Job Discussion Forums

[jophoto1972]

Has anyone heard of them? I am trying to find an online course for me and my husband. Thanks

[spiral78]

I don't know this specific course, but you will want to be sure that an online course will be acceptable for the kinds of teaching work you and your husband plan to apply for.

Online courses are generally acceptable in parts of the world where teachers are in high demand - this tends to be some parts of Asia and perhaps S. America (this I am unsure of).

In regions where the job market is tighter, the industry standard newbie qualification is 120 hours on-site, including teaching practice with actual students (not peer trainees) and feedback on same from experienced teacher trainers. One common brand name is CELTA, but there are other courses out there that meet the standard.

If you give us more info about where you hope to work, people will be able to let you know whether an online course will be sufficient for you to compete well on that specific job market.

[jophoto1972]

Thank you so much for the reply. I just started doing research on teaching. We are leaning towards teaching in China, Korea and looking at South America. I thought Europe would be nice, but it looks like that is a hard market to get into. My husband has a Bachelor's degree in History and I have a BFA in Photography and a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management with some teaching experience. We both have full time jobs that we would like to leave and we thought teaching abroad might give us some new experiences, see a new place and meet some new people. We realize that we would be working and working hard. I thought an online course would be better because we could still work full time and continue saving money while doing the course, but it is beginning to sound like person to person teaching is a better option if we are going to pursue this seriously.

[Solanis]

I completely understand the difficulties in trying to work a full time job and getting the certification that you need to land a job teaching English.

I've actually been looking at this school as well "TEFL Institute, Chicago". Has anyone else had any experience with this school? Their website seems to be to very "for profit" oriented, which does concern me a bit but I have talked to a couple of people who went there and they said they were, in general, satisfied with the program but they did do the intensive on campus course instead of the online version.

I hope that helps you a bit and if anyone else has worked with or went to this school, I would love to hear a bit more about it as well.