Job Discussion Forums

sunrader · Joined: 12 Dec 2005 Posts: 101

Just thought I'd chime in hoping to be helpful to the person who is trying to decide, because so many people who hadn't been there were giving their impressions. I completed the ITTO program two years ago and, personally, I loved it. I may just have been lucky, but we had a great group of interesting adventurous people who really worked hard and worked well together. I went into grad school afterwards and found a lot of the things I learned at ITTO to be useful background there, a really helpful kickstart since I didn't have a linguistics or pedagogy background. I wouldn't say they have a big business attitude, really, it's just their way of being professional, I think, it's not really that big, and they really do help you prepare for being in Mexico, IMO, which is what I was looking for. There were different personalities teaching but they were all experienced people who cared about a doing a good job, and, well, in TEFL, you do need to learn to get along with all kinds of superiors, right? It was really intense, maybe the written assignments were a little weak, but most of it was pretty useful if you want to put in the effort. I didn't have experience, though, then, so I learned a ton. I can see how, if you were experienced already, it might be a bit frustrating. At that time, the manual was not great, but I think they've reworked that. I spoke to a couple of trainers who moved on and (maybe they were just being polite, who knows), but they didn't say anything negative about it. I really have great memories of it, so much so, that I'd love to try a stint as one of their teacher trainers.

danielita · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 281 Location: SLP

J Sevigny · Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Posts: 161

A little more on this:

If I had it to do over again, I would have gone for the more prestigious CELTA program because it costs about the same and is more widely recognized.

Here's the way it works here. Almost everyone who goes to ITTO gets a chance to work at ICI in Guadalajara, which is a good-paying job in this market.

So 95 percent of the teachers at ICI, where I work, went to ITTO. The general consensus seems to be what I posted originally -- it's a $1,600 US (or whatever they charge now) piece of paper that will get you in the door at a school and make things easier at immigration.

Most of the complaints I hear are directed at the institute�s job offer promise. The first job I was offered through ITTO paid 4,000 pesos a month - not enough to live on here. Many people say they took the ICI job because it was the only legitimate gig they were offered.

Samantha · Joined: 25 Oct 2003 Posts: 2038 Location: Mexican Riviera

So is ICI related to ITTO or is this the easiest way to staff their school? I pulled up the link to their site, where it says they are a non-profit German company. Would that be true? It also says there is 10 webcams onsite for parents to check in and watch. Interesting.

http://www.ici.edu.mx/english/

hlamb · Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 431 Location: Canada

I was at ITTO with sunrader and she made a good point. If you put in the effort, you can learn a fair amount. Certain students didn't put in much effort and consequently didn't benefit as much as the rest of us did. You get out of it what you put in.

There's a limit to how much they can teach in a month but I was impressed overall with the quality I received.