Reviews of Teaching House

4.6 Rating •
267 reviews
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Description

Cambridge Assessment English approved the opening of Teaching House in 2007. With the aim to expand quality English-language teacher training in the United States, Teaching House has opened over 15 center locations and trained over 3,000 new teachers. Teaching House is now the largest provider of Cambridge CELTA courses in the world.

Ensuring the high standards of education that are set by Cambridge English, all Teaching House CELTA courses have a maximum of only 6 trainees working with each trainer. To fulfill this trainer/trainee ratio, the Teaching House staff include over 20 Cambridge English-approved teacher trainers as well as a strong support team based at our headquarters in New York.

In addition to the standard four-week CELTA course format, Teaching House has developed two new formats:

  • a 10-week part-time course run on two evenings a week and on Saturdays;
  • a part-time blended course over 14 weeks allowing people to work online during the week and do teaching practice on Saturdays.

We also offer in the USA a two week compressed teaching practice option with online content, for those who are only able to take two weeks for their teaching practice component.

Become CELTA certified – Apply TODAY!

Courses

Course Types

Combined TEFL Courses
On-site TEFL Courses
Online TEFL Courses

Course Lengths

Standard (120-140 hours)
Long Courses (150+ hours)

Certifications

Cambridge CELTA
Cambridge DELTA
TEFL / TESL / TESOL

Additional Features

Online Practicum
Part-Time Study

Locations

Canada

Toronto ON

England

London
Oxford

USA

Boston MA
Miami FL
New York NY

Teaching House has received 267 student reviews and has an overall rating of 4.57 out of 5 stars based on the following criteria.

Overall Rating
Course Content
Practice Teaching
Quality of Feedback
Lesson Plan Guidance
Instructor Competency
Job Assistance
Facilities/Resources

267 reviews of Teaching House

Review 40 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Helen on November 5, 2012 4:25 pm
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I took the course in NYC, and it was an excellent course. I felt like I learned a lot in a month, and the programs gives you great real life teaching experience and feedback on points for improvement. The course gives a really great comprehensive overview on how to be an ESL teacher.

Review 39 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Taylor Davis on October 29, 2012 3:51 pm
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This class is a great investment if you want to get involved with teaching abroad. It is definitely challenging–you should probably block off the four weeks you have to complete the course, as you will not have much free time. There are three things that I love about this course:

1) The teachers really care. Although the work ultimately rests on your shoulders, the teachers I encountered went above and beyond to help every student improve. They all take there jobs very seriously–but at the same time, manage to maintain a fun environment.

2) The students: I’m not sure if I just happened to luck out or what, but everyone in our class was wonderful to work with. The drama was definitely kept to a minimum. Everyone was very friendly, and seemed genuinely interested in each other. Good stuff.

3) I found the hands-on part of the course (roughly half of the course) to be the most helpful. The only way to really learn how to tech is to go out into the middle of the room and start teaching. They put you in there at the very beginning. I love how they transition from shorter classes to longer ones. I also appreciated the variety of teaching levels each student is asked to tackle.

People have complained about job placement, but I found work with them directly after graduating–which ended up paying more than what I paid for tuition in the first place. It all worked out. Plus, it’s not that hard to find something overseas if you just look.

Another complaint I’ve heard is that the printer was always broke. Guess what people. That’s the real world.

Overall, my experience was great. It really prepared me for this next stage in life in the best way possible.

Review 38 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Virginia on October 29, 2012 3:40 pm
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I definitely recommend getting your CELTA at The Teaching House. Our group was lucky enough to get fabulous instructors(Heather and Sharon) who work as hard for us as we did for our CELTA. They were always helpful for guiding us, and I feel it benefited my understanding of the teaching style, as well added to the experiences I already had teaching others. There were lots of positive’s to the daily routine, and everyday was packed with new things that are necessary to think about when teaching.

The Teaching House in New York I felt was very well equipped, despite the copier issues (as that is everywhere in an office job!), I felt that it was a good facility to learn at.

Although I found a most of the course to be enjoyable, I did not enjoy the video lessons(about 2 or 3) as much, but they were observations and served their purpose. Live instructors are a bit easier to focus on in the morning after staying up preparing for lessons the night before.

Our instructors were a great team and were on the same page with each other. Both provided extensive feedback and they always pointed out positive and negatives of each lesson, even when we wanted to just discuss the negatives. The GLP’s (lesson planning) was very thorough.

As for job placement they give you enough tools to go and do it yourself. I picked up some pointers, as I wanted to change from teaching children to teaching adults. They answered most questions to the best of their knowledge.

I also feel that although the course is intense at times, if you time manage well you will not stress too much. I would definitely go back for my DELTA in a few years time.

Review 37 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Rita Rozzi on October 28, 2012 11:51 pm
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Not Applicable
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This is the place if you are serious about teaching English as a foreign language. This was apparent to me from the very first day with the professionalism of the instructors.

We were taught in the same way were being taught to teach which gave me the motivation to strive to do my best in the course because this method is VERY effective!

Also, the CELTA certificate is as prestigious as they say: The first day after the course ended I called an ELS language school at the local university to see if they were looking for teachers. Once she found out that I had my CELTA, she asked me to send in my résumé and scheduled an interview with me!

Review 36 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Nikki Abesamis on October 28, 2012 5:46 pm
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I completed my CELTA course in July 2012 at this location (a few months after I graduated college) and absolutely loved it. I thought the trainers were great and very knowledgable. I would highly recommend this course for people who have no experience in formal teacher training. My undergraduate degrees are in Psychology and Human Development but I am teaching English in the Peace Corps for a few years (beginning in January 2013) before continuing with Psychology in graduate school. A few weeks after CELTA I was hired to teach two advanced classes at the UCEDA Institute in New Brunswick. I was very thankful for this opportunity as it is great practice before I leave for the Peace Corps.

CELTA is very tiring since it is only 4 weeks long, but it definitely helped. When I lesson plan now I ask myself what the aims are of each lesson and I really make sure every activity I do in class has a purpose. I also keep every class student-centered. For me, my favorite part of the course was getting to know everyone in my class. My teaching practice group was always very honest with one another during feedback. You learn a lot about yourself when other people watch you teach!

Lastly, it’s important to remember that once you earn your CELTA it is a major accomplishment but you do not have to follow every little thing you learned in CELTA once you’re teaching your own classes. In the real world you won’t have trainers/peers watch you teach and take notes on you so it is definitely more fun and less stressful. 😉

Review 35 of 267 Teaching House

Written by MW on October 15, 2012 11:16 pm
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Cannot imagine not having taken the CELTA before starting my ESL job search. I feel so much more prepared now than I did before the course.

The tutors were extremely encouraging and supportive, the teaching practice was invaluable, and I also made some great friends and started to build a nice support network for when I begin teaching abroad.

If you are interested in teaching ESL, you won’t regret taking this course!

Review 34 of 267 Teaching House

Written by KEVIN LUPO on October 15, 2012 5:06 pm
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This was a great course overall. I took the 10 Week part time schedule. It was very challenging. The students were great and my fellow teachers were great.

The course covered a wide variety of things that will, at least, lay a good base of knowledge that you can expand upon as you further your teaching.

The practice teaching was rough at times. I feel like there might be a better way to ease you into it. But, as long as you use the student and teacher feedback, you can keep improving. I think that is what helped me through it. Knowing that you aren’t good, yet improving through feedback.

The overall competency of the instructors was great. There were some inconsistencies between each teacher which sometimes cause problems in which direction you should take a lesson or if/when to ask questions and such things. The transition from the Pre-Intermediate class to the Upp-Int class did not go smoothly, I will say. It seemed there was a breakdown among the teachers.

Facilities were nice (although quite hot at times). The copier was not the best, but they have a great library. Job placement seemed to be non-existent. But, instructors do offer themselves as a resource if you need help or guidance in a job search.

Overall, it was a great, not perfect experience. I’d recommend CELTA to anyone interested.

It is something you have to be prepared to put time into and be ready to be humbled.

Review 33 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Inna on October 14, 2012 5:26 pm
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Extremly informative and intensive!! Beneficial for would be and present English teachers no matter how much experience they already have! By the moment I joined CELTA ,I had been working as a university professor teaching General English and Business English for MBA students in St.Petersburg,Russia, for 10 years, and nevertheless this programm did contribute to my professional knowledge and skills. Interesting and fascinating 4 weeks,although really exausting and stressful in terms of big amount of work ,which is supposed to be done not only during the classes,but also outside the classes: pages and pages of lesson plans and assignments, which will probably take most of your night sleep away..If you are ready to forget about everything else for 1 month of your life and dedicate yourself completely to the studies -go for that! You’ll finally be awarded with a lot of useful knowledge and practice on top of Cambridge Certificate with Pass/Pass B/ Pass A grades.So good luck and all the best !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Review 32 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Jacob on September 5, 2012 2:41 am
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I’ll start with the positive:

In retrospect, this course was excellent preparation for teaching English both for private tutoring and in the classroom (I have since done both). The course content was for the most part excellent, but I felt that if they just changed the structure around, it wouldn’t be as excruciating by the end of the fourth week (they really do not need to drag out the morning sessions as much as they do for three hours). I think the most rewarding aspect was the TP; I had not had any prior teaching experience before, and being thrown into teaching on the second day of class was a great eye opener for me.

The neutral:

As far as the scheduling goes, I think they could really skip guided lesson planning by the end of the third week (maybe even the second), and also cut out an hour for the teaching sessions in the morning. By the end of it, each and every day was just way too long. They could easily have it be a 11-5 day instead of 9:45-5:30. I know that’s how Cambridge sets it up, but still. Lesson plan guidance was both good and bad. I found the instructors to be a bit condescending when it came to feedback, but you get over it and shrug it off and by the end of it; their advice made me much more confident in my teaching.

The really negative elements:

I also had Abby as an instructor, and in addition to her, we had two temporary instructors. The first instructor we had was an excellent and effective teacher, but almost evil with her feedback she gave us after TP. This seemed however to be very typical of the condescending and arrogant mentality that Cambridge has with ESOL toward CELTA trainees though. The second instructor was much more personable and equally as effective in her teaching skills, so no negatives on her. But back to Abby. Abby would eventually begin to text while the trainees were teaching, and she would arbitrarily give feedback to us in a way that made the worst people in our TP group stand out and the better ones become discouraged with their lack of positive feedback. It was really obnoxious and demoralizing. It was hard to take her telling us to be quiet during TP in the back of the class, when she wasn’t even paying attention to the trainee she was supposed to be observing as well. Considering she was the main tutor for the course it was not a good representation for Teaching House.

Teaching House is also not that organized for how much the class costs. I was literally bombarded with three e-mails asking where my check was since it was only sent on the day it was due to New York, and they got so petty with me that they wanted me to somehow send a photocopy of the already sent check to them. I had to kindly remind them without getting angry that I just sent them my whole summer salary to them via USPS that it was on its way. I felt badly that I didn’t pay them on time, but then I began to realize how much the course was overpriced for the quality; we didn’t receive textbooks for the first two weeks of the class for one of the TP groups. I thought that was completely unacceptable, and the lack of outside resources that were needed by the end of the class was also unacceptable.

Job placement is something that gets tricky, because it should be their job to aid you in being an effective candidate, but sadly, so much of their curriculum focuses on the six hours that you teach for the class (and you will never hear the end of their wonderful curriculum either through the instructors or through the assessor that comes), that they never really go over what life is like as an ESOL teacher in the real world nor what to expect in interviews. As other reviews have said, it consisted of the instructor barely printing out information about specific countries (and you would think with only 12 students, who all chose rather “mainstream” countries like Russia, Korea, Taiwan, Germany etc to teach in she could have found information on all of them – alas she of course did not). We also looked at some really painful resumes that any employer in any field would laugh at, but the instructor was also indifferent to those too. She never really gave the proper feedback on what should be fixed. I understand that it takes some work to get into the course, much less pay for it, but some of the CELTA trainees in our class really needed some much needed guidance on finding a job and living in these countries that they so desperately wanted to go to. But when you combine quasi superiority with Cambridge and CELTA and their UK instructors with American ignorance about foreign lands, it can be a fatal combination for rational thought.

I also think they need to do a better job with finding Teaching House locations, because the Chicago location really only consisted of a tiny study room that they called “the office” and then two classrooms that they rented in Loyola’s law building downtown.

I think overall, the course is great and could be better with some minor changes with timing and scheduling. The problems however, have to do with the instructors and Teaching House (and sadly for how tough the curriculum and Cambridge standards are, you would think that their trainers would be much more consistent quality-wise). Teaching House does not have very good organization and their prices (which are standard for CELTA courses, are not in anyway reflective of their administration of the course).

I would recommend taking the CELTA if I were you as a current ESOL teacher, but maybe try and do some background checking on the specific class you want to take at TH. (Hint: Find out who the instructors will be!)

Review 31 of 267 Teaching House

Written by Paul on August 17, 2012 8:13 am
88%
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This is a pretty great course, provided you have 3 G’s to throw down and don’t have a job. I say $3,000 (and probably more if you’re moving to NYC for this course) because of added costs. I was commuting from NJ half the time, and from Brooklyn the other half. Your guess as to which was cheaper and more convenient. Don’t work while you’re taking the course, either, because you’ll have enough to do without having to worry about a real job at the same time.

The course content is wonderful. I had two years of ESL teaching experience prior to taking it and I still learned a lot of useful information. Teaching practice was sufficient – I wish that we had some more time in the classroom, to be honest, but they have to accommodate everyone and have a small amount of time for everything. The feedback was always helpful and constructive. The trainers (Ben, Helen, and Lizzy) maintained a positive attitude and this influenced me to give other trainees good criticism, rather than focusing on negatives. The trainers were very knowledgeable and capable of passing that knowledge down to trainees.

Job placement isn’t guaranteed and the staff make sure that you understand this before enrolling. That said, there are a few input sessions at the end which provide trainees with interview practice and knowledge of ESL job resources, websites, recruiters and the like. Also, if you manage to work some of what you learned in CELTA into your real interviews, you will find a job. I can say that I have already been successful in finding an excellent job only three weeks after the course finished.

Finally, don’t expect the copy machines to work. Ever!

Thank you Ben, Lizzy, and Helen for your tutelage.

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