Korean Job Discussion Forums

aarontendo · Joined: 08 Feb 2006 Location: Daegu-ish

I've never felt that Bassex was misrepresenting the CELTA. He always says that it's a useful course, he's just mentioning that there are other alternatives. He's also pointing out the losses you take for doing it.

I find myself agreeing with him on a lotta things, it is an expensive course. It's not really recognized in Korea as anything worth that amount of money. However, I think that I might move on to other countries and some of them do place a premium on CELTA or Trinity certificates.

Personally, I wouldn't have done mine but I did have two months to kill between finishing uni and coming into my first contract here. Wasn't a bad experience and made me feel like I was doing more in Thailand than sightseeing and hanging out with chicks.

And, to the OP...I don't think having a tefl certificate will matter once ya have the MA TESOL. I'm in the same boat and wondering if I should even list mine on my resume once I finish my masters next year.

agoodmouse · Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Location: Anyang

Bassexpander, that's your copy and paste job again, if my and everyone else's memory is decent. That's obviously not anything near representing the off-the-cuff misrepresentations you've made. Anyone can just search for KEI-TEFL or CELTA and judge for themselves. That's actually what I did when I was checking out people's comments on both courses. Unsurprisingly, I came across your droll copy-and-paste job (everything in the bold accents you've pasted) over 15-20 times, which by the way all but names KEI-TEFL for a cheap run at a online TEFL certificate. You changed one line to make it seem less obvious this and other times, but that's what you've done.

No, I don't drink Haterade, the drink of haters.

Bassexpander, it's obvious to everyone that you believe the cost of a CELTA is not justified, but that others including myself do feel it's justified. That's all we disagree about, but you take it to a whole new level and name call. People just disagree with you -- you shouldn't call people names merely for that fact and just because the cost is, to you, obscene and unjustified. About the price of entirely on-site courses? Seon-bee said it best.

Whistleblower · Joined: 03 Feb 2007

Bassex I like you but you really need to develop yourself and get a CELTA. Laughing

Sure I work for Cambridge ESOL Examinations and I have taken a CELTA, but I think if you want to get anywhere in the world you need to rub shoulders with those in power.

My sights are high and I take professional development very seriously. I hope you do as well.

bassexpander · Joined: 13 Sep 2007 Location: Someplace you'd rather be.

Have you thought, perhaps, that your world is not one that I am interested in? If I drop coin on anything, I'll be getting an MA-TESOL. For now, however, other plans and an entirely different career field may be in the mix. Teaching is not the be-all-end-all of my existence, and I don't consider myself a backpacker for feeling that way.

I'm glad your happy doing what you are doing. It's a good thing to feel motivated and excited about how your life is advancing.

agoodmouse · Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Location: Anyang

Who are these people?

Whistleblower · Joined: 03 Feb 2007

djsmithhpaul · Joined: 06 Mar 2009 Location: Pusan

I did my online TEFL a couple years back and none of it stuck. It was a joke. Just finished my CELTA in Vietnam and it was worth every penny. The trainers were just wizards in the class. There's a million things they evaluate you on. You could only become a better teacher by doing the CELTA.

The school told me how people come to them with a masters in TEFL but can't teach and they make them take the CELTA or get lost. Brilliant.

news · Joined: 03 Jul 2009

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

BTW Bass, you want to talk EXPENSIVE for a TESOL Certificate, check this out:

http://www.tc.edu/tesolcertificate/

Tuition is $6035 and your tuition balance is due by June 1st

Plus you have to pay for housing, food and airfare to New York. You're looking at over 10 grand for that certificate.

Alphonsus Jr. · Joined: 04 May 2012 Location: Los Angeles, CA

This is a most intriguing thread, particularly the comments by bassexpander on this page. Bringing the discussion up to date would be excellent.

edwardcatflap · Joined: 22 Mar 2009

Bassexpander doesn't post on here any more under that name. He was very anti-CELTA for one reason or another. In fact most of his copy and paste job made a lot of sense, though he was I think wrong in two ways. Firstly he always accused people who posted on here in support of doing a CELTA of trying to sell the CELTA or having a financial interest in it, which I know for a fact isn't true. He frequently accused them of trying to brainwash people, which is a bit ludicrous. Finally, in my opinion, he concentrated too much on the practical benefits of doing a CELTA (getting jobs in Korea) over its other benefits (making people better teachers) You tend to get these arguments from people who have never done a CELTA and are trying to justify not spending quite a lot of money on it to themselves.

Jimskins · Joined: 07 Nov 2007

Nice to see my old thread getting kicked up from years ago. I guess a timely update is due.

I did indeed come back to Korea, spent two years at a High School in Daegu and then got my first Uni job in Seoul. After 18 months of teaching at uni I decided some certifiable professional development was long overdue so did the CELTA intensively in January of this year during the vacation.

Despite having an MA and 4 and a half years of teaching experience I can say that it was the most worthwhile professional training I have ever done. Before I took the CELTA I regarded myself as a fairly conscientious teacher, I read my journals and ELT books, kept a teaching journal and all of my end of semester evaluations were good. But the CELTA has made me a much, much more effective teacher.

I did it at the IGSE in Seoul, it was probably the toughest course I've ever been through (including law school) and I thoroughly recommend people to study the CELTA there if possible. We were told by the independent (in terms of not being attached to any institution) assessor (these guys travel the world, checking each institution is up to the standard) that the IGSE course (in terms of the standard of teaching they expect) was the most rigorous he has ever seen. Indeed some of the lads on the course had friends doing the CELTA at the British Council and they were surprised to hear what we were going through, as their course was quite straight -forward. However this seems to be because the IGSE course is taught by Cambridge's "top man" in Asia, James Forrest, and he
explained to us that although the CELTA is designed for absolute novice teachers, they are aware that most people taking the intensive in Seoul already have teaching experience so they raise the bar. By my estimate only 1 in 10 of the classes taught by my colleagues and myself on the course received an "above standard" grade (I got two, for my final two classes, and was delighted).

It seems the people who struggle with the CELTA are usually those with the most teaching experience as they are stuck in their ways and find it hard to adjust to the "CELTA -style" (if there is one). Indeed they sometimes do not accept people onto the course for this reason. From day one I told myself to pretend I didn't know anything and just take it all in, but a couple of the older guys (also with MAs) struggled with the course. For those who might criticize and say "because even though they were teaching fine they weren't jumping through the CELTA hoops" -I observed several of their classes and some were indeed poor, by any standard. They passed, but I have subsequently met people with MAs who have failed the CELTA. MA + experience does not necessarily = good teacher.

Next stop for me is a DELTA in two years.

And yes, I am unashamedly a CELTA evangelist, but it worked wonders for me.

Just my two cents.