Korean Job Discussion Forums

cflames7 · Joined: 21 May 2009

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on Dave's ESL Cafe. But I have been lurking for a while.

I was just offered a teaching position with SMOE. YAY!

I am looking to take a TESL course to prepare for the job and also to increase my pay bracket from 1.8 to 2.0 million won.

I have spoken with different recruiters, some have said that ITTT online courses are recognized by SMOE, others have said they are not. I am unclear.

So I have a series of questions.

1. Is the ITTT 100 hour TESL Certification Course recognized by the SMOE and acceptable for receiving a remuneration increase.

2. Would you recommend the 100 hour course with tutor (no final exam), or the 100 hour course without tutor (final exam)?

3. The offer right now is that if you take the course with tutor ($100 more), they will give you a free course: Teaching English to Young Learners, or Teaching Business English. Would this offer change your answer to question 2?

4. I will be teaching Elementary/Secondary/High school. With free course should I take under option 3 if I choose that path? (I realize that the Young Learners course is more applicable to my situation, but I have also heard that it is impressive to be able to teach Business English).

Thanks for the feedback!

cflames7 · Joined: 21 May 2009

Bump.

Nobody has any ideas to any of my questions?

I would really appreciate any help, as i would like to register for a course within the next few days.

Thanks

Scouse Mouse · Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Location: Cloud #9

I don't know about ITTT, but I think they probably are recognised.

I do know that KEISIE are recognised by the government as they are Korean Govt. registered. They offer a cheap 100 hour online course that I took and I qualified for the government increase. It is managed by one of the posters on this board, tob55

You can find out information here (the 100 hour course is listed at the botton). It costs $150 or 200K Korean if you are in country.

prideofidaho · Joined: 19 Mar 2008

My partner did his TESL cert through ITTT and it was recognised (about a year ago). Not sure if that still stands. Don't see why not.

thekakapo · Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: Seoul, Korea

I did ITTT and it worked out just fine- got that 200K bump with no problems. Just had to bring my certificate to Jon Pak and get a new contract.

I did it with a tutor, which was a bit more expensive but which was fine by me since I hate big projects.

prideofidaho · Joined: 19 Mar 2008

Kakapo, did you do it mid-contract? I have an ongoing experiment in procrastination called a 40 hour bump up to 100 hour TESL module...and I'm not sure if it's worth it at this point...only signing on for one more year.

Sorry to hijack, but OP might want to know if they accept it mid-contract too.....

TwoFold · Joined: 31 Mar 2009

My wife and I recently finished the ITTT course online without tutor support. They basically send you all the lessons in an email which you can read at your own pace. Each lesson has a worksheet that goes with it. There was no real need to do the worksheets since they are not handed in or graded (plus we were too lazy to do them).

Once you are done with all the lessons and you feel comfortable taking the final exam you ask them to send you a download link. Once you download the final exam, you have 24 hours to complete it.

Fair warning: The test is 18 pages of essay and takes a really long time if you are thorough in your answers (like we were). Plan to have the entire 24 hours set aside for taking the test just in case something goes wrong!

The course was pretty straight forward and we felt like we actually learned a lot from it (which we didn't think we would). The final was a real pain due to its length (wasn't difficult), but I would rather have it that way than have to pay the extra cash for a tutor that I heard doesn't do much for you at all. The only benefit for having a tutor is that you don't have to take a final exam. The downside is that you have to do those stupid worksheets. So in the end you're really doing the same amount of work either way I guess.

alphakennyone · Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Location: city heights

Haha, the final exam is a joke. They used terminology in the exam that they seldom used during the course and one of the questions asked me to list the equipment available for a teacher to use - and the pros and cons of each. I rolled my eyes at that one and gave them a big, fat "etc"

Don't bother with the tutor support. Skim over the lessons over the course of a week or two, and yes, set aside a full day for the pain in the neck final.