New and aspiring teacher

[udderly]

Hello everyone! I am new to this website (just registered) but have always been surfing around for information relating to teaching and/or grammar explanations. I have finally decided to take up a CELTA and although English is our first language, we do have a compulsory second language which we must take up in my country of residency. Although I would say that I am an English speaker, we were taught grammar at a young age and would probably have forgotten them by now.

As a start, I am reading up from websites such as grammar-monster.com etc. and have attended classes at the British Council on grammar. I would like to pick up my language back from the very bare basics before I apply for CELTA and I hope that these preps are sufficient for the course? It will not be another 5 months before I start and I would like to know if there are recommendations on supplementary readings from websites and/or books? I do have a few books on hand but I thought websites would be engaging and fun to learn as compared to books.

I understand that 5 months may be short for restarting, but I would really like to do my best before moving into the teaching field with a CELTA. Would anyone be able to provide some advice on this and what should I continue to do to improve myself daily?

 

[Tdol]

A copy of Michael Swan's Practical English Usage (OUP) will stand you in good stead for the course and will be a useful reference when you're getting going as a teacher. If I pulled one grammar book out of the fire, it would be that one.

Good luck with the course. :up:

 

[udderly]

hey thanks for the reply and encouragement!

I do have the book because it has been highly recommended by many.. even the CELTA course administrators that I will be signing up with are recommending it as well. I will definitely take time to go through it along with the many websites

 

[Tdol]

Michael Lewis' The English Verb is a highly readable look at verbs and tenses that I greatly enjoyed reading.

 

[udderly]

thank you so, so much! these should be enough to keep me busy for the next few months..