St Giles Language Teaching Center

I did my Celta training at St. Giles and would highly recommend it. Both of our trainers were both extremely professional, experienced and knowledgeable. The continuous stream of students were diverse in terms of native language as well as level of proficiency. Because of this our classroom experiences were always challenging (in a good way). The students were also very patient and kind with us rookies. Even though I had an MA-​TESOL degree coming in, I definitely feel I left the program with a much better understanding of effective lesson planning and classroom management.
Only 4 out of 5 stars though because I was irritated that one of our colleagues was always unprepared, struggled in all his lessons and written assignments, was ethically dubious and lazy but still managed to pass with the same grade as those of us who put our hearts and souls into the program. Nobody (including himself) thought he would pass yet he did. Not sure if that reflects on the grading standards at St. Giles in particular or CELTA in general.

St. Giles’ staff is friendly and professional and the teachers are out of this world. They truly care about their students’ success. I can’t recommend Sam and Sezgi highly enough!

I originally chose a different school for my Celta course but changed to this one because of customer service. The teachers are very fun and have years of experience. You’ll definitely enjoy it. Materials were well-​stocked and the facility is pretty good.

This is not my real name on my Unilocal account*
I finished this CELTA program recently and have never regretted shelling out that $$$$ to pass this program. I was going to apply to teach overseas without a TEFL or whatever and was almost going to take a TEFL course online for half the price.
This is why I didn’t:
1. They give you 120 in class hours (If you are competing to get hired, why wouldn’t you want in class hours when you can get it?)
2. You can volunteer after finishing the program
3. You get a pretty well known TEFL certificate and know you aren’t getting some crap certificate someone made up one day
They interview you before you get accepted. It’s not a job interview. They just want to see if you are sane and can be somewhat creative and think on your feet. Don’t stress too much over this part.
When the program begins, quit your side job, prepare yourself for a month of nothing but CELTA.
I am pretty sure I almost went insane a few times but that is on me procrastinating.
As long as you don’t procrastinate there is no reason you won’t pass.
Also, listen to criticism and use that and improve. Don’t just hear it and not listen. LISTEN AND USE IT.
You will beat yourself up for messing up after teaching a lesson here and there but it is all part of the learning process Ms. /​Mr. future teacher. You should know this.
There are a few assignments to do but they aren’t APA papers or anything so you will do fine as long as you read their comments.
If you have teaching experience, you may want to let go of what you are used to and just suck in whatever CELTA wants to brainwash you with for a month. You can feel free to use or not use their techniques after. I have absolutely no teaching experience, a very different background before doing this program. Now I am pretty damn comfortable teaching a class and it all comes with continued practice and self evaluation. You learn to do that quite well during this month (being judgmental and learning to forgive yourself)
Not only do you get to teach learners from all over the world, you get to make friends with quite the bunch. Your trainers, your colleagues, your learners, it’s a great melting pot of resources, knowledge, and experience to grow from.
Do I think it was too expensive? Yes. Do I think the information could have been consolidated into one packet? Yes. Do I think the program is perfect? No.
Did I think it was a great decision? Yes.
If you have any questions feel free to message me if you are contemplating at all.

Great staff, teachers, students, great atmosphere. .. I learned a lot here, not only how to teach foreigners teach English, but learned a lot about other languages, speech patterns. Highly recommended for the CELTA course!

I did the CELTA program at St Giles Language School in the summer of 2014. I felt that the program prepared me to go abroad and teach English. The trainers were knowledgeable and my teaching skills improved throughout the month. The program is rigorous but having a CELTA opens doors for you. Presently, I am working as an English Language Development teacher is a school district. I use strategies and techniques with the children that I learned in this program. I would highly recommend the program.

Finished my CELTA course on 10÷10÷14. In my class of 10, 8 of us completed the course with at least a pass grade. There were only 3 of use that had not had any teaching experience. All others had taught English classes before. You’ll make friends for life and have fun!
I basically did nothing but CELTA… eat it, drink it, learn it, live it, be pissed off on the BART because you can’t sit down and continue lesson planning or your assignment, yeah… and maybe after all that, you can sleep it too. I admit, I skipped showers, meals, and did 2 all nighters, but generally averaged 4 – 6 hours sleep a night. I have a high threshold for «pain» and was able to hang on for a month and pass. Admittedly, this is me, an extreme case. Trainers tell you not to do this. Most others in my class did not do this.
Advice: You cannot do this alone. Forge connections, praise each other and your students. Work with classmates, especially when you have your assignments due for resubmittal. There is no shame in talking out what you got wrong the first time. The main point is to become a better teacher, so it’s really a bummer to fail 2 assignments (fail the course) when your classmates could have helped you. Let yourself cry, because it’ll happen at least once, even if you’re not a crier.
My background: Looking to have CELTA certificate for a career change. Salary earner in high demand/​high volume food and beverage operation for 10+ years, 60 – 70 hours/​week as a front-​of-​house manager of 100+ employees and 3 managers. No teaching experience, but facilitated training classes and trained employees/​managers. Not nervous in front of a crowd or self eval, but admittedly the type of person that beats myself up for making mistakes.
Application/​response time: App process was very easy via web. I typically got a response in less than 24 hours via email within 24 – 36 hours (excluding weekends).
Interview: Very straightforward. Some English grammar questions asked with regard to how you would explain tenses to someone that you had to teach. You find out after the interview is over if you are accepted. Phone interview with Sam was an hour and she was very open to answering questions. Sam tells you CELTA is intense, and it is NO JOKE. It’s only the 2^nd time that someone told me something was intense and it actually was. The first was the Court of Master Sommelier’s exam, so let that sink in.
Daily/​weekly grind: No need to bring your books to class. Took BART from South SF or San Bruno daily, made sure I got a Clipper card, rode my bike to the BART station and drove to the station on my Teacher Practice (TP) days. Gave myself 24 hours «off» to maintain sanity starting Fridays after class (sometime between 4:30 — 5:00). Usually went out with classmates on Friday night and literally slept most of Saturday away sleeping. Spent all weekend on lessons and assignments. Text, Skype, email, phone calls to classmates whenever I wasn’t sure about something when I was at home. Whatever you cannot get answered to your satisfaction, write it down and ask your trainer the next day.
Books that I used daily for lesson planning: Longman’s Dictionary; Learning Teaching; Teaching Tenses; Learner English; Practical English Usage. I had about half a dozen others that I really didn’t touch. There is a resource library for your use as well, so if you’re strapped for cash, no worries!
Course/​Trainers: Well organized. Syllabus is followed accurately. Model yourself after the way your trainers teach during the morning sessions. Students are awesome and understand that you’re learning how to teach as well. Sam, Patti, and George gave great feedback, which should be taken to apply for the next TP/​stage of the course. TP is great and where the meat of the course really is. Lesson plan, teach real students, give peer feedback, it’s great. The assignments make you think, but just get them done and justify answers briefly.
Café: Speak with students there to build rapport there. Didn’t eat there, brought my own homemade food. Thank God someone made my meals because I basically wouldn’t have eaten, showered, or slept! Brought my own hot water for tea since I had to pay for the hot water (which is an understandable deterrent). Classmates that did get coffee or espresso there talked about the inconsistency, but praised the fact that it was very convenient with our busy schedules.
Supplies: You won’t be taking many notes. I only used about 6 pages of notebook paper, if that. Trainers will provide you with all the notes you need. Kept notes provided in class organized in a 2″ binder which was a perfect size. Had my own dry erase markers and eraser, but they do have plenty on hand for you to use. Astrobrite/​colored paper, white out, colored markers (if you like that sort of thing for student activities), flash drive, and some snacks to keep yourself awake during some of the video teaching observations (see your syllabus

St. Giles is a leader in ESL education! I did the March 2014 CELTA course and I couldn’t have experienced a better, more prepared course. The teachers are world-​renown (or should be), the curriculum was developed with a deep understanding of the material and student stressors, and the students and other teachers that are a part of St. Giles are top-​notch. I would suggest anyone take a course of any sort with St. Giles.

St Giles SF in particular has incredible staff teaching the CELTA course. I can’t more highly recommend them to future teachers. They’re extremely knowledgable in their field, and even better teachers! If you’re serious about teaching English abroad then take this course at St Giles. It’ll open up so many windows for you when you do decide to teach overseas. One piece of advice to students taking the class is to brush up on your grammar BEFORE the first day of class. And not just verb tenses… everything. You will be teaching all of this to students and they will have intricate questions for you that you’ll need to be able to answer. And «because it sounds right?» is not a good answer :) Also, during the course try to keep things in perspective… it’s not the end of the world. It’s only 4 weeks! It’s a really intense course and there’ll be times you break down in frustration, but remember if you keep at it the class will end, you’ll get your certificate, and in a couple months you’ll be standing in front of your first classroom of students in China, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Cuba, etc. It’s totally worth the hours of studying and jugs of coffee. Just be prepared to work your pretty little butt off. You’ll be teaching your first English class on the second day.

I just finished my CELTA course at St. Giles. The staff is top-​notch from the front office to the café staff. The trainers were awesome, very professional and yet, caring. The course is 12 people or less so individual attention is the norm. It is a SUPER INTENSE course, so clear your schedule and be prepared to learn!!! It can be very rough at times!
It is a language school, so the campus is loaded with international students. This makes for a VERY fun atmosphere! The difference at St. Giles is you actually get to teach real students learning English!!!
I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in teaching English as a second language!!!

I took the CELTA course in July of 2013 and found it to be one of the most stressful and intense months of my life. It’s Mon-​Fri of nonstop work, whether you’re teaching that day or preparing for your next lesson. It’s definitely not for someone who doesn’t take English, teaching and ESL seriously. Apart from this, my experience at St. Giles was wonderful! The staff is extremely helpful, there are students from all over the world who are engaged and really want to learn/​practice their English and there are tons of resources provided. The best resource by far will be your CELTA trainers, mine were Sam and Sezghi. They had completely different styles of teaching, but I learned so much from both of them! There were 7 other people in my class and I learned a lot from them too. They are now teaching in Japan, Germany, Russia, Brazil and France. Your first week will be the hardest, you’ll feel unprepared and like, «what am I doing here? I’m not ready!» But that’s normal and by the end of the program you’ll feel prepared to jump into any ESL class, anywhere in the world and be able to actually teach something! Go into the experience with positivity, an open mind and listen to everyone’s advice. I learned so much about myself, my abilities and teaching during those 4 weeks. It’s expensive, but I think worth it (after all you’ll have «Cambridge» on your resume and it doesn’t get much better than that). I’m currently a 4^th grade English teacher in Hong Kong and I wouldn’t be here without my CELTA!

I recently completed my CELTA course at St. Giles and had a wonderful experience. It’s definitely not easy — you get out of it what you put into it, and you have to put a LOT into it! Be prepared to work on assignments and lesson plans all weekend if you want the weekdays to be bearable and still meet the deadlines.
Sam and Gabi, the trainers, are both amazing and incredibly knowledgeable. The input I received them helped me improve my teaching tremendously in only four weeks.
The school itself is a great place to be, with talented, dedicated teachers and engaged students. Getting to know the students I taught during teaching practice was an unexpected bonus, and some of them even became my friends! :)
Taking the CELTA at St. Giles prepared me well for my new career and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in teaching English as a second language. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it!

The Certification in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! It is a deeply demanding course – and I’m not the only one who thought so. All of us were seriously sleep deprived and under constant pressure to improve our teaching (based on tons of detailed feedback), create lesson plans, turn assignments in and absorb the constant barrage of information coming at us. The more difficult the challenge – the sweeter the reward. I am so grateful that I took up the challenge and made it through.
The experience is so intense with so much learning in such a short period of time – that it’s nothing short of life changing. If you want to teach English and are up for a serious challenge, this is the course for you. Teaching six hours to two levels of classes, the CELTA prepared me for for anything and everything that can happen in the classroom. Thank you Gabi! Thank you Sam! And thank you to our motivated students, we couldn’t have done it without you.

If you are at all skeptical about taking the CELTA, or taking the CELTA here at St. Giles, don’t be. I took the course in August of 2011, and like the other reviewers, found it to be a tremendously rewarding experience. It was tough, like ‘boot camp,’ as has already been mentioned, but the amount of knowledge and expertise that one comes out of the program with makes it all worthwhile.
Some of the highlights of the program:
a. in your lessons (where you or the other teachers in the program teach) you get to meet and work with students from all over the world! You might very well have young men and women from Russia, Costa Rica, France and South Korea all in the same class (we did).
b. you meet staff that are professional, have real world experience, and are extremely knowledgeable about both ESL teaching and living abroad. The trainers in particular, Gabi and Maureen, were a dream team. They are both helpful and inspiring.
c. you get to train in the midst of a beautiful and colorful city — downtown San Francisco. While you don’t have much time to do any sort of sightseeing during the week, you can take a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf or the Golden Gate Bridge on the weekends.
d. finally, you will have an internationally recognized certifcate that will help in any job search. I’m going to Korea this fall, and though it’s not essential to have it in Korea, I will be able to get better pay because of it.
Cannot recommend this program enough!

I did my one-​month CELTA course, here, but have heard there is a two-​month program elsewhere.
Input sessions (pedagogy) are held five mornings a week, but you practice teaching for 40– or 60-​minutes every other afternoon. When you are not actively teaching, you are evaluating your peers or seasoned English teachers… and then discussing what you learned from them.
When course evaluators are not leading trainees through formal lessons, and you are not teaching real students, you are almost always revising your lesson plans (including handouts) and assignments.
The first three weeks will remind you of a fitness bootcamp with a personal trainer, but it’s rewarding by the final week — especially if you and your trainees are mutually encouraging people. We had a few celebratory lunches and happy hours!!!

I got CELTA certified here in November 2011. Now I teach ESL here as a substitute. This place rocks… let me count the ways:
— ESL certification, ESL courses, FREE ESL courses – It’s a dream for someone in the business. Plus, the people that work there are either (1) serious professionals (i.e. extremely intelligent) or (2) really friendly and helpful.
— Beautiful people and awesome personalities abound. Students are really cool and love being in SF. The teachers, as I said, are really intelligent, but they really care for their students and make sure they adjust to life in SF while having a wonderful experience.
— The place is huge! At the SOMA site they have a full third floor, most of the 4^th floor, part of the 11^th floor AND, across Market Street, St. Giles has whole different site (NOMA).
— The cafes at both SOMA & NOMA are really good, although SOMA’s café is seriously some of the best cheap eats I’ve found in the city. $ 6 for a healthy, locally-​grown, delicious meal… that’s hard to find in that area.
I commute from San Jose to get to St. Giles and it’s not cheap. But, to be a part of the St. Giles family, I happily make the trek.

I am a teacher who received my CELTA from St. Giles. I did the month long intensive course in June of 2010, and they aren’t joking when they say intensive. The program was not easy or cheap, and it was definitely stressful, but in the long run it really prepared me as a teacher. I can not imagine what teachers lessons must be like without some kind of training, I pity their poor students. It also really helped me with jobs in the long run, especially because CELTA is considered the gold standard. If you are on the fence about whether or not you should get a certification and you are really serious about teaching abroad, I would highly recommend that you go for the CELTA at St. Giles.

I got my CELTA certificate here in April 2010. The program was incredibly effective and a worthwhile investment in my education.
I recommend the St. Giles CELTA program to anyone that is serious about the EFL field and wants to have the tools to do a better job. Gabi and Maureen were the trainers that I had and they did a great job giving feedback, offering teaching solutions, and citing resources for continual lesson improvement and job placement.

I got my CELTA from St. Giles, and while I thought the school was great, and overall the program was pretty good, there were a few things that could use some serious improvement.
For example, the lists they give out at the end of the CELTA with was are supposedly reputable schools are a bit of a joke. The emails nearly all bounceback… well, come to think of it, they all do. Even if the school still exists, whatever email they have down is long past its date. And they are pretty slow about job response/​questions after the course is complete [as well as when you’re trying to sign up for the course].
But the CELTA is the gold standard, and St Giles had some really good trainers. Most of the students I spoke to said they enjoyed it, but I do know its quite expensive.

well i used to work there. i gave these guys 5 years of my life and did not see really anything good come out of it.
the courses are a joke and are astronomically overpriced. i am a «you get what you pay for» type of person. at the time that i was working there it was $ 800 for 2 weeks of class (9a-​1p). it seemed that the students did not learn too much as they did nothing more than go to a café and learn how to order off of a menu!