The Trinity CertPT with Lexical Lab

This year we will be offering the Trinity CertPT as part of our teacher development provision. In this post, we’ll be looking at what the CertPT is and how it fits with our programmes.

What is the Trinity CertPT?

The Trinity CertPT is a way to provide assessment and accreditation for teachers ongoing professional development. The PT stands for practising teachers and is therefore aimed at teachers who who has two years language teaching experience or an initial training certificate with a national or international provider plus 6 months teaching experience. The qualification is based on100 hours total study time including 30 guided hours of learning and four assessment tasks on practical elements of teaching. It offers a level 6 qualification on OFQUAL’s scale between a Trinity Cert TESOL / CELTA (level 5) and a Trinity DIploma TESOL / DELTA / MA TESOL (Level 7).

How is the Trinity CertPT assessed?

To gain the qualification teachers do four tasks which are set by Trinity. Lexical Lab provides support to do the assessments and marks them, before submitting the assessments to Trinity for moderation. Each task is up to 1000 words long (plus appendixes of material where required).

What are the tasks?

1: Asks you to evaluate a resource for teaching in terms of its underlying principles and its appropriacy for your students in your context.

2: Gets you to look at another piece of material or task and explain how you would use and adapt it, to get the greatest benefit for your particular students.

3: You produce your own material or lesson sequence for your students. You then explain your choices with reference to your context

4: Finally you actually teach one of the sessions you planned for in task 2 or 3, report on how it went, why and explain any potential changes you would make.

How does the Trinity CertPT fit into our programme?

Lexical Lab has been developing courses and delivering training workshops for over ten years now. Our approach has always been a very practical one for practising teachers who are typically using published course material and at times developing their own lessons for their particular students.

We ground our approach in very clear principles and explain how different coursebooks work and fit (or not) with those principles. That allows teachers to see where coursebooks work less well and how they can add value as teachers. Our insights come from being insiders to the writing and publishing process as well as practising teachers ourselves.

In other words, we are already providing the input for the Trinity CertPT assessments. We therefore see it as a great fit and the perfect opportunity to provide an international accreditation for our training.

How to qualify for the Trinity CertPT with Lexical Lab?

Initially, we are offering the Trinity CertPT as an online add-on to our two-week in-person course in London. The Teaching Lexically course provides 35 hours of guided study. Following that you can join a short course focused on the assessments. This course is just £30 (a 75% discount on our normal price). You can then choose to submit your assessments for moderation to Trinity to gain the CertPT award. The moderation fee is currently £160.

The Trinity CertPT through Lexical Lab’s online courses

Teachers will eventually be able to qualify for the CertPT through our online courses. Our longer self-study courses can provide the content and hours for the CertPT. You don’t have to do all of them. There are options to combine two with our mini-courses, like those on Translation or Better feedback for Speaking. And webinars and other live online sessions can also contribute. We’re still in the process of setting this option up, so watch this space.

For details of our summer course see https://www.lexicallab.com/teacher-training-in-london/