There were sleepless nights, no social life, a lot of chocolate and coffee. But there were also eleven other incredibly interesting people, two fantastic tutors and a sense of unity. That was my experience on the Cambridge CELTA in a nutshell. My personal highlight from studying for CELTA was the language immersion class that we did in Arabic, to make us appreciate the difficulties both of being an ‘absolute beginner’ when learning a language, and of teaching students with absolutely no prior knowledge of the language. The session was exclusively in Arabic, but I was staggered by how much we all learnt in that time. I loved the teaching practice sessions where we could apply the skills, we had learnt in a real classroom situation with real students. Another great opportunity was being able to observe experienced teachers do their magic in the classroom. None of what I’ve achieved and plan to in the future would have been possible without completing CELTA. The course is very demanding but it’s well worth it. They will be four short weeks, but I guarantee, their effect will be felt for a long time.

I learned a lot and got a job

It'd have been great if the tutors were a bit friendlier and fairer in their decisions. Overall the course was very useful and informative, although stressful.