ESL Jobs Forum

[tucker]

Has anyone taken a course online and had success in getting employment? I'm weary about the idea.

[Guy Courchesne]

Online TESL/TEFL courses are probably not the best way to go if this is your first time thinking about teaching abroad. Practice teaching is a critical factor for employers, who will always give preference to those with experience.

There are a few online course providers who have a teaching practicum or internship program attached to the online study, but very few. Global Education Corp is one, i-to-i has something (but you have to be in England) and Teachers Latin America has internships in Mexico.
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[HenryTeach]

I'm more positive than Guy on this. Without doubt you can get a job in many places with an online TESL Cert. In fact, I personally think that if money's a bit tight it's a good way to get your foot in the door and then, if you like the job, go off and get a diploma or something like that.

ICAL and i-to-i are the best for online. Some others are a bit 'dodgy'.

Henry
www.free-esl.com

[Bahiya]

I completed an online course with i-to-i last October and got employed right after, although I am not a native speaker. I presently work for three language schools in Germany, teaching Business English in companies. Okay, I must admit I didn't get the jobs based on my i-to-i diploma alone. I have a M.A. in English and 19 years of job experience as a translater, interpreter and personal assistant - for the language schools my professional background and experience were important for teaching business English. I must stress, however, that two of the schools insisted on a TEFL-diploma in addition to
a M.A. or translater's degree in English (but that's a must for all non-native speakers, though).

[rakozy]

I have to agree with Guy. While you may be able to receive quality learning experiences related to ESL on-line, it's the actual in-class teaching experiences which ESL school offer which give you confidence. There is nothing like the "real thing" when it comes to working with groups.

Individual qualifications play a large part in how attractive you may be to an perspective employer. If you come to the table with a degree in English or have previous teaching experience, then adding an ESL certification to your resume/CV is all the better.

The school I attended was ITTO in Guadalajara, Mexico. They offer "lifetime" job placement after graduation. Their reputation, contacts and assistance in preparing for your interviews is worth it's weight in GOLD!

In my case, I opened my own ESL learning center. After receiving my EFL certification from ITTO, my wife and I returned to the States and conduct ESL classes in the evening in Minnesota where is a large number of Spanish speaking people looking to learn english.

Best of luck in finding quality employment. I hope this perspective was helpful.

www.speakbiz.com is our website.
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Bill Rakozy

[arro]

Obviously employers prefer experience but that applies to any job, not just teaching. Yes more experience of teaching can be gained completing an in-classroom TEFL course but this doesnt necessarily mean that it'll give you the confidence to teach, this really depends on your personality and nothing else!! Nothing can prepare you for standing in front of a class of 50 students and teaching for 'real' for the first time but your personality will be the difference and will determine whether you're successful or not! I completed an online TEFL course, got a job straight away in China and now have a job in Osaka, Japan. On day one I was confident standing in front of the class and have loved teaching ever since. To be honest TEFL didnt give me any confidence and I havent used anything that I learnt on the course, it has simply enabled me to gain employment in a field that would not be open to me if I hadnt!! I would definitely recommend doing an online course and if your personality is right you should feel confident about getting a job too, it's all about believing in yourself, your own abilities and selling yourself to employers, in my opinion, TEFL simply gives you the platform to build on.

[callingcolin]

Hi,

I've been working in Central America for a few years now. I have a B.A. and an online certificate from a smaller school Wave of English.

Here's what I found:

The people that I work with all have different qualifications from different places. There's one girl who has a CELTA. She refuses to teach anything but straight grammar classes to adults. So, she has the most internationally recognized certificate but she can't do anything. Then there is an assortment of people who have online certificiates. There is a big difference in what kind of information these people all brought from their certificate courses. One guy did ICAL, and can pretty much design a needs analysis for a fake class, but that's all. Another person from Bridge Lingua Tec says that all they did was write essays, so she doesn't know anything practical. I, however, did a Wave of English course and I know all sorts of things that the other onlines don't know. In meetings I'm able to hold my own with the CELTAs and they aren't.

So, originally I didn't know if I wanted to do this long term, so I didn't want to spend the money upfront on a CELTA or TEFL. With a B.A. and an online certificate I had no problem getting a job. Now, I know that I like TESOL, so I applied to Trinity to take their Diploma course. They're like one of the top TESOL places. They didn't even blink at the online certificate. It wasn't an issue at all. I'm on the course now, with no problems.

I mean, come on, there's no regulating body or anything on online courses (and lots of residentials too). And there are some expensive residential courses that pretty much throw together a program to charge money too. I'd say just do research. Ask people.

[maggiesmama]

Hi everyone,

I noticed mention of MODERATED as a company that offers TEFL training attached to internships. It is true, but beware of MODERATED !!!!!

MODERATED has been rated UNSATISFACTORY by the Better Business Bureau because they have had 24 complaints in the past 36 months! MODERATED


I have personally lost $5,145 to MODERATED and never got anything from them. Because of their deceptive, unethical and unprofessional tactics, I was forced to cancel my participation in November 2005 but MODERATED never refunded me the money they promised me. MODERATED

Please feel free to contact me if you need more information or if you too have been screwed by MODERATED . I am already in contact with about 8 people who have also lost money or had bad experiences with MODERATED and it is our hope that we can join together to get justice.

Please spread the word and do yourself a huge favor. Avoid MODERATED at all costs!

Contact me for names and places

Quote:

NOTE FROM MODERATORS: Let's please keep slamming specific companies to a minimum in this forum. Take the specifics off-forum.

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Shannon Harvey

[Marta]

Well, I can't speak from my own experience but a friend of mine took a TESOL course with Oxford Seminars and has now been teaching in Japan for the last two years. She said it really helped her out as they give a job guarantee. I will admit I'm slightly wary too, but I've signed up to take the course as well seeing as it does get good reviews. Hope this helps.
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if anyone knows of interesting teaching jobs anywhere in Europe please message me, I'd love to hear about it!

[akkinney]

I'm in the same boat as Tucker...

I have been volunteering teaching in a local elementary, working one on one with a first grade student, and then I spend Sunday afternoons teaching English in a trailer park to several adult immigrants.

...I'm planning on taking the i-to-i course online this summer and then heading down to South America to teach.

I am wondering if anyone could provide a little more information on the good and bad of i-to-i and what sort of things I should try t o pick up on my own before I go.

Also I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been writting on this forum....having ya'll for guidance has been amazing for me, and has really helped build up my courage to go out there.

-Amanda

[HenryTeach]

[arro]

I completed my TEFL Course online through i-to- and I found them to be very good. I haven't got personal experience of other online TEFL companies so have nothing to compare them with but judging by some of the responses posted on this forum there are some cowboys out there, of which i-to-i are definitely not!

I personally have nothing bad to say about i-to-i, I found my personal tutor to be extremely helpful and efficient, always replying to me within 24hrs including weekends. After completion I received my certificate within 2 weeks and they posted it to China for me as that is where I was working at the time.

As for the course itself, there are 10 modules, some are easier than others but how easy you find them really depends on your knowledge of grammar. You could find some modules really difficult but it's multiple choice and if you get it wrong you get to have another go, I had to re-do one module luckily only once but I believe you get as many goes as you want and have six months to complete the course.

The course didn't teach me anything about handling a classroom situation but then nothing except 'actual' classroom experience can prepare you for standing in front of 50 Chinese students as I did but I was confident that I had the personality to be a successful EFL Teacher, breezed through my first lesson and have loved it ever since.

You asked if there is anything you should try to pick up yourself before you go, some people may disagree with me but personally I think the most important factor is confidence! Knowing your subject breeds confidence and as long as you believe that your knowledge of the English language is high enough you'll be alright. When foreigners learn English they often learn verbs, nouns and adjectives very early, things which we were taught as children and haven't thought about since. It's important that you don't slip up when asked about these things, the last thing you want to do is have a student correct you!

The closest I have come to being corrected is on spelling of certain words, I am English so spell words the 'correct way' ha ha....but often students learn American-English ie 'flavor' instead of 'flavour' and 'organize' instead of 'organise' etc. I was quick to correct them but I could see from the look on their faces that they were dying to get one over on me, fortunately i'm still winning, just!!

Hope this was useful?? Good luck.

Arro

[aurinda]

Hi everyone
I have done some research myself because I am interested in doing an online course as well. I have found these:
_Global English - http://www.global-english.com
_ i-to-i - http://www.onlinetefl.com/
_ London Teacher Training College - http://www.teachenglish.co.uk
This last one is not very good, at least when it comes to the course "Advanced Certificate in English Grammar". It is a 20h-course, in pratical terms I only read a long text and did 3 small assignments - one of them was really small, another one was easy and the other one was a problem, because I don't think that the text I read was clear enough to do the task. The tutor helped me and I sent the task; I received only a general feedback - like two sentences or so! Then I was waiting for the next text to read but I got very surprised when I was told that the course had finished - it was only a one-unit-course!!! That was not a very good experience and it was not as cheap as that, I mean, for a so short course!
Now I am wondering which one is the best, i-to-i or Global English? The content of both courses is rather extensive and both ask the student to do a variety of tasks. The ones by Global English are longer and consequently they are cheaper than i-to-i. But i-to-i seems more interactive than the other one.
Has someone heard of Global English or attended a course there before?
I will appreciate your help.
Kind regards from Portugal...

[HenryTeach]

There are several here:

http://free-esl.com/channels/ttc/location2.asp?fLevel=20Certificate&fLocation=Online
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www.Free-ESL.com

[minuit3101]

Aloha, from Maui!
I am thinking about taking one of these online courses. Thank you all for such great advice on this forum!

My question is whether any of the online schools offer job placement services. Also, I have been reading posts on Dave's ESL café and getting a bit discouraged about being American (even more-so than I have been since the last election javascript:emoticon('')). Many talk about needing to have an EU passport. Is this true?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Denise