Job Discussion Forums

[Alrichar]

Hey everyone. I made a thread a little while ago asking for help getting to St. Petersburg. Thank you, first of all, everything was really helpful.

At the moment, I'm still in the states, doing admin for a small-time ESL school. One of our newer (and less stable) programs is our TESOL, which we run through a bigger TESOL chain, or in other words pay through the nose for the right to use their accreditation. The program has the potential to be extremely profitable for us, but we have a big problem attracting enough students all at the same time to begin the course, and so there are sometimes months when we can't even open the class.

What I wanted from you guys (and girls obviously) is to tell me a little about how you found your certification of choice. Were you actively looking for a qualification? Did you respond to an ad that said teachers wanted and find out it was an ad for a course? How did they convince you to drop so much money? Did you choose a weekend/evening course or a full-time one (i.e. were you working at the same time you were taking the course)?

Anything you can tell me is valuable, and any ideas you have about how to market a TESOL course would also be interesting to hear. Thanks in advance!

[coledavis]

Well, I hope you won't offer weekend and online courses as generally they will not enable your students to get decent employment. As for a four week course, advertise what you are offering, e.g. how often the student is being observed teaching, how often the student gets to observe experience teachers, that sort of thing. I think you can find out more by searching on the internet and finding out what other four week courses offer.

[Alrichar]

Well, we are offering weekend courses, but we teach them through Global TESOL which means they get a respected certificate, and we include observed teaching during the week. I'm not as interested in what we should be advertising, we have marketing people, but what we have trouble with is where to advertise. We only advertise on Craigslist at the moment, but somehow I doubt that Craigslist is the only place to find TESOL students.

[coledavis]

I'm not sure about how respectable any certificate is for a weekend course, unless it is made absolutely clear that this is a taster rather than a real preparation or certification for employment purposes. However, I would think that Craigslist would be insufficient for your purposes. In my opinion you have to invest in advertising. This site is obviously one of the most popular, and Eslbase would be sensible. If you are looking for freebies, maybe Gumtree might work for you? (Not that I've looked at Gumtree for a long time so I don't know if this is accurate.)

[spiral78]

Global TESOL has a low-end reputation; it's basically not accepted in many parts of the world; it wouldn't get anyone a job in Central/Western Europe and I doubt would be accepted in Russia or other points East either.
I know for sure it doesn't meet the standards for private language school employment in Canada (never mind higher-end jobs there).

You can run a search for the Global TESOL here; there have been numerous inquiries about it over the years, with almost universal agreement that it's not worth much on job markets.

It is accepted in regions where no certification is needed on the job market; that's mostly Asia.

And that's a clue for your advertising; advertise for people who are looking to get entry-level jobs in Asia.

[spiral78]