Helping Out a Friend

Hi Guys,

I know there are a lot of crummy places to get ESL certification so I'm trying to help out my friend. He's looking to start teaching English in a couple months and wants to get one of these online courses.

He said he found a company called TEFL Express, based out of the UK and said that he is thinking about using it.

I can't find very much information about this company, so I'm hoping that somebody in our forum has heard of them and can give some advise. If not them, does anybody know another (RELIABLE) online TEFL certification course?

Thanks a lot.


Laurie

They say that you can get "an academically sound qualification which is highly valued internationally", but who is it that values their qualifications this much? There's quite a lot of advertising puffery on the site, but I didn't come away feeling particularly impressed.

Some employers won't even look at you with an online qualification, no one is asking for them, and it is clear that the qualification that gets people jobs is the CELTA, with Trinity as the junior partner. This site also offers the CELTA, and their teaching operation is recognised, so they're probably one of the better ones, but online qualifications offer restricted employment and earning potential. If your friend gets the CELTA, they can work pretty much anywhere and apply for any job, except university and specialist work. If they get the online qualification, they can't. It's a false economy to me- if they want to have a chance of getting reasonable jobs, then get what the employers want.

Laurie Stanford said:

... does anybody know another (RELIABLE) online TEFL certification course?

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I agree with all that Tdol wrote, but Cambridge is developing an online CELTA course which may be worth looking at:

Cambridge CELTA Course Online – FAQs

Note that this course still involves observed teaching practice. Any course that does not have this element is not worth the paper it is printed on to most employers.

That's an option, though I still think it may end up not being as highly regarded as the mainstream course.

That's possible, though I imagine that the same certificate will be awarded.

Any employer that will accept you with a (non-teaching practice) online certificate will accept you with no certificate whatsoever, so don't bother.

fivejedjon said:

That's possible, though I imagine that the same certificate will be awarded.

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Yeah, that's correct. We asked the Cambridge guy about it when we were doing our CELTA. Although I'm still pretty sure employers will be able to find out easily enough. I do think there's going to be something lost in the lack of actually being there. Those workshops aren't just about what your instructors are teaching, they also deliberately use many of the techniques and activities you're expected to bring to your own teaching.

That's my concern; if employers start asking about it in interviews, then it may come to be seen as CELTA-lite, or the less practical version.

Laurie, I did my CELTA through TEFL Express, not bad at all, friendly people and it got me to where I want to be. They offer online courses however not for CELTA of course.
Tell your friend I'd recommend it for sure.

I've personally known 2 people who have taught English abroad. Both of them did an online qualification and both of them thought they had been ripped off. Employers wouldn't recognise it and they ended up with poor jobs with the people who issued the certificate.

Just one of the reasons why I have opted for a CELTA course. If money is tight tell your friend to scrimp and save, beg, borrow (but not steal) money from family and friends, it's a much better investment.

Or just work in Korea where they don't care about qualifications. ;-)

Actually, a year in Korea is a good way to save enough money to do the course. Taiwan too.