Job Discussion Forums

[claneyGA]

Has anyone used Oxford Seminars to get their TEFL certificate?

[Mike Lee]

Oxford Seminars is not a good organization from which to get a certification. First off, it is a mere 60 hours crammed into 6 courses. Any reputable employer would require at least 120 hours. You can't even get work permits in some Asian countries with less than 80 hours. So not only can they not train you adequately, their assertion that they can find you a good job is utterly incorrect. In the past, that kind of minimal training would have worked, but it is definitely better to pay the same amount of money as tuition for a better course like a TEFL or probably even better, a CELTA month-long full-time course. Secondly, graduates of Oxford Seminars are guaranteed jobs, but the placement advisor does nothing more than send your info to his contacts in other countries, who then will tell you that your 60 hours of training is insufficient. In the words of one employer from Vietnam, "OS (Oxfords Seminars) are selling courses that do not travel well outside the US. The course is simply not strong enough."

[claneyGA]

Thank you so much for your beneficial feedback! I have read that the best way to get your certificate is by going to the actual country you wish to work in and taking the course there. I am a little hesitant to do so only because I want to continue to work here in LA to save up money while getting my certificate. Do you have any other suggestions for which programs to use, maybe online? Thanks again!

[Mike Lee]

I can totally understand your position. I would advocate getting your certificate in the region in which you would like to teach. Within the country is even better. I would advise against online certificates because companies don't really value those. Any job requiring a certificate is going to want you to have experienced teaching first hand through the course. Depending on your location, there might be full-time classes available close to home.

[kwashikwashi]

My personal experience in OS:

Most of my classmates had no clear TEFL goals, ("I'd like to go to Saudi Arabia") or much knowledge of grammar ("What's an article?").

Furthermore, our instructor dumbed everything down. She tried to explain articulatory phonetics by making gross diagrams with her hands. For example, the velar nasal was her left wrist pressed against the bottom of her right forearm.

The thing that bothered me was that she was obviously very smart, but assumed that we were all recalcitrant middle-schoolers who wouldn't listen even if she gave us the serious hardcore linguistics.

Nevertheless, she gave us some very good advice about handling a classroom, which I appreciated, since I have just about no teaching experience. Always cover yourself, and don't take any lip from the students.

I suppose the one real lesson you could take from OS is that, just as your TEFL certification is largely a waste of time, your English class is sure to be just as boring and futile. If someone wants to learn English, they'll have to work and study hard� class or no class. After all, modern education's goal is to provide skilled labor to support an industrial economy, and the Humanities are merely a bourgeois attempt at the dignity of feudal aristocracy.

Perhaps this is cynical, but people learned foreign languages before there was modern education and even before there were books. If you want to succeed in a modern classroom, you have to just accept it as a theatrical and largely comical formality. Do people really need another Hollywood movie about explosions and love scenes? No, but movies are part of our culture. In the same way, education has become a means to kill time, a daycare center for the kids, and a way keep adults professionally employed. Just pretend you're in a mockumentry.

And see� I never would have come to these conclusions without the extreme boredom of my 9 hour OS sessions!

[OleLarssen]

kwashikwashi,

I don't know your background, but my experience teaching was certainly different from what you describe. You seem to be under the impression that the goal of 4 hours of English classes a week is to teach someone English. I beg to differ. To me it's more about teaching them how to learn English - especially adults who have been out of school, if they were ever in it, for a long time.

[nfairchild]

I did Oxford Seminars and it worked okay for me. I think it depends on your own personal career goals. For me, I just wanted to get a job for a year in a different country and have some fun. Therefore I didn't want to get a CELTA because I didn't feel that it would be worth the money for me. I'm now working in Japan and it's great. I intend to go home after my year contract is up. I have some friends that did a CELTA after they decided that they wanted to take an ESL career further.

As far as how helpful the course was.....I think that a lot of teaching is learning by doing. It was helpful, of course, but I've learned so much more in the classroom than anywhere else.

[fraup]

Oxford does not hide the fact that it's a short (3-weekend, 60 hour) course. I've taught a couple of seminars for them, and will teach another this fall, and I'd say that it is a very good option for people who

a) have a full time, Mon-Fri, job and don't want to give it up in this economic climate;
b) are a bit nervous about doing the CELTA in a foreign country (as I did) for various reasons. The CELTA coursework is difficult enough without the added stress of adapting to a strange environment for a month.
c) may have teaching experience in another subject than English, and are already comfortable in front of a class
d) have NO experience in front of a class and need specifics on classroom management, which Oxford does a good job with. I don't recall any specifics about discipline/classroom management in the CELTA, although there may have been some--it was 6 years ago.
e) need more hand-holding in the job search process; a couple of my students have e-mailed me that Oxford was very helpful to them in terms of steering them to reputable organizations and guiding them through the language of a contract.

One other thing: the materials included with the Oxford course are (in my opinion) excellent and extremely useful to both new and experienced teachers.