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dog8food
Joined: 02 Oct 2007
Posts: 60
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 Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:32 pm Post subject: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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I was thinking about getting TEFL certified in either Italy or Greece. Now, I'm an american and I know my odds of getting a job there are just about none, but I still want to get my certification there because of some people I know who live there plus I just want to experience these countries.
However, it's overwhelming to see all of the different certifying companies with varying fees without knowing the reliability of these places. Is there some kind of website that reviews them? Can you reccommend a company based on your/a friends experience in these countires?
My appreciations. |
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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 Feb 04, 2009 12:07 am Post subject: |
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First thought: DON'T do it through a company. Get one that's accredited through a university.
SIT TESOL is my fave, though I'm involved so that isn't unbiased.
CELTA and Trinity are the other big(er) names.
Best,
Justin |
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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: Fri Feb 06, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| dog8food wrote: |
I was thinking about getting TEFL certified in either Italy or Greece. Now, I'm an american and I know my odds of getting a job there are just about none, but I still want to get my certification there because of some people I know who live there plus I just want to experience these countries.
However, it's overwhelming to see all of the different certifying companies with varying fees without knowing the reliability of these places. Is there some kind of website that reviews them? Can you reccommend a company based on your/a friends experience in these countires?
My appreciations. |
It sounds like what you're really asking is about accreditation. The answer to that is to look at the accrediting body. Is it a valid body (like various regional accrediting bodies recognized by the U. S. Department of Education)? Is anyone familiar, for example, with Open and Distance Learning Quality Council (ODLQC), the Scottish Quality Management System (SQMS) and Investor in People? How about The Year Out Group? One online course (the basic course is only 40 hours) says these are the bodies that accredited their course. There's another course (a 250-hour course) accredited by the government of Canada. In the case of college/university certification courses, who accredited the college or university?
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." Like with the brand name vs. generic debate, you really have to look at the ingredients. |
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word_to_the_wise
Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 67
Location: Riyadh
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:01 am Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." . |
Why are you so threatened by these two little words? Have you had experience of a CELTA course and a 'non-brand' name as you put it??
What are your credentials? ....and who are you to challenge such a tried and tested methodology as CELTA which has been carefully honed over several decades? |
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denise
Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 3419
Location: finally home-ish
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:16 am Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." Like with the brand name vs. generic debate, you really have to look at the ingredients. |
I agree. I have a so-called generic course, and it was enough to get me started. It had the standard observed teaching practice with real students + enough course hours.
I certainly wouldn't be where I am today if I had stopped after getting that certificate, but for my first teaching job, it was sufficient.
Word to the wise: why are you so threatened by generic courses, and why do you insist on asking people what their credentials are?
d |
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nickpellatt
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1522
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Im guessing that the reason people suggest the brand names of CELTA and Trinity, is because there are some people out there who dont offer a course that is accredited or recognised with anoyone...and whilst the cert they offer may be enough to get you started in your country of choice, (wherever that may be) there may be better options. Could it also be possible that for someone like me, who intends returning to the UK to work in a british council school in the future, will need a BC recognised qualification?
also, I have a friend who was offered a job as a teacher trainer, that was after he had completed 6 months of teaching, he has no formal qualifications, is not the greatest at grammar....yet was offered a trainers position.
With a 'brand name' organisation....that isnt likely to happen. I dont think the brand names are much more expensive either. Of course, there are lots of genuine course providers out there....but equally, Im sure there are some (like the one I mention above), that isnt quite so good.
The company I mention was owned by a Dutch guy called Patrick BTW, I think he operates out of Thailand, and the company names is greenways or similar. |
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dreadnought v.2
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." Like with the brand name vs. generic debate, you really have to look at the ingredients. |
Such an analogy is only valid if the generic product is equal in quality to the brand name, and unfortunately in TEFL that is rarely the case. The reason why CELTA/Trinity/SIT are more valued as initial training qualifications is that they meet minimum standards required by many organisations and educational institutes around the world. This includes:
- a minimum of 120 hours
- at least 6 hours of observed practice teaching with real ESL students
- external assessment by the accrediting organisation.
The vast majority of generic TEFL courses do NOT offer this, because all these things cost money and they want to bleed the participants of as much money as possible. There are good reasons why these courses are the most respected (and the most expensive) and it's nothing to do with marketing/advertising. In fact, it's interesting to note that these three courses are generally less advertised than courses that don't meet those minimum standards. |
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dreadnought v.2
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| nickpellatt wrote: |
Im guessing that the reason people suggest the brand names of CELTA and Trinity, is because there are some people out there who dont offer a course that is accredited or recognised with anoyone...and whilst the cert they offer may be enough to get you started in your country of choice, (wherever that may be) there may be better options. Could it also be possible that for someone like me, who intends returning to the UK to work in a british council school in the future, will need a BC recognised qualification?
also, I have a friend who was offered a job as a teacher trainer, that was after he had completed 6 months of teaching, he has no formal qualifications, is not the greatest at grammar....yet was offered a trainers position.
With a 'brand name' organisation....that isnt likely to happen. I dont think the brand names are much more expensive either. Of course, there are lots of genuine course providers out there....but equally, Im sure there are some (like the one I mention above), that isnt quite so good.
The company I mention was owned by a Dutch guy called Patrick BTW, I think he operates out of Thailand, and the company names is greenways or similar. |
I would suggest it's essential to get a BC recognized qualification if you plan to work for a BC accredited school.
And yes, the situation you describe with an unqualified teacher getting a teacher training job is a very common occurrence on these generic courses. Again, with the recognized courses you are guaranteed that the trainers will meet certain minimum experience/qualification requirements, such as DELTA/Masters and at least five years' experience. They also have to go through a fairly rigorous training process to become a licensed trainer. |
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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: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Word to the wise wrote:
| Quote: |
Chancellor wrote:
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." .
Why are you so threatened by these two little words? Have you had experience of a CELTA course and a 'non-brand' name as you put it??
What are your credentials? ....and who are you to challenge such a tried and tested methodology as CELTA which has been carefully honed over several decades? |
I wouldn't presume to answer for Chancellor, but since you asked, I guess I'm not threatened by those "two little words." I'm just ticked by your use of them to the exclusion of others.
I have, as it happens, experienced a Trinity course (my first ever teaching qual, quite a while ago), several SIT courses (it's what I do), and have first hand knowledge of quite a few others.
Who am I to challenge CELTA? About the same "who" that you are to affirm it. (My creds are reasonably well known round here- not disimilar to your own. My username is, to avoid confusion, actually my name- so I'm as checkable as you please.)
But what you're missing is that I'm NOT challenging CELTA. Some of my best friends are CELTA trainers. (Actually true.) Though, like all courses, it varies with the trainers you get, I have often asserted on this board that CELTA is generally a good course.
What I, and others, object to is your insistence that CELTA and Trinity are the only good courses.
You and I agree that there are way too many BS certificate programs out there. We even agree (as seen on another thread) that the CELTA hegemony is probably not entirely a good thing for the industry as a whole. Heck, I think we probably agree about what makes the good courses good, and what makes the BS BS.
But as serious professional who has spent most of the last few years involved in good quality, serious teacher training at the certificate level that wasn't under the banner of CELTA or Trinity, I have to say that I resent your repeatedly stating that these are the only good quality options.
Cause it just ain't so.
Best,
Justin |
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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 Feb 09, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| dreadnought v.2 wrote: |
| Chancellor wrote: |
Some people will tell you "CELTA or Trinity or it's not a valid course." But such idiotic comments are more like saying "If you don't buy the brand name product then it isn't a real product." Like with the brand name vs. generic debate, you really have to look at the ingredients. |
Such an analogy is only valid if the generic product is equal in quality to the brand name, and unfortunately in TEFL that is rarely the case. The reason why CELTA/Trinity/SIT are more valued as initial training qualifications is that they meet minimum standards required by many organisations and educational institutes around the world. This includes:
- a minimum of 120 hours
- at least 6 hours of observed practice teaching with real ESL students
- external assessment by the accrediting organisation. |
Hence my very specifc comment "you really have to look at the ingredients."
| Quote: |
| The vast majority of generic TEFL courses do NOT offer this, because all these things cost money and they want to bleed the participants of as much money as possible. There are good reasons why these courses are the most respected (and the most expensive) and it's nothing to do with marketing/advertising. In fact, it's interesting to note that these three courses are generally less advertised than courses that don't meet those minimum standards. |
Again, my very specific comment "you really have to look at the ingredients." |
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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 Feb 09, 2009 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Justin Trullinger wrote: |
Word to the wise wrote:
| Quote: |
Why are you so threatened by these two little words? Have you had experience of a CELTA course and a 'non-brand' name as you put it??
What are your credentials? ....and who are you to challenge such a tried and tested methodology as CELTA which has been carefully honed over several decades? |
I wouldn't presume to answer for Chancellor, but since you asked, I guess I'm not threatened by those "two little words." I'm just ticked by your use of them to the exclusion of others. |
My objection is to this sort of elitism that some people seem to have. I compared this discussion to the debate between brand name and generic. To use another analogy, I see this as something akin to saying "If you didn't go to Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, or Yale then you don't have a real college degree."
| Quote: |
I have, as it happens, experienced a Trinity course (my first ever teaching qual, quite a while ago), several SIT courses (it's what I do), and have first hand knowledge of quite a few others.
Who am I to challenge CELTA? About the same "who" that you are to affirm it. (My creds are reasonably well known round here- not disimilar to your own. My username is, to avoid confusion, actually my name- so I'm as checkable as you please.)
But what you're missing is that I'm NOT challenging CELTA. Some of my best friends are CELTA trainers. (Actually true.) Though, like all courses, it varies with the trainers you get, I have often asserted on this board that CELTA is generally a good course. |
I'm not really challenging CELTA either. I'm just challenging the notion of "CELTA or Trinity or you don't have a real certification." Part of my objection is that what this is essentially saying is that only courses coming out of England are valid courses.
| Quote: |
What I, and others, object to is your insistence that CELTA and Trinity are the only good courses.
You and I agree that there are way too many BS certificate programs out there. We even agree (as seen on another thread) that the CELTA hegemony is probably not entirely a good thing for the industry as a whole. Heck, I think we probably agree about what makes the good courses good, and what makes the BS BS. |
Hence my earlier comment, "Like with the brand name vs. generic debate, you really have to look at the ingredients."
| Quote: |
But as serious professional who has spent most of the last few years involved in good quality, serious teacher training at the certificate level that wasn't under the banner of CELTA or Trinity, I have to say that I resent your repeatedly stating that these are the only good quality options.
Cause it just ain't so. |
His attitude is a lot like "If you didn't go to Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, or Yale then you don't have a real college degree." George W. Bush went to Yale but that didn't make him very good at business (he has an MBA) and it certainly didn't make him a very good President. |
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word_to_the_wise
Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 67
Location: Riyadh
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| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:51 am Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| denise wrote: |
Word to the wise: why are you so threatened by generic courses, and why do you insist on asking people what their credentials are?
d |
Because when you move into management denise, you need to know that what you're getting is as close to the real deal as is realistically possible.
I'm prepared to modify my view that there are alternatives to CELTA and Trinity (SIT possibly) but that they must comply with a minimum of:
i) 120 hours face to face (absolutely not distance/online)
ii) A minimum of 6 (ideally 10) TPs with fee-paying students
iii) External validation by a recognised, credible educational establishment
When your job is directly affected by the performance of your staff denise, you'll see it all rather differently. I can guarantee that.
Why shouldn't posters state their credentials? If you look back at the context of why I put that, you'll see why.
As a footnote, I've posted elsewhere that I don't think it's healthy for the EFL profession to only have two 'brand names', and I've also stated that having CELTA doesn't necessarily mean you're any good.However,they are globally recognised benchmarks which, especially in the case of CELTA, have been around for decades and have been subjected to constant re-appraisal as the nature of EFL changes. |
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denise
Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 3419
Location: finally home-ish
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| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:24 am Post subject: Re: What are some legit TEFL organizations? |
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| word_to_the_wise wrote: |
| denise wrote: |
Word to the wise: why are you so threatened by generic courses, and why do you insist on asking people what their credentials are?
d |
Because when you move into management denise, you need to know that what you're getting is as close to the real deal as is realistically possible.
I'm prepared to modify my view that there are alternatives to CELTA and Trinity (SIT possibly) but that they must comply with a minimum of:
i) 120 hours face to face (absolutely not distance/online)
ii) A minimum of 6 (ideally 10) TPs with fee-paying students
iii) External validation by a recognised, credible educational establishment
When your job is directly affected by the performance of your staff denise, you'll see it all rather differently. I can guarantee that.
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OK, fair enough. I will likely never be in your position because management doesn't interest me (I got into teaching to be a teacher), but I'd like to think that if I were in a position to hire somebody, I would hire the person and not the qualification. Sure, it's a bit harder and it takes a bit more time to research other TEFL courses--you can't simply look at the acronym on the paper--but in my naive, optimistic little mind, that's what a manager should do. And honestly, I am so sick of the CELTA vs. the rest debate that I might just hire the underdog on principle, assuming his/her certificate met the criteria.
d |
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dreadnought v.2
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Sofia, Bulgaria
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| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:08 am Post subject: |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
My objection is to this sort of elitism that some people seem to have. I compared this discussion to the debate between brand name and generic. To use another analogy, I see this as something akin to saying "If you didn't go to Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, or Yale then you don't have a real college degree."
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I'm not sure that's the best analogy in the world. Very few people believe that if you didn't go to any of those colleges then you don't have a real degree for the simple reason that there are accreditation standards for universities and colleges that everyone knows and understands.
Perhaps a more suitable analogy would be to say that people who have gone to an unaccredited university or college or who got their qualification through a diploma mill don't have a real degree, and there might be some truth in that. That's how I see the difference between Trinity, CELTA, SIT and the mass of generic, unaccredited TESOL courses out there. I wouldn't hire someone for a job who has a college degree from a diploma mill because I have no guarantee that they really earned it and demonstrated the basic knowledge required to pass the exams. Similarly, I wouldn't hire a teacher who has gone through a generic TESOL course because I don't know exactly what they've done and what standards they were held to.
The thing about the brand name courses is that it's actually possible to fail them, so you know anyone who's passed it has met some basic teaching standards. And secondly, because they are externally assessed, you know that regardless of where they took it, the courses followed a similar syllabus and the teachers were held to roughly the same standards. For an employer who might be looking at dozens of applications for a job, that kind of information is extremely useful. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:17 am Post subject: |
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The thing about the brand name courses is that it's actually possible to fail them, so you know anyone who's passed it has met some basic teaching standards.
Only 3 out of 11 trainees on my very tough generic course passed  (I think it's the same one Denise took in Prague, but different year)
Yes, if you have many applicants, I agree that the brand-name cert makes things a bit easier. But there are some very decent generic courses out there, and in a case where you have a lesser number of candidates, it's feasible to check out the generics for the basic criteria.
In any case, my generic cert was always accepted, even at a Canadian university. My MA now makes it kind of a moot point, but the initial cert certainly got me in the right doors at the time. |
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