Job Discussion Forums

cleonar3 · Joined: 03 May 2010 Posts: 7

I would agree that many organizations and universities claim to be equivalent. Which is why deciding on a TESOL cert. has been such a hard process!

NOVA has a reputation of being a very good school. Also, I have taken NOVA adult continuing education units before and have been very satisfied with the education level and teachers. My concern is that because there is no standards for TESOL certificates, that spending time on these courses will be wasted (due to not being graduate level and because employers may not recognize it as a legit certificate).

If you can, please check out the website and give me any advice you can provide: http://www.nvcc.edu/wdce/pwregional/certifications/TESOLCert.html

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 1:55 am Post subject:

Hi Cleonar3,

I've just had a glance at the program you posted. (The community college cert from NOVA.)

It looks like a good school overall; community college accreditation DOES mean that it won't be one of the useless online cert programs which are so prevalent.

I'm still coming down on the side of "not going to be as well accepted" when compared to the better known certs, though. I have three reasons for this, one big and two small.

The BIG reason is, you don't do any teaching as part of the course, as far as I can see. For the kind of situation I've done the hiring for, this is too big a lack to ignore. I wouldn't want to put you in a classroom, with responsibility, for paying students and being paid, when it was your first time in front of the class.

One smaller reason- No details up on the web about what your 15 hours of classroom observation entail, but the way they say "documented," I imagine you'd have to find a place to observe, and then document it. This means I really have no way to know who you're observing, or what background they have. Good chance of picking up bad habits.

Other small reason- who are the instructors on the workshops? The community college system will pretty much guarantee that they're qualified, but the question of where they got their experience is up in the air. If you're preparing to teach overseas, I'd want to have instructors familiar with teaching overseas, not just in teh CC environment.

These are my thoughts- for me, as an employer (which I'm not, but I have been) this cert would not compete at all well with courses like CELTA, Trinity TESOL, SIT TESOL, etc.

There are easier markets, though- in places where online certs are more acceptable and intensive onsite certs less common, this one might look okay.

Best,
Justin

cleonar3 · Joined: 03 May 2010 Posts: 7

Thanks for the response Justin! Very informative! I also contacted the coordinator for the TESOL cert. program at NOVA, and he stated that the certificate may help you to get jobs abroad, but not teaching at public schools or universities in the U.S. I already have experience teaching in the U.S. and abroad, so I am leaning towards taking the course, if only to have some sort of TESOL certificate to put on my resume.

Trillian - If you are in N. Va. you might want to consider the LADO Institute or American University for your TESOL certification. They are expensive, but I hear they are good programs. Again, GMU and NOVA have cert. programs, as well as Shenandoah University in Wincester Va.

Also, there are distance Masters programs in Australia that I have heard to be pretty good (If you know otherwise, please post your response, as I would be interested to hear if these are good schools):
University of New England: http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/linguistics/maal.php
Maquarie University: http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/

TeresaLopez · Joined: 18 Apr 2010 Posts: 601 Location: Mexico City

Isla Guapa · Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 6:22 pm Post subject:

TeresaLopez · Joined: 18 Apr 2010 Posts: 601 Location: Mexico City

Maybe, but the one school was really hung up on me getting, without it, there would have been no job offer. Also, they did ask for an outline of what would be covered in the class, how many hours it was, and they wanted to read the paper I wrote as a final project, so they didn't just accept the certificate at face value. I do understand that an online course is not the same as a classroom course, but I got a lot out of the course I took, I found it really helpful, obviously you get out of it what you put into it. I don't agree with some people who find them to be "useless". And I don't think all online courses are the same either. But anyway, I don't have an FM3, I am an immigrado, I have been living in Mexico for many years. However, I do know, personally, of two people with online certificates that are working for a decent school, and of at least one school (Interlengua) that offers their own training course and issues a certificate at the end that is accepted at Immigration. I agree with you about the student teaching, I did mine at a lovely small Catholic school in the suburbs, 2nd/3rd grade, and was NOT in any way, shape or form prepared for my first job in an urban 7th grade classroom. And really not much of that helped with teacher ESL, though I did work almost exclusively in Bi-lingual classrooms.