Job Discussion Forums

[SinaloaPaisa]

Have a 4 yr degree. Figure I should do a quick TEFL as to meet the work visa requirements.

Recommendations for a course?

[nomad soul]

What type of TEFL cert is required for the positions you're pursuing? Keep in mind, if you get a low-budget mediocre cert, but the jobs you're targeting indicate a CELTA or equivalent in-person course, then you've wasted your money. See a related thread, Cheapest Possible Quals.

Anyway, with so many cheapo, online certs being advertised on the Net, pick one --- any one.

[skarper]

Don't waste your money and time on an at best second rate course. The WP requirements hardly matter. What matters is finding an employer who will fulfill their side of the bargain, and the few that will mostly know a bogus cert when they see it.

If you are only planning a short stay - less than 2 years - in Vietnam then why bother with a TEFL cert at all? If you are remotely serious about EFL as a career or mini-career then get a CELTA.

There is also the possibility that one day the powers that be wake up and decide they want to see an in person course with 6 hours observed TP and all the bogus scam certs will be invalidated.

Just my opinion - if you insist on an online cheapo cert just pick the cheapest.

[TRH]

Look at it financially. People think a CELTA is expensive but as I asserted in the link that Nomad Soul suggested, the difference of a CELTA could be $6US per hour along with perhaps only working for one school instead of many. Not advocating one school over the other, but as an example the CELTA at ILA is a $2700 package including housing and visas. Add in $300 for food and it is $3000. We won't count beer here. Divide in the $6 pay differential and you make up the cost in 500 hours or twenty 25 hour weeks. Even in Skarper"s suggestion of 2 years, the CELTA pays off easily. I know a Canadian Viet Kieu who used to work in personnel at ILA who told me that their average teacher stay is less than a year. Think of the negative impact such a high rotation rate has on quality. If you don't plan to work at ESL for more than 20 weeks you are not part of the solution but part of the problem.

[skarper]

If I'm going to be 100% honest then here you go.

I have worked with people with no Cert - they were rubbish teachers.

I have worked with people who have an online cert or an otherwise non-Celta equiv. They were nearly all rubbish too.

I have taught with people who had a Celta equiv. Some of them were rubbish too. Some were really good. Most were OK.

'So what?' you say? Well - here's the thing. Aside from the morality of taking money for a job you cannot do there is the extra stress and work of being rubbish. You plan too much wasting hours, you plan too little and have a bad lesson that is embarrassing to sit thru. You plan the wrong stuff. Students ask you a simple question and you are stumped, unable even to understand the question.

People with no training tend to have to plan 2 hours per hour in class to get the same result someone with a Celta can manage in 1 hour per hour of class time.

People with Delta or equiv can manage 20 minutes per hour of class time and get superior results to the Celta only people.

It's impossible to generalize 100% but mostly this is true.

This means your 25 hour work week can be 75 hours + travel or 50 hours plus travel [~33 hours plus travel for a Delta trained teacher].

You can just be rubbish and waste the students' time - god knows plenty do and I did my share of that in my day too - but if you are good you can get and retain better paid jobs, have more hours in one place if you want, and change jobs when it suits you rather than randomly when your students or employers have had enough of your wasting their time.

The trouble with a Celta is it is not a rubber stamp. Many fail to complete or only manage a 'C' grade which is effectively a fail. Most employers demand an 'A' or 'B' grade or a couple of years post Celta experience.

So - if you are lazy, disorganized, not very bright, don't have a good command of English [do you write 'should of known better' for example?] then think twice about a Celta or indeed being an EFL teacher full stop.

[sigmoid]