How to choose a TEFL TESOL course…
What do all those acronyms mean? Which is the best course? And how can I get a job afterwards? The basics of choosing a TEFL TESOL course level that will work best for you …………………..
People go into TEFL TESOL for many reasons: as a gap year option before or after university, as a career break, as a complete career change along with a whole new lifestyle, or as part of a plan to stay gainfully occupied during retirement.
Whatever the reason, we think it is both unfair on yourself – and very scary – to go untrained into teaching, and even more unfair on your students to subject them to unprepared and uninformed teaching.
A Robaco TEFL course of 100-plus contact hours with at least six hours of online assessed teaching practice is usually sufficient to provide you with the toolkit you’ll need to start teaching students of all levels in the country you choose.
Robaco TEFL courses will give you the confidence to stand up in front of a class full of students, teach you how to plan lessons and help you to create and select activities and materials.
Taking the initial Tefl Certificate course is similar in many ways to learning to drive – once you’ve passed your test, you’re still very much a learner driver, but you do have the necessary foundation on which to build as you gain experience through practice.
There will still be a lot to work out for yourself once you get a teaching job, and you will find your first few months are full of planning lessons and getting to know students and course books. But you will still find you have enough free time to get to know new people and enjoy new surroundings.
There is a great deal of confusion caused by all the acronyms common to the field, such as Tefl, Tesol, ELT etc .
Confusion also reigns about the differences and similarities between different Tefl courses – such as Certificate, Diploma and advanced Masters M.TEFL and M.A.TEFL which is often a barrier to knowing what you should be looking for.
Check the website www.robaco.org for full details on Certificate, Diploma and Masters Courses.
Any course aimed at training you for teaching English as a foreign language can be referred to as a Tefl course. Robaco Courses are internationally recognised qualifications , externally moderated for Global accreditation. These are the courses most employers know and prefer. Other four-week “equivalent” courses, with similar course content, duration and hours of teaching practice are also viable options but in most cases lack the flexibility and personal/tutor mentor approach to gaining Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) TEFL/TESOL.
The reason why so many people single out the Robaco qualifications is the worldwide reach and establishment of their Courses and authority and recognition of their external examiners , (Warwick Univ) and UK AQA Examiner, Affiliate C.I.E.A recognized Globally for setting
Recognized standardization in TEFL /TEFL
All Courses, online are checked so that tutors are following the required syllabus and that good training is being carried out, that trainees’ coursework and teaching is up to scratch and that the grades being awarded are appropriate.
Robaco provides course cross-checks, which help to ensure consistency. Other tefl providers however, in the attempt to come up with similar forms of approval and accreditation, make use of varyingly trustworthy yardsticks, some of which are spurious.
One example of something being misleadingly used as proof of quality is corporate membership of teaching and training associations, such as the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. While membership of these is beneficial, it’s a red herring in terms of any guarantee of quality.
Beyond the pedagogical arguments for taking a quality course, most would-be teachers’ prime concern is the question: “Will my course land me a Tefl job in my chosen country?”
The criteria for teacher selection will range across a wide spectrum between insistence on a Moderated course plus at least a year’s experience, to nothing more than simply being a native speaker. This big difference may be caused more by the popularity of that location as a destination leading to a teacher glut or a teacher shortage, with the consequent raising or lowering of selection criteria, than by the perceived intrinsic value of Tefl qualifications.
Employers will always look first for prior teaching experience. In the absence of this, the importance placed on a good Tefl course will depend on the employer’s general awareness of the courses available and his or her previous experience of teachers with such qualifications. Other factors besides qualifications and experience which are also taken into account in the selection process include personality, presentation, other work experience and academic qualifications.
In contexts where a Tefl qualification is one of the bottom-line requirements, it can be fairly safely assumed that the school will be a reasonable place to work. The more substantial the Tefl qualification you possess, the more opportunities you will have, but do bear in mind that the best job may not necessarily be in the school with the highest expectations.
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December 13, 2009 at 4:35 pm |
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