Archive for the ‘Teaching qualifications’ Category

These are the questions I have collected so far. Comments are blocked until Bruce has answered them, but you can email me with further questions if you wish- see the “Contact me” link on the main page of the blog.

Professional status and reputation

Are there people with just a TEFL International Cert working for the British Council? International House? Bell? British Council certified schools in the UK? Using it as the entrance requirements for a DELTA?

Are your schools in the UK British Council certified?

IATQUO- What is it, what does it do, how was it set up, what is its connection to TEFL International, how do you ensure its independence, is all this information easily available to people who might need to know? Why bother giving it a different name? Have you made attempts to make it more general, e.g. contacting similar organisations?

TEFL International’s association with the University of Washington

Qualifications and experience of teacher trainers

Teacher training experience with other organisations? Any ex-CELTA trainers?

Publications? Involvement with IATEFL and TESOL?
Have there been examples of trainers without the “more than 5 years and post graduate qualification” minimum standards you mentioned?

What counts as a suitable post graduate qualification?

How can you check all this in every TEFL International training centre?
Structure of TEFL International and connections to other businesses

Headquarters of US charity and number of people who work there full time

Number of employees of the TEFL International US non-profit

How and how often is it checked by the local authorities?

Who decides how much everyone gets paid, including yourself?

Can you be dismissed?

Is there a board of trustees? Are any of them high status people from outside TEFL?

Do you or your wife own a share of or have a paid director’s position in any of the for-profit TEFL International organisations?

Innovative Solutions- What is it, what does it do, what is its connection to TEFL International, how do you ensure its independence, is all this information easily available to people who might need to know?

A lot of the flack seems to come from people who had business dealings that later fell through, e.g. India. Can you give us some major examples of when this happened and the story of what happened in each case?

The other major group seems to be companies that were taken over by TEFL International. Again, can you give us some stories?

How is it possible for a non-profit to take over a for-profit organisation?

TEFL International and the law

Some court cases you’ve been involved in

Some you are involved in now

Have you threatened people with court action or calling the police without doing so?

Do you trust the police and court system in all the countries you work in?

Is it possible in a developing country to keep within the laws of the American state you are registered as a charity in and still successfully do business?

TEFL International and the Internet

Looking at what has happened in the comments to the first interview, can you see my point about just leaving them to it usually being the best approach for the management of the company being talked about?

Looking back, can you think of times when it would’ve been better not to have commented on TEFL blogs and forums?

Have you written some things you’ve later regretted?

Specifically, I’ve seen at least one comment claiming to be from you about sleeping with dogs. Was that a rush of blood to the head, taken out of context, not really from you?

Your relationship with Dave’s ESL Café

Dave’s has got a relationship for having some policies and moderators that have driven people away to use and set up other sites where they are more free to say what they like. Can you see where those ideas are coming from?

Your relationship with ESL Judge

Do you personally know the person who set it up?

How and at what stage did you get involved in funding it?

Why does the site still not give such information?

Can you log into the owner’s part of the site?

Misc

Could post-course feedback be improved, if only to take away ammunition from people who claim it’s unfair? For example, could it be left until after people have got their certificates, if only as an option or as a second lot of feedback after people have had a chance to reflect on their experience?

Have you or anyone else connected in any way to TEFL International contacted your critics’ workplaces or families?

Did you promise to retire? Are you semi-retired? Why/ why not/ how etc?

As is my role as the navelgazer of TEFL, having had to take a close look at the battleground that is the teflnet recently has made me wonder whether something deeper is going on. Do I hear “class war” as an explanation? I’m never one to rule that out, but my theory is that, as is often the case with these arguments that go on forever, we are actually talking two different languages.

As me and Sandy have been doing more than our fair share of trying to see the TEFL capitalists’ point of view recently, let’s see if I can’t try and explain our particular (and peculiar) culture and viewpoint to them:

 - If you are a successful businessman who heads a large company, for many people that is enough to make you the enemy. and there is nothing you can do to change their minds. For example, how many people have admitted they were wrong about Bill Gates’s evil empire just because he has turned into Mother Theresa? That’s right- none! It could be due to a philosophy of class war or other political reasons, it could be bitterness, but it’s usually a version of the tall poppy syndrome. I personally think that the tall poppy syndrome is healthy, and while it suggests an abandonment of logic it’s no worse than the ‘rich and successful = good’ culture of the rest of the world (more…)

This interview was conducted by email over the last week or so, with me submitting the main outline and then asking a few back up questions when the main answers came back. My questions are in bold, and the ”back up” questions and answers are in italics.

1. A brief history of your career
This was covered in a recent interview in the BKK Post but here it is again:

I began life in a completely different field—selling industrial equipment and negotiating Joint Ventures in China.  When the company I worked for had a problem with our customer in China, I was sent to Hong Kong to resolve it. 
When the company went under, I was somewhat abandoned in Hong Kong. 

The job market back home was not that good (and my field was very specialized) so I thought I would look for a job in Hong Kong.  A friend suggested I teach English to earn some money to pay the rent.

Before long I was teaching full time and loving it!  I then started opening small schools around Hong Kong.  But after several years I was burned out.  Married by then with a small child, we decided to move to Thailand.  Soon afterwards I decided to pen up a TESOL course.  The main purpose was to find and train qualified teachers for the schools in Hong Kong!  But after some initial success I decided to expand.

2.    A brief history of TEFL International, the secret of its success and the principles behind it

Started out as a Trinity course.  After some differences of opinion with the CE of Trinity at the time, we became independent on 1 Jan 2000.  As a small, newly independent school, I decided that the only way we could credibly tell our students that our course was internationally recognized was to be truly international.  Thus, the rapid expansion.

3.    A list of some of the things that TEFL International does now
 ·         TESOL Courses
·         Volunteer Programs
·         Guaranteed Jobs programs
·         Teacher Training for local teachers (usually through the Thai Ministry of Education)
·         Teach/learn language programs
·         Teach/Intern programs
 
4. Can you give some details of TI’s charity/non-profit status and structure

First of all, we do not need to be a non-profit.  We could avoid all taxes by moving our base to some offshore tax shelter.  And it’s not like I enjoy having all of our accounts (including my salary) available to the public.  But we work with universities and universities feel better working with a non profit than a for profit.  Plus, we do a lot of things that non profits do like real volunteer work and assistance for the less fortunate. 

I do not know a lot about US tax laws (which are extremely complex).  But every year we have to hire a special accountant to do our taxes and submit them to the IRS to ensure we continue to meet US non-profit status. (more…)

Here are some questions I need answers to in order to make up my mind once and for all about TEFL International:

1.  A brief history of Bruce’s career

2.  A brief history of TEFL International, the secret of its success and the principles behind it

3.  A list of all the things that TEFL International does now

4.  TI’s charity/non-profit status and structure (more…)

I’d love to believe that the collective efforts of TEFL bloggers and website owners were working towards building a tefl internet where a word or two on Google will be worth more than asking people you know for recommendations for TEFL qualifications, schools and countries to work in, and teaching techniques and materials to use. Unfortunately, I think the present and near future reality is not so ideal.

Starting with a simple and practical example, would you be better off spending 20 minutes searching on the Internet for suitable worksheets, or should you spend that time trawling through the teachers’ room bookshelves and asking other teachers? If my own experience and the people who arrive on my blogs looking for something that isn’t there are anything to go by, I’d leave that keyboard alone.

And now to the more complex question of trying to find out something about, for example, training with and/or working with TEFL International in Thailand. What are the chances that an Internet search will give you the information you need? The answer is clear… (more…)

…some other people, however, think this is enough:

“You do not need a teaching background or prior experience to become…an…ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) tutor….ESOL Tutor Certification Workshop: 6:30-9:30 p.m. Aug. 12, 13, and 14. ”

You’re thinking some guy in a beach hut in Thailand with an internet connection trying to make a quick buck, right? Nope, American public sector, which it seems is more underfunded than a typical UK summer camp…

From today’s The Independent*

‘“Culturally, China is so different from the UK or any other western country,” says Sarah Wilson, training consultant at Cactus Tefl, which offers tired and pointless comments about TEFL to any newspaper that they publish their adverts in’ (more…)

Hi, I’ve just read your DELTA experiences and wondered if you could advise me on the best course to take. I’ve been teaching for 12 years (PGCE and Degree in English) - 6 years in Comprehensives in the UK and 6 years in France at a Lycée and University. I’m now back in the UK teaching in a Comp and want to get back into TAL or TEFL……which type of course would you recommend? I’ve been told there are 4 possibilities:
 
RSA Trinity
CELTA
DELTA
MEd TESOL
 
I’m going to be in the UK for the next 5 years so I would be teaching here rather than abroad.
 
Thanks,
 
Diane

———————-

Any advice for Diane anyone?

Noticing that two of my three nominations for TEFL bad boy of the century have been involved in selling 4 week TEFL courses of limited career worth has made me wonder whether the whole non-CELTA non-Trinity lot of them have been nothing but another nail in the coffin of TEFL being taken seriously. I have motivations for wanting to think otherwise as I did send 100 or so people out into the world to end up cursing themselves, me or the course provider when some of them were inevitably told “We don’t care what your training consisted of, we only accept Cambridge Certs.”

The other disadvantages of the plethora of “equivalent” courses individually are well known, and can probably best be understood as the TEFL equivalent of knock off DVDs-usually cheaper, usually inferior quality to some extent, sometimes nothing like what you thought you were getting. Like pirate DVDs, though, collectively their effect on the whole industry is mainly to stop the “legitimate” providers getting up themselves and charging what they like.

Here some examples of the ways I have seen the changes in the market as a positive response to a bit of law of the jungle capitalist competition:

-More CELTA and Trinity courses available in cheaper countries,something that was lead by other course providers-and in fact quite a few of the ones which are Trinity now started off as such

-More additional services like airport pickup, lifetime job seeking help, accommodation etc

-Advertising in more unconvential places, ie not just the Guardian

- A healthy scepticism about 4 week courses in general-mainly prompted by the seedier, but also keeping C and T on their toes and always having to justify the quality of their courses

-Cambridge has been forced to keep the CELTA as a stand alone practical teaching qualification, whereas their own professional and commercial logic might have allowed them to jump on every trendy methodology or convert the CELTA into an intro to the DELTA

- The fact that the majority of course providers have settled on 4 weeks as the standard (hugely better than two weeks, at which point trainees have usually improved their standard of lessons little if at all, and not much worse than even 8 weeks, at which point trainees have long passed saturation point ). This has provided the idea of a month practical teaching course as an alternative to an (often impractical) 1 year MA with a legitimacy it wouldn’t have had if it was C and T

- The fact that C and T can point at being better than certain dodgy operators takes away the emphasis on being worse than a PGCE

It occurs to me that I’m having it both ways a bit here, but what are blogs for if not thinking aloud… Any other answers to the original question to help me sort my logic out anyone?

“In order to teach English in a private language school you need to be able to speak English fluently and have a certificate from either Trinity or RSA CELTA. These courses are around 4 weeks long and can even be completed online.”

(more…)