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Dancing Monkey
Joined: 23 Aug 2009
Posts: 79
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 Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:41 am Post subject: |
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The way I see it, Santi, is that many "legitimate" schools, such as Salem State College, SF State, Grand Canyon University, and Nova Southeastern University, now offer online MA in TEFL degrees. They all have actual campuses and grant degrees to traditional students.
How would anyone know that the degree was earned online?
Granted, some "schools" like Phoenix may be obvious.
I've read on this webiste's China Forum that legitimate schools in the UK, Canada and OZ also offer similar degrees or qualifications (PGCE - UK).
Since I'm not from any of those places, I have forgotten the names. |
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natsume
Joined: 24 Apr 2006
Posts: 409
Location: Chongqing, China
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:23 am Post subject: |
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| Dancing Monkey wrote: |
| SF State....now offer online MA in TEFL degrees. |
Is that San Francisco State? They have what looks like an excellent MATESOL program, but they do not offer it online. |
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Viktor87
Joined: 08 Jan 2009
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:15 am Post subject: |
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Thanks again for the help, everyone!
As a side note, I have in fact been trying to find an online course that is 100 hours or longer, maybe 120 or 150 hours- the only thing is, as I said, I am in a situation where I literally am not able to attend on-site courses. |
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coledavis
Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Viktor87 wrote: |
"It is suckering you"
Heh, well I suppose in that regard it's not different from anything else- I don't know of many businesses that put the well-being of their clients above profit. And don't you think that $2000+ for a month-long course (classroom TESL) is likewise a bit of a ripoff? The price isn't determined by what is "fair" in either case, but what they can get away with.
What if (in addition to what I said previously) for a number of reasons, I don't have physical access to a TESL on-site location in my area? For example, the college campus closest to where I live doesn't offer such classes, and there are other constraints on me as well, like lack of a car.
What then? Is Online TESL worse than no TESL at all? |
One gets you a half-decent job, the other doesn't. How do you think you're going to get taught by experienced professionals, full-time for a month, with the facilities for supervised teaching and individualised feedback, and not pay that sort of money? The 'heh' says it all. You want the online course to be adequate and want to 'get away with it' yourself. This is most unfortunate for the students, if you do manage to get a job, and probably for you when you find out what it's really like and just how ill-prepared you are. Most TESOL trainees feel that they have only the bare bones of adequacy when they stagger away from the end of their course. I note that you have taught before, which is good, but do note that unless that was in a language, you are most unlikely to have much of a feel for the relevant techniques. Sure, the online courses may well have good content, but will you have any experience of grading your language (i.e. tuning your vocabulary to the level of ability of your class)?
With most people, the circumstances are never ideal. Either you work round them and do the right thing (stay with a friend or a relative for a month, perhaps), or you don't. |
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Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Viktor87 wrote: |
| And don't you think that $2000+ for a month-long course (classroom TESL) is likewise a bit of a ripoff? The price isn't determined by what is "fair" in either case, but what they can get away with. |
You can ask the same question of the cost of all those college/university courses you'd have to take if you wanted to get certified to teach ESL to students in the government schools in the US. Is $2000 really a rip-off for a four-week course (often including accommodation while you're there if it's an overseas course) that's going to give you the entry-level certification to teach adult students in a foreign country? Even if you spend that $2000 just for the course (e.g. in the US), is it really a rip-off? Schools have to pay teachers, pay for the cost of having a facility, and a whole host of other expenses that go along with running a school (these schools aren't places that are getting their money from people's property taxes). And if you consider the relatively low number of students taking such courses (as compared to, say, students attending a college/university where taking just one course for an entire semester can cost that same $2000), it's a relative bargain. Of course, it doesn't help those people who simply don't have $2000 but despite what the American government is telling its citizens, saving your money for what you want is a good thing.
| Quote: |
| What if (in addition to what I said previously) for a number of reasons, I don't have physical access to a TESL on-site location in my area? For example, the college campus closest to where I live doesn't offer such classes, and there are other constraints on me as well, like lack of a car. What then? Is Online TESL worse than no TESL at all? |
Then you go where the courses are or you go with one of those very few courses that lets you do the course work online and provides the all-important six or more hours of supervised teaching practice with real ESL/EFL students on-site (there is no substitute for the supervised teaching practice) - and I can't emphasize enough the importance of the supervised teaching practice. Is a purely online TESL course worse than nothing at all? No, but it doesn't rise to the minimum industry standard for entry-level TESL certification either. The difference between taking a course that meets the industry standard and a course that doesn't is in the jobs you'll be able to get. |
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Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Dancing Monkey wrote: |
The way I see it, Santi, is that many "legitimate" schools, such as Salem State College, SF State, Grand Canyon University, and Nova Southeastern University, now offer online MA in TEFL degrees. They all have actual campuses and grant degrees to traditional students.
How would anyone know that the degree was earned online?
Granted, some "schools" like Phoenix may be obvious.
I've read on this webiste's China Forum that legitimate schools in the UK, Canada and OZ also offer similar degrees or qualifications (PGCE - UK).
Since I'm not from any of those places, I have forgotten the names. |
But those "online" degrees (more accurately distance learning degrees) are, in most cases, not exclusively online. You have to obtain real text books (and actually read them) and certain other materials to complete these courses. Sure, you listen to the lectures online, participate in class discussions (or discussion boards) online and take the tests online but if there are papers to write or certain other kinds of assignments, you're going to have to do them the same way resident students do them. |
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santi84
Joined: 14 Mar 2008
Posts: 1317
Location: under da sea
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Dancing Monkey wrote: |
The way I see it, Santi, is that many "legitimate" schools, such as Salem State College, SF State, Grand Canyon University, and Nova Southeastern University, now offer online MA in TEFL degrees. They all have actual campuses and grant degrees to traditional students. How would anyone know that the degree was earned online?
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Absolutely, there are many MA degrees that are offered through traditional b&m universities which do not clarify they were done mostly through distance education. However, the problem arises when you have completed an MA through an American or Australian university, yet you have been living in somewhere like China the entire time. Employers do actually read resumes, they aren't all just desperate for some sheet of paper with English-looking writing on it. I personally think distance education is fantastic (my own degree is around 20% online courses - they were my favourite) but the OP in this thread wants to eventually make his way to the Middle East. In the Middle East, coursework done exclusively online isn't accepted, so he must learn to work around his time/money issue.
I personally sold my condo a few years ago to go back to university and left a decent-paying (soul-sucking) government job to pursue teaching. I also took night TESL courses with prospective ESL teachers who had infants at home (they got a babysitter). No time or money for a real certificate? Sorry, I don't buy it. |
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nickpellatt
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1522
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| Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Ive done an online i-i course, and a Trinity - they dont compare ... at all!
Dont bother shopping around for a longer online course. They are just longer courses, that cost more, but still dont come any closer to meeting the minimum requirements. Online course providers offer longer 100+ hour options to lure the gullible into thinking their online courses offer the same as the recognised courses. They dont. |
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Dancing Monkey
Joined: 23 Aug 2009
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:03 am Post subject: |
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"Is that San Francisco State? They have what looks like an excellent MATESOL program, but they do not offer it online."
I was wrong about that one.
Personnaly, I would do what the other person did - save my money and/or sell my assets in order to be a traditional student. Those were the best days of my life!
The last thing I want to do is work and then have to study intensively in my off hours, but, it can be done; especially in a place like China where after awhile you may find a job like mine = in class 3 hours a day.
As for the resume, Santi, a little creative writing is in order.
Either way, if I were young again and had my sights set on Japan and ultimately the Middle East, my advice to Vicktor, assuming he is around 25 or so, is this - get an online TEFL certificate and find a job in Japan. Work there for 2 or 3 years and save his money while completing the online Salem State College graduate certificate in ESL advertised here on Dave's, then return to the US for to complete the MA. According to Salem State's website, the certificate credits will be applied to the MA. |
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Viktor87
Joined: 08 Jan 2009
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:01 am Post subject: |
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22, actually  . |
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coledavis
Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838
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| Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| Viktor87 wrote: |
| 22, actually . |
Blimey, Viktor87! Then unless the teaching experience you mentioned was really exceptional, I really don't think that an online course would be anywhere near adequate in finding you a job on the 'qualified' circuit.
Again, look at it from the employer's point of view. If he or she is looking for an untrained person, then fair enough. If they are looking for a qualified or experienced teacher, then I don't think they'd consider you for five seconds without one of the courses that have some sort of standards. They've got to know, ok, he's a young guy but at least he will have had some good training.
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but - like everybody else on this board - I'm trying to give the best advice possible. In my case, I've been a manager in charge of recruiting (not in TEFL, admittedly), have discussed recruitment of staff with different TEFL employers and, in my previous career as a careers adviser, have helped loads of people to find work.
General point again: If you are looking for a half-decent job, try to think as the employer thinks rather than how you would wish things to go.
Or apply for the jobs where they don't care if you are unqualified, but don't expect anything like standard pay for the job. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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ColeDavis seems to know what he's talking about. I'd second that. (and I've been for some time an adminstrator in charge of hiring TEFL teachers.)
I also wanted to add:
| Quote: |
Viktor87 wrote:
And don't you think that $2000+ for a month-long course (classroom TESL) is likewise a bit of a ripoff? The price isn't determined by what is "fair" in either case, but what they can get away with. |
I run, and am a trainer on, a course in Ecuador that costs a bit less than your 2k figure. But in any case, I don't think it's a ripoff.
Here's what you get:
The attention of real EFL teacher trainers. I have post graduate training in this area, and am affiliated faculty at a prestigious US university. I have ten years experience in the field. I am amongst the youngest and least qualified trainers you'll meet on the SIT circuit, as well. Most have twice my experience. And yes, we expect to be decently paid for our work, and we are.
A course ratio that means trainers pay attention to you. We never have more than a six participants to one trainer. This drives costs pretty high. But to offer quality, six is as many as one trainer can reasonably offer attention to.
Real students. There are 20 volunteers coming into our center this afternoon to learn English from our teacher trainees. Finding them, maintaining class lists, calling them all to come to the course...it took up all of my assistant's time for the two weeks before the course. She deserves a decent salary too.
Facilities, classrooms, a library computers...all these cost money.
Accreditation from an accredited US university. To maintain this, we have to have an external assessor approved and contracted by that university come to EVERY course. At our cost. This adds to course cost too.
A genuine application process, which guarantees quality participants and therefore a course with a good reputation. We don't accept just anybody, and the resulting quality of participants is also higher. But before any participants started our course this month, I had alreads spent quite a lot of hours on applications, and (this time, it varies) a couple hundred dollars on international phone calls for interviews.
This leads to a good reputation that really helps your job search, both locally and internationally. And we can prove it- our grads are working all over the place.
All this also leads to an overseas TESOL course for which a number of US universities will offer university credit, both undergrad and postgrad. Compared to doing the same number of credit hours at those universities, it's actually rather cheap.
So no, I DO NOT feel we are ripping people off. Our course costs $1500. If we raised it to $2000, it would still be a heck of a bargain.
Which of these things can an online only course offer you????
While we're at it, we teach you to teach.
| Quote: |
| I am in a situation where I literally am not able to attend on-site courses. |
As a concerned member of an internet community, I can try and convince you to do what you can to make it possible. Save some $$$. Work a dead-end job a little longer. Work weekends. I know you can't attend an onsite course, but whatever is preventing you is probably something others have overcome. If you have the resources to consider working overseas, there IS a way to stretch and arrange to get a decent course.
As an employer, though- it's simply not my problem that you can't do what so many others manage to do. I'll just hire one of them instead of you.
Best,
Justin |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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And to answer your other question:
| Quote: |
| What then? Is Online TESL worse than no TESL at all? |
Honestly, and I'm not meaning to be harsh. To most good employers, most online TESL certs are the SAME as no TESL at all.
Those are the breaks. I understand that you may not want to hear it.
But most of us posting here have been in the field for a while, and tell it like we think it is.
Best,
Justin |
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cks
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 144
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| Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Well said Justin. I worked two dead end jobs 7 days a week to get where I am today. Is this not an option for other people? It upsets me that they think they deserve special treatment and the same opportunities as the rest of us who managed to do what it takes to enter the TEFL world. I agree with everything 100%. |
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Dancing Monkey
Joined: 23 Aug 2009
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:09 am Post subject: |
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Come to China, Vicktor.
We will love you. |
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