training. According to official information, over 10,000 people successfully complete a CELTA course each year.

CELTA courses have been operating in Apollo for three years and opening up exciting teaching opportunities for numerous participants in Asian countries in general and in Vietnam in particular. CELTA courses offered by Apollo require full-time commitment over four weeks.

Each course includes input sessions (training), tutorial support and consultation, supervised lesson planning, assessed teaching practice supervised by a course tutor, feedback on teaching practice, peer observation of teaching practice and observation of experienced English Language teaching professionals.

The workload is very intense, candidates have to work on both weekdays and weekends. Besides, ‘non-contact’ hours for reading, research, assignment writing, lesson preparation and record keeping are also required. Inputs for these sessions evolve relevant and pragmatic such as ‘Classroom Management’, ‘Teaching Vocabulary’ and ‘An Overview of Tenses in English’.

In Apollo, they will have valuable time to practice teaching “real” students at different levels in qualified classroom and receive feedbacks from Apollo trainers and tutors who are all accredited by the University of Cambridge ESOL Teaching Award. Applying learning skills in such real classes will offer them great chance to build up their confidence and performance.

Besides providing great teaching qualification, Apollo also assists candidates with finding accommodation, arranging visas, collection from the airport and useful orientation to the city they are coming. After completing CELTA course, if participants sign an one-year full time contract with Apollo within three months after the course, they will be offered a 10 per cent refund of course fee.

Antonio Martir – the senior teacher for recruitment and EFL teacher at Apollo said: “I arrived in Vietnam in March, 2009. I had just left my management position in corporate America to experience a new culture, country and meet my current wife who was just a very good friend at the time.

With her, I became very fascinated with the country and eventually grew deeper ties to the country and I wanted to find a way to stay here in Asia for a longer period of time. It was by fate that my wife and I decided to take our relationship to the next stage and I decided to cancel my flight back to the USA in April, 2009.

From that time onwards, I was very unsure of what I could do and I scoured the web looking for work. I saw a lot of advertisement for English teachers and the qualifications required. I had nearly every qualification, except, most importantly, a CELTA certification (or equivalent teaching certification).

At that moment, I decided I would become an EFL teacher and I signed up for the CELTA course at Apollo. I started my CELTA course in May, successfully passed the course. It was a memorable and valuable experience for me. Soon after, I began teaching at Apollo. That was June 2009.

Ever since, I have enjoyed working at Apollo and expanding my teaching abilities there. I now teach Kindy (four-seven year olds), Young Learner classes, Adult General English and Adult Corporate programs. I would definitely recommend this course to others who feel the same passion for the Asian culture and want to build a new life abroad.”