Compact courses

Since 2003, the HAMBURG SCHOOL OF ENGLISH has had its own Cambridge University-certified Teacher Training Centre.

Here selected trainees from around the world study for the internationally-recognised CELTA Certificate, a course which can be taken intensively for one month, or part time for three. CELTA stands for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.

This qualification is a widely recognised international qualification for English teachers in adult education. Some trainees already possess a lot of teaching experience and have been teaching for a long time without a formal qualification. Others take the course because they wish to enter the profession.

Of course, a very important part of the curriculum for the prospective teachers is to gain practical experience, which an institute like the HAMBURG SCHOOL OF ENGLISH can freely provide. 

However, as we promise our customers that we only work with well-qualified teachers, we decided to create special teacher training groups for our trainees.

We needed to find a name for these groups, and because these courses are often attended by people who have not used their English in a long time and who want a quick "freshen-up", we decided to call them Compact Courses. It's a little like going to the hairdresser and getting a discount for letting an apprentice cut your hair instead.

The advantage for you is that can refresh your English intensively over two or four weeks with highly-motivated prospective teachers for only EUR 60.00! The advantage for us is we get to offer our price-sensitive clientele an English course taught for an extremely competitive price.

As we offer the CELTA course both part-time and full-time, the Compact Courses also follow this format.

A full-time Compact Course means attending a group lesson for a period of two or four weeks, Monday to Friday, from 16.30-18.30 everyday. This is a total of 20 or 40 teaching hours at 60 minutes per respective course.

Part-time Compact Courses span ten weeks with two lessons per week (Monday and Wednesday) from 16.30-18.30, making 40 60-minute teaching hours.

Courses are taught by teams of trainees; the lessons are supervised and assessed by our Cambridge ESOL-approved tutors.

Course Dates for Compact Courses can be found here.