Job Discussion Forums

[cydnij]

I see that TEFL International is a sponsor of Dave's ESL Cafe.

I have tried to find information about this organization on this site, but it is a bit of a challenge to search, considering the name of the company contains the same words that pretty much everyone uses.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some reviews on this organization or provide a review if you have used them yourself?

Thanks.

[Justin Trullinger]

Here's a fairly old one I found:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=71121

There are some more out there, so be patient with the search, and be sure to seach with as many terms as you can, searching for "all."


Best,
Justin

[Dinah606]

I took the course in Zhuhai. It has 120 hours, with ten hours of supervised teaching, which I'm told fulfills the industry standard. I picked up a lot of new tricks and teaching practices from the course, and generally had a good time doing it. I'm more confident in the classroom as a result of having taken it, and much more careful in my lesson planning and the like. However, I will say that it is somewhat lacking in professionalism. The text books are full of incredibly conspicuous typos, which made the course seem very messy to me. Also, some of the advice that the course gives (such as minimizing the correction of student errors in oral English) just won't make you look like an acceptable teacher in certain cultures, whether it's wrong or right.

The best thing I got out of the course was a chance to teach many different age groups. In the past, I'd only taught young children, and the idea of teaching a class to middle schoolers or adults terrified me. I was able to work past that during the course. Also, the instructors provide detailed feedback on all of your observed lessons, which is good.

I wish the course had provided more information on classroom management, and teaching grammar. In terms of the grammar, the course has several modules on learning grammatical terms and the like, but there's very little information on how to best teach it to non-native speakers.

Everything in terms of housing arrangements was satisfactory for me. However, some of the other students who were attending at the same time as I was had problems with their housing.

Since I did the course during my summer holiday, then returned to the school I'd been working at prior to taking it, I can't say how helpful my certification will be in the job market. I'm sure it's better than nothing, or an online cert, but I'm also sure that it's not as widely recognized as the CELTA. From what I've been told, the TEFL international course tends to give its trainees more praise, while the CELTA gives its trainees more critical feedback (note that I can't verify this, having never taken the CELTA). At the time I chose TELF international because the timing of the course was very convenient for me, and I didn't have to leave China, and because the Zhuhai course offered food and housing along with a fairly low tuition, making it affordable for me. Part of me wishes I'd taken the CELTA, and I'd advise any one thinking of taking the TEFL international course to do their research carefully and weigh the pros and cons of both courses, and MOD EDIT

I hope this review was helpful, and please feel free to pm me with any other questions about the course!

[caffe]

Found this more proper thread. Just checking the TEFLIntl site for course costs on location and don't see anything mentioned. Odd. Where to find such costs?