Simon Cox is a CELTA tutor at General Plan IH Shanghai in China
How long were you an EFL teacher, and how long have you been a teacher trainer?
I’ve been a teacher for 26 years – since I took my CELTA in 1993 – and I became a CELTA trainer in 2005. Since then I’ve worked on a wide variety of different courses in places as varied as Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Newcastle in the UK. Nowadays I spend a lot of my time working on in-service training courses, such as DELTA, but I still feel that CELTA has a unique appeal.
Did you have a different career before EFL?
No, I ‘accidentally’ became an EFL teacher when I was 23, but it turned out to have been a good accident, so I’ve never felt the need to do anything else!
What are your hopes/aspirations for your trainees?
I’m always amazed by the variety in the backgrounds of CELTA candidates and what they hope to do after the course. In China, things are often a little different from other places I’ve worked because most of the trainees already have quite a lot of teaching experience of some kind or another, so in Shanghai was really focus on making sure that the CELTA graduates are ready to bring something new to their day-to-day teaching. A teacher with exciting new ideas can make such a change … to themselves, for their students and even the organisation they work in.
When you were an EFL teacher what did you like most, and how do you bring that into the classroom for your trainees?
When I was a younger teacher, I always enjoyed introducing students to authentic materials, as it wasn’t always easy for them to access them. Nowadays, the internet has made it easier to access a lot of content, but it’s not always easy to know what’s useful. I’m very interested in the way online materials are curated by teachers; how they can be made accessible and engaging for learners.
What advice would you give your trainees for successfully completing the course?
Again, it depends on the background of the candidates, but for most of the candidates we meet in China, I recommend that (as soon as they feel they have the basic idea of what’s required) they feel comfortable to experiment – to get something really useful from this unique training experience beyond just a certificate.
What advice would you give your trainees for an interesting and rewarding career?
I can only speak from my own experience…. don’t be too fixed on one particular route or career path. Most of the best things that have happened in my career have had at least a hint of the unexpected to them and I wouldn’t have got to the point I have today without trying new ideas, visiting new places and learning from a wide variety of people.