Job Discussion Forums

[platnumbob]

Hello, me and my soon to be wife (both of us have BA's) are planning on teaching in S korea next year. We have been looking at a number of courses that can perhaps somewhat prepare us for our year overseas and maybe give us a better chance at finding a job. Team Tesol (at http://www.teamtesol.com/) has offered us both 200$ cnd off the admission for the course. It is a 40 hour course with a 20 hour take home component (totaling a 60 hr tesol certificate). Is there any reason why we should not choose them over lets say Global or any other company? how much does it matter? (our plan is to do teaching for just one year, we are not interested in expensive celta courses ect. becuse we will not be lifelong teachers.) thankyou for any input.

[ls650]

To be blunt, you get what you pay for. If you pay for a budget course, you probably won't be well-prepared to walk into a classroom for the first time. I think that price is important, but it shouldn't be your number one concern.
From the website:

[Cdaniels]

That sounds like good advice, but is it reasonable to go without training at all? Would I be totally off the mark to suggest a short Korean immerison class?

It's reasonable to question how much teaching experience one would get in four weeks, but many employers feel that's enough.

[platnumbob]

So are all 60 hour tesol certification courses in about the same quality catagory? ie. if we were going to do one is there any reason not to use Team Tesol over maybe Global? I have heard of people going overseas with absolutly no training or completed degree at all so we basically want to make sure we have more experience and selling features on our resumes then some others. We may also do some kind of volunteer work, if we can, over here before we take the plunge overseas. We cannot afford doing a program that will take a couple of months for time and $ reasons...plus as i said before this is not a career choice for us, it will be a year of our lives and thats it. Am i off the mark here?

[Justin Trullinger]

You can probably get a job in Korea on just a BA. But it depends on what you want. You've emphasized that this isn't a career choice, just an adventure. Fine. But the better prepared you are, the better an adventure you'll have. If you're not especially prepared, the job you'll get will tend to be in a low rent, for profit school, and the director will want to make as much dosh with as little effort as possible. Support will be limited, as will spare time.

Even though it's just a year, I would recommend doing whatever you can to move even a little further up the ladder. It may make the difference between a year of good memories, and a year of...memories.

About the difference between Global and Team Tesol, I have heard of Global. I haven't heard of Team Tesol. But what I've heard about Global...maybe you'd be better off with one that I hadn't heard of. I would only hire a teacher with a Global cert if I would hire him or her without it.

Regards,
Justin

[platnumbob]

that sounds like some pretty good advice, we certainly want to be as prepared as possible. Are you saying that taking one of these shorter courses is a total waste of time tho? will it help us at all in gaining some ability to prepare for a classroom and finding a job?

[spiral78]

The basic criteria for a course is that it should offer supervised teaching practice. That's why certification from GLOBAL and other short courses are not desired by most good employers. If you can find a short course that offers supervised teaching practice, fine and good....volunteering doesn't fill the gap because it's not supervised and critiqued. If you can't make a one-month commitment to an on-site full-time course, you might as well head off with no certification at all, really.