Celta Course In Chiang Mai, Hang Dong

[Krupnik]

Hiya

Thanks for all the responses to my teaching in Thailand thread in the teaching forum. I have now decided to book on to the International House CELTA course in Chiang Mai – has anyone else done it? If so just wondered if you have any thoughts/advice etc. Also what the town Hang Dong is like where the site accommodation is.

Thanks a lot!

[eek]

Hi Krupnik.

I did this course in October last year, which was also the first or second time it ran (cant quite recall).

At that time the accommodation was still under a bit of development..but wasn't too bad..and i'm sure must be all finished by now. I certainly think its a wise choice to stay on site as I found it made life much easier.

If you have 'Julie' as one of the tutors..well she was great. Excellent tutor and went beyond the call of duty.

We were split into two groups with one tutor per group and 2 classrooms. At the time i attended we had hard time getting a decent sized classroom of Thai students...but again, im sure that is better now...and it honestly wasnt too bad. I think that maybe many students found it hard to get to us on time or found the distance too far.

The main thing to hope for is a good bunch of people to be studying the course with. Thankfully, for the most part, my fellow students were considerate and tolerant of each other. Important seeing as there were many stressful moments. Tiredness, stress and nerves came into play during the course, and at such close quarters its important to try not to take it out on each other.

I wonder if some of the stuff we bought is still there too..like a couple of inflatable boats and darts etc. We had a boat race and messed about at the last weekend just to let off steam!

I forget the name of our chef too..who was an amazing lady. A tiny thai lady that looks much younger than our years and is a retired lecturer (in something like neuron physics!) . Her food was amazing. I hope she is still there. Ahhh wait..her name was Kanok Wan.

Most of the teething problems we had, I'm sure must have been ironed out. We were asked what issues we had and we gave detailed information..such as internet connection being iffy sometimes and the photocopier giving us errors so much of the time.

Course-wise you learn some excellent teaching strategies but most probably you will use them in your own way later. Just make sure you do it THEIR way in order to pass the course / get best marks.

It was a good course, but intensive, and the location was brilliant. I am glad i did the course even though i decided teaching English was not for me. (I was an Art Teacher before, then moved into 3d Graphics).

Hmm..im not really sure what to tell you...or if i just waffled on about things that you didn't wish to know about. If you have any specific questions i will do my best to answer.

All the best for the course..and would be interesting to read your own experiences on it when you complete it.

Edited September 27, 2007 by eek

[Ulysses G.]

Is that the RSA course?

If so, it is pretty much guaranteed to be good. They send a rep to each course to make sure that it is being taught properly.

[Krupnik]

Is that the RSA course?

If so, it is pretty much guaranteed to be good. They send a rep to each course to make sure that it is being taught properly.

Thanks both for your help!

Anyone know what Hang Dong is like? Not that I'll have much time to go out whilst I'm on the course anyway, by the sounds of it!

Cheers

[eek]

You wont really see much of Hang Dong i suspect. If you take a walk down one of the dirt tracks (not the main road) from the accomo, you will wind round some local homes and eventually come out onto a main road where there are some small shops and outside food places. As for the 'real' Hang Dong..well i have no idea even after nearly a year of being in Chiang Mai so i will leave that for someone else to answer. All i did was jog in the morning (there is a great area to jog not too far btw if your into that. A school area with running track) or take a walk to the local shop. We organised a once a week songtaew ride to Tesco Lotus to get any stuff that we wanted and for a break. Course you can always arrange for a taxi or w/e into town if you really need to get away..or hire a scooter, but i found even weekends were taken up with study and planning.

Edited September 28, 2007 by eek

[eek]

Couple of pics of the site (as it was when i attended. 1 year ago). This is all i can post as rest contain people and do not have permission to post from them.

downstairs = eating area/upstairs tv and bar area.

Upstairs classroom.

[Krupnik]

Couple of pics of the site (as it was when i attended. 1 year ago). This is all i can post as rest contain people and do not have permission to post from them.

downstairs = eating area/upstairs tv and bar area.

Upstairs classroom.

Thanks eek!