is it normal to have this many demos? Were my CELTA standards too loose?

I recently applied for a teaching position and I'm expected to do 9 demos across a 2-2-3 week period as well as, finishing a youtube playlist the company has set up to.

The playlist just mainly focus on how to teach, Receptive skills, situational approaches. grammar etc. things that were covered extensively when I took my CELTA.. I went through 5 already and I can't seem to grasp what the person training me wants.

In one feedback(for a grammar lesson) my instructor told me I should avoid using the target language in the lead in. This wasn't covered in my CELTA at all, I used the target language and I ended up passing. They also told me to avoid "ping pong drilling" which is something that also wasn't covered in my CELTA. they told us to have the students model after us, we'd have them pronounce words first to see fi there any errors then gently correct and pronounce the words ourselves.

Credit where credit is due, he told me to script my freer practice and my instructions better, which I thought was fair criticism. In multiple occasions he also told me to do a sentence or two of the exercise with the students so they understand what to do. (which was heavily discouraged during my CELTA. Unless, it was during freer practice)

He told me he "expected more out of a CELTA tutor" and I felt very discouraged, As if, all the time I spent learning and practicing and handling feedback didn't matter. I understand this is more of a me problem and maybe I'm overthinking but it feels like I am being nitpicked heavily. I am fairly confident any lesson I gave would be to standard in the CELTA course. Despite the mistakes.

Posted Jun 6, 2026, 9:35 PM UTC

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