TESL Canada - anyone receive their Level 1-3 certification?

[Thomas_Pynchon]

I spent two months gathering all of the requirements for their level 3 permanent certificate, including a WES equivalency (World education service) of my degree which is from Leicester MA applied Linguistics & TESOL (but I am from Canada), proof of 3200 hours of adult classroom teaching, 2 assessment reports from past employers, and it cost about 500 CDN all together, I was also in touch with them via email all along the process to ensure that I had all of the requirements correct.

Just received their response which was that my MA is not recognized by them and that I have to have a PLAR (prior learning assessment) done which will cost another 400 CDN. After which I may be recommended to do additional courses.

I cant even describe how I feel, utterly deflated, defeated, frustrated, and downright angry about this. At no point in the process did they indicate that a PLAR *might* be required. In fact quite the opposite, they gave every indication that I had fulfilled all of the requirements.

Most of the documents requested by PLAR are redundant, exactly the same, so it seems like just another way to generate income for them, because obviously they already know what it is that they want me to do to meet their 'requirements'.

I have already paid my fees to them, so it makes no difference to them if I go ahead with it or not, they even say, 'if you dont intend to do the PLAR please let us know and we will return your documents immediately.' Which is the same as saying, we don't if you do this anyways, we have your money already. It really does come across as a sick joke, and an insult. I have lost all confidence that this organization would add anything at all to my current profile.

[BlizzardMontreal]

Came across your post and made an account just to reply.

Had a similar experience with TESL Canada-- found them to be totally unprofessional, impossible to deal with/get straight answers from, and mostly set up just to squeeze money from people.

Long story short, they had me apply and pay the $150 fee despite them knowing at the outset that they'd reject me (since my certificate was from Oxford Seminars, which they don't recognize-- a fact they didn't bother to mention in our numerous phone calls and email exchanges). Despite having two related degrees and 7 years of ESL teaching experience, they stated that the only possible option was taking their ridiculous $2000 two-month course to certify, even though the only thing I was lacking was a 10-hour teaching practicum.

The course was a total waste of my time and money (I learned that ESL classrooms are sometimes quite diverse, and will require various teaching methods and cultural sensitivity!!! Yeesh!) and in the end I found two college jobs that didn't even require my TESL (although it was considered an asset).

I'm currently writing a letter to the employment minister (Jason Kenney) telling him that, as a highly skilled and experienced worker, I found TESL existed only to keep me *OUT* of the workforce.

Really, I just can't say enough how bad my experience was with them at every turn.

As for PLAR, which is run out of a different school (U of Sask, vs Calgary for TESL Canada), I was directed to them by TESL Canada, and I found them vastly better. I phoned PLAR before even starting the process of application, talked on the phone for 5 minutes, got a straight answer about exactly what they required, and as per their advice, didn't bother applying, thereby saving me $400 and lots of work.

[Thomas_Pynchon]

They are thieves, and very deliberately misleading people to take there money. Scum!