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Q: TEFL or not TEFL
I am coming to Shenzhen in August. Local (U.S.) institute offers TEFL over serval weekends for $1195. Is it worth it to spend that money and time? Please give me your experience. How much you can learn on three weekend, really?
12 years 42 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
There is no standard for TEFL that I know of. Check several sources; training is also available in-country. Googling TEFL or TESL or TESOL and the other similar abbreviations will disclose a lot. There's a LinkedIn group for it (several actually) where you might get some anecdotes. Seems that 120 hours is the magic number for course length.
Shining_brow:
"There is no standard for TEFL that I know of. Check several sources; " WTF?? Trinity College and Cambridge CELTA aren't 'standard'??
Is the on-line lesson good enough? There is hugh price diffenence not to mention time convenience for on-line lesson vs. classroom TEFL.
Are they any different once you get the cert?
Well Johathan, I guess it really depends. I did the on-line course then did two practicums. One in Beijing and one in Shanghai. Cost me an arm and a leg, the schools I worked for really were only interested in seeing a piece of paper that said TEFL, I have both TEFL and TESOL. So i spent a lot of money for nothing really. I say this because the TEFL methodolgies are great but i have yet to find any use to them in China. I teach subjects now so it doesn't matter but when I first began in ESL I was more of a monkey than a teacher.
Waste of time and money but it does open certain employment doors otherwise closed.
Some schools get watched closely and need nicer paperwork on TEFL to show the watchers. Some school staff are hierarchy oriented and prefer to hire advanced degrees and more advanced TEFL/TESOL. So it depends.
TEFL is good if you don't want to take the course than take TESOL. I took the Tesol Course and it helps out tremendously. You also feel more confident in your abilities as they teach you about circumstances and scenarios. They also have teaching strategies and have sitting arrangements in the class that should work best for you.
Simple answer (6 months late...) if you want teachign English to be a career move, or you want to teach in places other than China and other 'developing' nations, to the whole hog, and do a CELTA or Trinity TESOL. Ignore everything else, no matter how good the deal looks! CELTA tends to be around $2000 (usually a little more), takes at least 4 weeks full time, is intensive, and can burn you out... but you learn stuff (especially if you've never done it before), you will feel confident in your abilities to teach, and you are very marketable to decent places to work - ie, better conditions and pay. You could make that $2000 back pretty quickly.
If all you're interested in is coming here for a year or 2 for some adventure, then get back to your life - just do the shortest and cheapest. It will get ignored in most places where they care, and don't expect a great salary or conditions.
Did my CELTA and have used very little of it in China; if you want to make a career out of ESL be very wary of who you decide to work for. If you just want to experience China for a year or two and then return home, don't waste your money on CELTA, just do an online TEFL -- that'll give you all the 'teacherish' foundations you might need.
