CELTA for Singaporeans

Thanks to Mike who posted a comment in the previous post asking about my choice of taking CELTA in Thailand, I thought it’d be helpful to others too, if I write a little about it. So, if you’re planning on doing the CELTA as well, I hope that this can help you in what little way it could.

The British Council Singapore also offers the CELTA course administered by Cambridge ESOL, part of the University of Cambridge. If you check out the CELTA course page here, you would see that taking it in Singapore costs $5,500. Including the Young Learners’ extension course at $3,305, you would be paying $8805.

Last year, I spent 5 weeks’ total in Thailand doing the exact same 2 courses. A return plane ticket, 3 meals a day, transportation, accomodation and a week of travelling to Huahin, a day in Ayutthaya plus some nights of partying and shopping cost me no more than $4000. Not forgetting that the accomodation had free laundry service, top-floor gym and a rooftop swimming pool.

So, apart from the British Council, there are 2 major schools you can do your CELTA at:

1) ECC Thailand
2) International House

I took mine at ECC Thailand. The course costs US$1600 and if you get the early-bird discount, you’ll only be paying US$1440. Also, they throw in the Young Learners’ extension FREE! I know! That word practically gets us Singaporeans high. We don’t care what it is, as long as it’s free huh. Haha…

I have no idea about the practical teaching classes if you do the course at the British Council in Singapore, but the students we had were refugees from Laos, Sri Lanka, Congo, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Myanmar etc. These students do not share a common first language but one thing they’ve got in common is the horrific stories they have to tell. In the one month, not only did I manage to get my CELTA, I met these precious people who made me learn a lot more than what I thought I could’ve gotten out of the course.

As a close, allow me to make a brief comment about CELTA. I think it’s brilliant. If all language teachers were using the CELTA method, learning would be so much more fun and enjoyable.

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