Job Discussion Forums

[go_lightly]

i was wondering if anybody could comment about Transworld Schools in San Francisco. i recently obtained a 100-hour online TESOL certificate from The Kennedy Academy for a reasonable price, but am now going to pay $1000 for the Transworld "Advanced TESOL" certificate. it's basically one week of full-time training. i know that i don't really need it, but i had some disposable income & was tempted by the lifetime access to Transworld's internat'l job bank. some of my friends have made fun of me, like "hmmpf...advanced huh?...just how 'advanced' is it?"

any insight or feedback will be appreciated!

[EnglishBrian]

I don't know the course you've done in particular but I can have a stab at answering your question.

I think it's unfortunate you started off with an online certificate at all! It isn't going to be recognised the world over like a CELTA and doesn't sound like it had a practical teaching component. A CELTA for instance would have given you practical teaching of at least 2 (or maybe 3) different levels of foreign language leaners (not 'peer teaching') and would also demand that you observe a certain number of hours of experienced teachers 'doing there stuff'. I'm not rubbishing the theoretical work you may have done, it's just that without the practical it would be pretty irrelevant. It sounds like by 'advanced' they are refering to actually 'doing teaching' - hmmm.

If it isn't possible for you to go and and do a CELTA or similar for financial reasons, then do this week of practical stuff. It will be better than nothing. I can't comment on their job database but wouldn't put too much faith in it. There's plenty of demand for teachers (or people who want to teach) and there are plenty of web sites advertising jobs (Dave's here, TEFL.com etc). I've never heard of anyone actually needing a 'job bank' like that.

If you are hoping to go somewhere like Korea or China where all you need is a BA and not (usually I believe) TEFL certification, then your course will certainly have given you a head start. If you're looking more globally, then you'll probably find you have some hard selling to do with you're qualification, so be prepared to explain it. Some jobs will simply be closed to you because you won't have a CELTA/Trinity/International TEFL cert., which have become the standard basic entry level qualifications worldwide.

However on a more cheery note, there are so many desparate employers out there, you'll certainly get something, it's just it might be in one of the (cough!) 'less good' posts that are around - or you might get lucky, you never know - there are so many desparate employers. Once you get started too, you can always build up your qualifications if you find what you have limiting.

Good luck