Program Reviews

My CELTA experience was a good one! I enjoyed the teachers and fellow trainees. The teachers were extremely professional and helpful toward us trainees. All in all it was a great experience. Prepare to work hard though and to be stressed at times.
Something which was critically important was that the trainees work well together and enjoy being around each other. I would highly recommend IH Frankfurt to anyone who is thinking about doing a CELTA course.

I must admit that taking part in the CELTA course at IH Frankfurt has been one of the best experiences in my life. I could not only learn a lot about teaching and about the language itself but I also found out a few things about myself, for example how I deal with a stressful situation.

The course is very intensive and scheduled in the way that everything (input sessions, feedbacks, TPs, etc.) works together and is conditional on one another.
It is important for participants to cooperate and help each other. I was lucky to have fantastic people around me. I could rely on them in many situations.
We also had wonderful tutors at IH Frankfurt (Guus van der Made and Antony Wilson). They were not only nice and funny but also experienced and supportive.

It's hard not to take the course very seriously, nevertheless, I'd recommend to be as relaxed as possible in order to enjoy the course more! In the beginning, I felt overwhelmed and under pressure.
However, if you are hardworking, well-organised and you've got potential to be a teacher, there's no point in being very stressed.

IH Frankfurt is located in a very central area of Frankfurt. There were a lot of opportunities for outside lunch including various fast foods joints but also supermarkets, bakeries and more healthy food options. The staff at IH is very nice and helpful, aside from the CELTA tutors and the course colleagues these will be the people you will really learn to appreciate. In my case they always were always willing to answer questions regarding material and equipment and generally very supportive and nice. The materials and equipment were generally of a high standard. Markers, paper, rulers scissors etc. were made available.
Guus van der Made was one of my tutors and he is the CELTA coordinator at IH Frankfurt now. He is one of the most competent people you will ever meet and is a great resource due to his decade long experience both with teaching and coordinating CELTA courses.

Be prepared to put the rest of your life on hold and to dedicate yourself solely to the course- it is an intensive course with a great workload, especially in week 3 (two assignments on top of preparing for and giving lessons, input sessions in the mornings etc). That said, I can only recommend the course. Although I had had a little teaching experience beforehand, I found the course very rewarding- learning much from both the input sessions as well as from observing my fellow trainees teach and also from their and the tutors`feedback on my teaching. My fellow trainees came from all over the world and getting to know each other was a great experience. The tutors were supportive and the input sessions ( e.g. on learning styles, different teaching approaches, phonology, grammar etc) were well-prepared and fun.

The CELTA course was very stressful but very helpful as well. I was at a four week course that was jammed with so much information you can't process it all at once. You take what you need at the time to complete the course and the assignments, then take time afterwards to review the material again.
The instructors were very knowledgable and supportive. What I liked most about the course was the bonds I made with my fellow students during this time.
If you take the 4 week course, be prepared to do nothing else but CELTA training.