TEFL Courses
A TEFL Course is required for all teachers. If passed successfully then the trainee will receive a TEFL Certificate which is seen as the standard qualification in order to teach English in an entry level position along with a Degree.
Note that for practical purposes, a TEFL course is the same as a TESL course and a TEFL certificate the same as a TESL certificate.
Certificates are given out to successful students who have followed a short course in learning to teach English as a second or foreign language. These courses range in length and content.
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Accreditation
There are many kinds of TEFL certificates and each one is offered by a different school or organisation. In other words, there is no single body which oversees TEFL certificates and controls the content of the course.
Likewise there is no independent board of accreditation or assessment for certificates. This means that each institute, school, or organization recognizes their own Certificate and accreditation comes from good practice, professional standards and reputation.
Types of Certificate
Arguably the top-end certificate is the CELTA which is a certificate offered by Cambridge following an intense period of study and teaching practice. Along with CELTA the Trinity certificate is well regarded.
Some teacher training schools offer certificates. The duration depends on the school and although most are 4 weeks long, some may be held over a weekend, some part-time over much longer and some may mix in-house time with online elements.
Some schools offer online certificates, ICAL for example, where the entire course is taken online in the trainees own time.
Requirements
Although requirements to take a TEFL course vary, in most cases:
- you should be over 17 years old
- you should have a native speaker or very good command of English
There is not usually a requirement for a degree (although to get a decent job you will need this). Experience teaching can help during the course but since the certificate is an entry level qualification it's not usually required.
Course Length
Often course length is cited. For example an advertisement may ask for a TEFL Course of 100 hours. These figures are generally quite meaningless and can often be ignored as course providers will include arbitrary "extra" hours of home study to boost this number.
Whilst you can look at the actual classroom time or teaching practice time, what is important is the content of the course, not how long it takes to do the work.
Content
Most courses will include elements of:
- introduction to TEFL/TESL
- teaching methodology and approaches to language learning
- needs analysis and student makeup
- language skills
- syllabus, lesson planning and language presentation
- teaching practice; classroom management
- suitable resources, employment
There is also often an element of Teaching Practice where students will take a lesson and have it assessed by an experienced tutor.
Choosing a Course
There are many different courses. When choosing a course, bear the following in mind:
- Do you have experience? The top end courses like CELTA are very intensive and a few years teaching experience will help a great deal before taking a course like this.
- How much can you spend? Most courses are around the 1,000 USD mark; if you don't have this kind of money then look online.
- Do you live near a school offering a course? You might have to go elsewhere to take a course; this will boost your costs.
- DO you have a job lined up? When a course provider offers a guaranteed job with the course, view this with a healthy dose of suspicion.
- Do you need Teaching Practice? Online courses don't provide this (in general although some do) so check.
- Who are the teachers? Make sure the course has well qualified and experienced teachers who can help with both the course material and teaching in general along with information outside the course such as what it is like to teach in various countries, etc.
Finally, before choosing a course type in the course provider and scam into Google to see what comes up. There are some very good course providers out there but also a few dodgy ones so it is best to be sure. (See Scams for more on this.)
