Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello All!
I am taking the BridgeTefl.com IDELT-BL(60 hours online/2 weeks onsite in Rio). I am unable to take the 4-week course due to work priorities and was told I will only be receiving 3-hours of actual teaching experience. I realize most canidates that are most sought after need a minimum of 6 hours of teaching experience.
Can anyone advise as to how I can attain more hours of teaching exp?
I am open to volunteer work as well, as long as I can have it accredited to qualified teaching to add to my resume.
Also, BridgeTelf offers a 40-hr 'Grammar Advisor' cert. for an additional $95...is this a good idea?
Thanks to all for any advice offered!
Regards,
Zack Linstrom

Hi Zack! I'd advise that you browse if not sign up to the International Job Forums/Job Discussion Forums (it requires a vetting of your application to join, but is straightforward enough) in order to get a range of opinions on such matters, but for now I guess it'll be just me responding here, so I'll say the following ('irresponsible' and 'disrespectful' of "standards" though it may sound!*):

If the difference between three and six hours observed teaching practice were really what made or unmade teachers then there'd be fewer people walking around with these certs (the important thing I think is that you were onsite and being generally trained and in contact with, and able to ask questions of etc, experienced trainers, for a couple of weeks); that is, you may get lucky and get hired through stating that you have 'some' (any!) OTP/observed teaching practice ('hours' of it), meaning I'd avoid spelling out that it was only three...and if the certificate (actual piece of paper awarded) itself doesn't specify (which it may well not) then why should you! "Get creative" if and when you can!

But if the worst comes to the worst and the certificate is explicit as to hours of completed OTP (thereby doing you the customer no real favours) and/or an employer somehow susses the "true" facts, then it may indeed be hard to get into teaching (at least in the snootier schools) and thus accruing the work experience.

The way that ELT qualifications are awarded (or rather, protected as wannabe monopolies), there unfortunately isn't AFAIK any way that further teaching practice (or indeed, genuine teaching) can be accredited once you've finished whichever cert, meaning (like I was suggesting above) that probably the only way to get beyond the potential "only 3 hours OTP" problem will be to get hired and start your career proper (making it a sort of Catch-22, eh). But by all means go for volunteer teaching or whatever in the interim (if that is that seems available), just so long as you don't like I say unnecessarily later mention (when pursuing the "proper" jobs) that you did the volunteer stuff to somehow compensate for limited OTP.

*You may find this fairly recent thread quite interesting reading:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=79538