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Omeo
Joined: 08 Feb 2005
Posts: 245
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 Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 1:15 am Post subject: Is that so much to ask. |
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| Maybe this is just the frustration talking, but all I want is an accredited 4-week course, in the U.S., that offers housing, job placement help, an open starting schedule, and will get me a widely recognized certificate to teach English for $2,000 or less. Are there any courses that fit that description? Usually the problem I run into is verifying whether the course is any good or not. I'm tempted to just say 'Hell with it' and take the Bridge course. I almost hate to post every little question I have, but I'm really not impressed with the chat room on this site. Doesn't seem like too many people show up for that. |
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Cdaniels
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
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| Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:12 am Post subject: I thought of this before |
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No.
Maybe for something closer to $2500,... but you'd be better off taking a class in Mexico. They're cheaper, and the cost-of-living is cheaper.
Or, Have you thought of taking a foreign language course instead? Take Spanish or Japanese or whatever the language of your destination. You get to observe a professional teacher and pick up some practical skills. You might try living at a "youth" hostel while taking the course. Get a book like The Back Door Guide to Short-Term Job Adventures: Internships, Extraordinary Experiences, Seasonal Jobs, Volunteering, Working Abroad
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580084494/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/102-0573459-7462505?n=283155 |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:39 am Post subject: |
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| Omeo, who have you checked with on verifying courses? Have you called employers abroad to see what requirements they have? |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| Omeo wrote: |
| Maybe this is just the frustration talking, but all I want is an accredited 4-week course, in the U.S., that offers housing, job placement help, an open starting schedule, and will get me a widely recognized certificate to teach English for $2,000 or less. Are there any courses that fit that description? Usually the problem I run into is verifying whether the course is any good or not. I'm tempted to just say 'Hell with it' and take the Bridge course. |
The 'verifying whether the course is good or not' problem is the biggest reason why so many weekend quick certificates (for only half the cost of a year at college!) are able to survive. People get frustrated with not being able to verify and just take one, hoping it's good (and so very often are disappointed). The problem is that if you have never learned anything about the subject, you can't really judge whether what they are advertising they will do is even possible in the limited legnth of time they have, and if you have learned something about the subject, then you really are no longer the target market for the certificate providers.
I went through the similar thing to what you are now going through, and ended up deciding that it would be better to just go with the type of training I trust. So I went back to university for a full time year. At first I thought about going to a college (in Ontario they are different) but then decided that because the universities hummed and hawed over whether a college TESL certificate would be accepted as equivalent to the university one at universities offering graduate studies (MA Applied Linguistics) that I didn't really want to close any doors. And that includes the ability to work teaching ESL in my home country (which the private certificates would not enable me to do).
OTOH, I did go through a LOT more than 2000US dollars getting my training (a full time year at university means a year without a full time job) and so in order to even break even with where I was before starting the training within three or four years, there were many, many countries that I could not even consider when looking for a job (in fact it limited me to only a few countries in Asia- of which I think I chose the best one for me: Japan).
I was an still am planning on making teaching ESL (or EFL or EAP in particular) may career and so for me it was a year at university studying an area that I am really interested in and in Ontario, colleges offer a lot of 'post-graduate' (which in the Ontario college sense means after you get your BA, not after graduate school) certificates available and so I figured if it takes a year to teach someone how to write press releases and do media training to work in a PR agency or a year to get someone's advertising portfolio up to the level where they could get a job as a copywriter, or a year to teach someone how to work in publishing, or a year to teach someone how to teach very young children (early childhood education) or a year at a university to teach someone how to teach kids to read their own language, then it should take a similar length of time to teach someone how to teach others how to function in another language.
I know if I was pay for language lessons I would want my teacher to have more than four weeks worth of training. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:12 pm Post subject: Studying for an MA in TESOL probably means no job ... |
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| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| I did go through a LOT more than 2000 US dollars getting my training (a full time year at university means a year without a full time job). [...] I was and still am planning on making teaching ESL (or EFL or EAP in particular) my career and so for me it was a year at university studying an area that I am really interested in and in Ontario, colleges offer a lot of 'post-graduate' (which in the Ontario college sense means after you get your BA, not after graduate school) certificates. |
I know that the University of Liverpool (UK), for one, offers an MA in TESOL, which is probably like the CELTA or the Trinity College Certificate in TESOL stretched out over 12 months, since it does include the kind of observed teaching practice that would be familiar to those who have taken those two certificate courses.
Of course, if one does not have the necessary means or the time to fund oneself through 12 months of what is technically postgraduate study and to take the time to do it (meaning a year without a job), one would certainly be better off taking a certificate course like the Trinity (which is the TESOL certificate that I hold). An intensive course would require "only" 4-5 weeks of study and then one can begin earning almost right away if one is lucky enough to have a job lined up at the finish.
Perhaps sacrificing the other 47-48 weeks in a year is not worth it, since I am sure that one would not necessarily gain any advantage by having an MA in TESOL but (horror of horrors) no paid TESOL experience. One is likely to find oneself starting at the bottom just like everyone else if one has no prior paid TESOL experience. |
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Cdaniels
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 4:17 pm Post subject: Ask Mark Loyd |
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Omeo, I think you should ask Mark Loyd for his opinions on these matters.  |
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Mark Loyd
Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 517
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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If you boys can't tell the difference between a CELTA and an MA in TEFL then spend your 2500 dollars and get a worthless piece of paper that you could have knocked up yourself for nothing.
Happy TEFLing |
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Jizzo T. Clown
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 668
Location: performing in a classroom near you!
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| Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 6:49 am Post subject: Re: Studying for an MA in TESOL probably means no job ... |
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| Chris_Crossley wrote: |
I know that the University of Liverpool (UK), for one, offers an MA in TESOL, which is probably like the CELTA or the Trinity College Certificate in TESOL stretched out over 12 months, since it does include the kind of observed teaching practice that would be familiar to those who have taken those two certificate courses.
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An MA in 12 months?  Here in the states, most (if not all) MA programs require at least 30 hours of instruction, which equates to four semesters (or two years), minimum. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:07 am Post subject: |
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The MA in Ontario is full time three semesters (so can be done in twelve months if you plan out your courses well so that you can actually attend full time during the summer- but often ends up taking until the end of the following term), but the(full time) two semester CTESL is a prereq (and that is where you do your practicum).
As far as I know, in the US, the MA TESOL is usually (?) done as an initial qualification after a BA (hopefully with having already had experience teaching EFL or ESL and knowledge of at least one non-European Language, so I'm not counting private for profit company certificates as qualifications in this). So in the end it's about the same length of time. One difference is that if you do your one-year TESL certificate in Ontario and then subsequently get turned down for an MA, then you could find yourself just looking at going to a university in the US or one of the distance MAs that assume you have no or very little prior knowledge. So that means the year doing the TESL certificate in Ontario was essentially a waste of money (unless you decide to go the Ontario/CDN private language school route with a goal of getting into a better paid management position as soon as you can). And probably a large part of the MA you do take will be a rerun of material already done.
The TESL certificate can be a risk if you plan on making a career in ESL/EFL because without an MA, and outside of Ontario (where most non post-secondary ESL jobs are very low paying) it doesn't create much more hiring potential than a CELTA simply because employers read 'Certificate' and usually already have their own idea of what that means. |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 7:39 am Post subject: Re: Studying for an MA in TESOL probably means no job ... |
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| Jizzo T. Clown wrote: |
| Chris_Crossley wrote: |
I know that the University of Liverpool (UK), for one, offers an MA in TESOL, which is probably like the CELTA or the Trinity College Certificate in TESOL stretched out over 12 months, since it does include the kind of observed teaching practice that would be familiar to those who have taken those two certificate courses.
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An MA in 12 months? Here in the states, most (if not all) MA programs require at least 30 hours of instruction, which equates to four semesters (or two years), minimum. |
I can understand that what I stated in my previous posting may cause some confusion. The Liverpool programme is full-time over 12 months, and so it requires attendance at the university during the first two semesters in order to undertake six core and two optional modules and then it requires a (15,000-word) dissertation to be written during the summer months (called "the third semester"). During the 12 months, there is observed teaching practice.
Interestingly enough, the university also offers a 6-week full-time TEFL certificate, but this is a separate programme from the MA.
It is traditional for English universities (for instance) to offer full-time MA programmes over 12 months, anyway, whereas Australian ones can offer an MA which can be over 12 months full-time if it is not an MA (Honours) programme and 24 months if it is. Some (but not all) Scottish universities, for their part, traditionally offer an undergraduate MA (Ordinary) degree over three years (equivalent to junior honours) and an MA (Honours) degree (equivalent to senior honours) over four years for arts subjects (whereas they stick to the B.Sc. (Ordinary) and B.Sc. (Honours), respectively, for science majors).
Hence, there is no "one-size-fits-all" regarding the length of MA programmes or even their level (though I am sure that more than a few people think that there ought to be); regarding postgraduate study, what would be called an MA in England might be called a Master of Letters (MLitt) in Scotland. |
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