Job Discussion Forums

[goldhair]

Can anyone tell me what is a good place to get my TELF/TESOL certification? I know there is Oxford Seminars and Americn TESOL who offer site based classes. There are also a lot of places online that offer the cerification. Is it better to go through online than a site based class? Who should I go through?

[spiral78]

The general answer is that a basic newbie qualification is 100+hours on site, including at least 6 hours of practice teaching of REAL students (not peer trainees) with feedback from experienced teacher trainers.

On line certifications aren't accepted by most good language schools, as they obviously lack the practice teaching component.

If at all possible, consider getting certified in the country where you want to start teaching. There are many benefits, including a chance to get your feet wet in the country/culture while you still have a support system. Your practice teaching students will be representative of the real ones you'll be starting out with, and you'll make local contacts who can be extremely useful when you need to arrange housing and find jobs for yourself. Finally, your certification will be recognized by your potential employers.

Sure, there are those on the forum who advocate for no training at all - but it's fair to say that if you want to be competitive with MOST newbies in MOST job markets around the world (you don't say where you want to go - this is obviously a factor)the above-described on site course is the basic entry-level qualification.

[spiral78]

By the way, Oxford seminars, while it has an on-site component, isn't considered sufficient by many employers because it's lacking the real practice teaching....

[goldhair]

I have 5 and a half years experience teaching special education. Do you think my experience plus a program without a teaching practice will be sufficent enough for employers?

[spiral78]

Teaching/learning language isn't really equivalent to any other discipline, though I would guess with special ed that communication skills may be more of a focus than in many disciplines.

However, I can tell you that I have a B. Ed. and had three years of experience teaching before I went into TEFL, and I absolutely needed the initial certification course to start well.

No, the overall answer is still that I think you'll need a real certification to compete fairly in most markets - though, again, it depends on where you want to go to some extent.

[goldhair]

Thanks for the information.

[Jetgirly]

I just reached the halfway point in my BEd program this afternoon (yay!) and I can honestly say that I CONSTANTLY refer back to the things I learned during the CELTA when I'm planning and delivering Language Arts lessons to non-ESL students. I almost feel as though I learned more during the CELTA than I did during the first year of a two-year post-degree BEd program. You might not need the CELTA to get a job, but you'll probably need it to start teaching EFL well.

[OleLarssen]