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Anonymous
Thanks guys, pretty much what I expected but good advice regardless. Seems like there's no harm in getting my PGCE, and the government will PAY FOR ME TO DO IT anyway, so why not, eh? Using the time between now and then to get some EFL experience in the UK couldn't hurt, either.
>>23169
It's hard, but not as hard as you might think. If your friend has gotten a good degree, then he'll be fine keeping up with the pace. It's more stressful, packed-in and social-life-destroying than doing a degree BY FAR, but it's what, a month out of your life? Personally, I like working hard in short bursts and getting things out of the way quickly, so the CELTA is pretty much ideal for me.
There are ways to do it over longer periods of time, but I've heard that (for some reason) employers overseas value the 4-week intensive one more. Seems kind of unfair to me, as a lot of people simply wouldn't be able to just spend a month doing nothing else, like people with kids and shit.
Oh, and if your friend is a native speaker, tell him to learn his Phonemes and read up on his grammar terminology. I didn't asnd I'm having a hard time keeping up with some of my foreign coursemates in this area (becuase having learned English as their second language, they actually got taught that shit, whereas native speakers never really get told the names for things, just how to do them properly.)
On the other hand, they find it much harder to do the pronunciation than I do (because many of them come from countries where the sounds you make in English simply don't exist) and they have a harder time with the assignments because, having done their degrees in their home countries, they never really had to write in 'academic' English before.
Things balance out, but do your best to account for your weakness before you start. That's it really.
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