Job Discussion Forums

[stillnosheep]

[Gregor]

stillnosheep -
Just look at the bloody thing, read it and try for a little comprehension.
The EBC certificate is perfectly on par with any other legitimate, entry-level TEFL certificate, CELTA, Trinity or anyone else. The COT is further recognition, ON PAR WITH A UNIVERSITY, according to the British Council (which is a respected body - you don't have to agree with them, but that's up to you), for issuing an entry-level teaching certificate (for ESL).

It's ENTRY LEVEL, people! I could run a course that taught you as much as you'd need to know to be ready to go out into the field. I have been teaching in this field for almost ten years, and a lot of that was (less formal) teacher training. There is no governing body for TEFL certificates, but there hasn't needed to be. It might be a good idea, if for no other reason than to get these whiners and CELTA snobs to shut up about it, but that would just drive the cost of the certification process up, and the industry can hardly deal with that.

Countries are already making it more and more difficult for teachers to get working papers. Do we really need to add higher costs of certification at the entry level to the trouble involved in getting into TEFL?

The COT thing is just to add confidence in the EBC product, which was perfectly legitimate in the FIRST place. Geez. Let these poor newbies get on with their lives and stop intentionally trying to scare them away with your smobery. NO ONE ELSE SHARES IT! Certainly not employers.

Yes, I read the IH Moscow story, and I believe, with only that one point of view, that it was a case of very poor communication skills on the part of the candidate - no one CARES! NO ONE CARES! If it's a legitimate certificate, no one cares where it came from.

YES YES YES! "How do employers KNOW it's legitimate?" THEY DON'T CARE, unless they DO know about these things, in which case a brief conversation can sort it out. If People don't know that there are other good certificates other than CELTA, then they probably don't even know THAT one!

PLEASE let the newbies know about the rip-off courses that would do more harm than good. But if the course is 100+ hours and includes teaching practice and it's face to face, IT'S FINE.

(BTW, I know ONE exception to the face-to-face rule.
http://www.english-international.com/director.html
The above link is a good distance TEFL and I'd hire these graduates.)

[EnglishBrian]

I think Gregor makes some sound, reasonable and fair points. The basis for my argument here comes from my own DoSing where I've had only negative experiences with 'equivalent' qualifications, and now I'm really wary of them. Sad but that's the way it went. I don't doubt there are folk with exactly the opposite experience, but we all follow our own path that moulds our own opinions

I want to add just one more experience I recall from when I was a relatively new teacher among a bunch of very experienced ones. In a staff meeting our Director proposed that in the summer we run our own TEFL certificate, modelled on the CELTA. His thinking I believe was it would help recruitment, make money, and our certificate's fame would spread, over time, in the country and the region. The reaction of teachers to his proposal was quite animated and the final bottom line argument was that it would be immoral and misleading to potential new teachers for us to offer such a qualification.

[Gregor]

Well,
You're right. My own prejudices are formed from my own experiences, of course. I knew a woman who absolutely would not even consider anyone from Australia, but would go out of her way to accomodate New Zealanders. She'd just had bad experience with the former and good with the latter - enough for her to have formed a prejudice (she was from England, by the way). There are tons of examples. For myself, all else being equal, I'd avoid Canadians (though I have recently hired one, so of course it's not a set-in-stone thing), and I'd give preference to Trinity TESOL certificates over all else. Sorry, but this, again, is based on years of experience, not on any personal or political thing about Canada or Cambridge University or UNCLES.
I got my cert. from the now-infamous New World Teachers, and it was perfectly legit, but as a DoS I have had less trouble with Trinity grads. That's all.

As for starting your own TEFL certificate program, I don't really understand why it would be so immoral, as long as it wasn't sold as an ACTUAL Celta. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of private TEFL certificate schools do exactly that (I believe, in fact, that New World was based on the Celta). But whatever.

[Henry_Cowell]