6 Ways TEFL Certificate Courses Try to Rip You Off – Part 1
The first of hopefully a new batch of guest author pieces, this one sent to me by “TEFLista”
“No doubt, there are a lot of dodgy TEFL certificate courses out there, but have you ever stopped for a minute to ponder the question why? By definition, a TEFL cert course is an entry-level qualification and a person is not supposed to know anything about TEFL before taking one, and therein sits the root of the problem. And as the saying goes, a fool and her money are soon parted. This article points out some of more common ways that the TEFL sharks try to pull the wool over your eyes and get you to sign-up for their courses.
1. Haystack Without a Needle, Bait and Switch
Let’s face it – the idea of going overseas to take a course is cool, but many people are too quick to pick a course based mostly on an exotic location. TEFL companies cash in on this by designing their websites with wonderful pictures of beaches, palm trees, swimming pools and shopping malls. The company website may have pages and pages and pages of general tourist information, testimonials, say that they have been in business for ten years and that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. After spending 20 minutes reading their website you still have a few questions and then notice that they have a toll free number, so you give them a call. The person on the other end confirms everything that you ever wanted to hear and then some. They’ve now sold you on their course and you’ve agreed to give them a deposit. After it’s all over you get your certificate, but a lot of what they told you over the phone was never delivered and you thought that the quality of the course was quite poor.
Suggestion:
Don’t get sucked into reading entire websites. The first thing to look for other than the name of the location is qualifications of the trainers at the specific training center where you want to take the course. Go straight to this information ASAP. If detailed information about their qualifications isn’t available on the website, then there’s no point of looking any further. All of this should take you no more than five minutes.
2. Throw a Linguistics Dictionary at You
The idea here is to use as many terms related to course quality as possible to build up their sense of credibility with you. Some of the more common terms, include: moderation, moderator, validation, external validation, validator, visiting validator, evaluator, board of directors, and accredited. While all of the above mentioned do have specific meanings with the field of education, the meanings may vary depending on the course provider and the country that they are in, and it would take a lot of probing by an experienced trainer or teacher in order to catch them out on any of this. Being that you are new to TEFL you’ve basically got no chance whatsoever, but the bottom line on all of it is quite simple: there is no one single international agency that certifies the quality of all TEFL certificate courses, and as such, course providers are free to makeup their own. This means that virtually any course can claim to be monitored in some way by an outside or ‘external’ agency.
Suggestion:
Know the industry standards for certificate courses. They include:
At least 100 hours in length
6 hours of supervised teaching with real students
6 hours of guided observation with live classes
A trainer to participant ratio of 1:6
There are many courses out there, but you may wish to consider taking one of the three best known and most widely accepted qualifications:
CELTA (Cambridge ESOL)
CertTESOL (Trinity College London)
SIT TESOL Certificate (School for International Training)
”
Some interesting points there for thought and debate, I reckon. Any comments or questions for “TEFLista”?
NEW- Link to Part Two of this article here.
Tags: guest writers, Professionalism
December 17th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Best thing to do if you decide that a TEFL course is for you is to visit a doctor – better still, a psychiatrist. You could be suffering from depression, mania, or just delusions of grandeur.
I mean, just why would you want to part with shed-loads of cash just to be able to stand in front of a bunch of kids and say “My name is Joanne. What’s your name ?” (pointing to sniffy little oik in front rwo)? You don’t need a certificate to do that – you need a lobotomy!
Or am I being a little too pessimistic here…?
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Man, if that is what you consider to be your entire job as a teacher, you should never set foot in a classroom….
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I know Bruce, I know … man. Perhaps you could give me job selling your courses – I’m quite good at fibbing!
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
If anyone’s thinking about doing the CELTA, can I recommend this brief summary:
http://kateandtheo.blogspot.com/2008/12/kates-celta-blog.html
January 24th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
The tefl course at Chiangmai University advertised a class size of only 6 students.
But i am told that the actual size of at least 2 classes, mostly taught by one trainer, varied in size from between 16 and 36 students before some people dropped out.
Are they regulated by anyone, by the University ? Or can they change the size of the classroom at will ?
February 6th, 2009 at 12:18 am
[...] was recently reading Alex Case’s truly excellent and insightful TEFL blog when I found this older article on certificate courses that is packed with useful tips (although the author is not Alex but TEFLista, a fellow TEFL [...]
February 6th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Nitto asks about the training at CMU. My thoughts on that training center are expressed in the Bruce V interview series — see parts two and three. The second half of part 3 pretty much sums it all up:
http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/bruce-veldhuisen-interview-3/
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
According to the Alex case blog, there could appear reason to believe that something is lurking in the woodwork of a certain Chiang Mai course, even if the certificates are signed by a president (see my comments on Thailand in another TEFLista article).
What I *do* know is that one of the directors of such a course, can be a most unsavoury, unpleasant, and threatening character when asked if he has any connections with a university in Australia, or with other course providers based in Thailand. The man also speaks with the educational level of a garbage collector, and the vernacular of a trooper – not exactly prerequisites for an educator.
The course itself might be pretty good.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Nitto (and others) have asked what can be done after the fact, so I’ve written another guest piece that addresses this issue:
What to Do If You’ve Been Had by Your TEFL Course
http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/teaching-abroad/what-to-do-if-youve-been-had-by-your-tefl-course/
March 25th, 2009 at 9:04 am
P.S. Advertising only 6 students on a course and then having 16 or more is a classic bait and switch. This often happens in Thailand during the HIGH season (October – March).
June 25th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Taking a more positive slant – you might want to take a look at:
http://www.TEFLprogram.com which shows you how to EVALUATE a TEFL Certification program – with five check lists to help you find the BEST TEFL course for you. Not just the negative stuff – but the positive stuff that you need to be successful for your time abroad.
I agree with the poster above who said – get the best teacher trainer you can. Most don’t have any REAL education in teaching – MOST don’t have much real experience. BUT some do! There are some great teacher trainers out there (I am an example – but I am retired)
I’ve been teaching overseas since 1992 and it has been a GREAT career!
June 25th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Thanks, Ted.
I was planning to end this series, after I get to part three, with exactly that. I like what you’ve put together and it’s very nice to see more out there in the way of consumer education. Kudos. My only comment about your list is that you may want to specify post-qualification experience. I’ve seen people out there claiming five years of teaching experience, when it’s all highly questionable. In my book, teaching unqualified for three years (maybe even one-on-one in coffee shops), getting a proper qualification and then teaching for two more years, is equal to TWO years of teaching experience. In the past, I’ve seen some ‘trainers’ try to gloss over this on their bios by stating something like “trainer X has many years of teaching experience and has taught in countries X, Y and Z…”
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
With so much information out there about tefl scams I can’t seem to find anything positive or reaffirming. I live in Houston, Texas. Where should I go to aquire my tefl or tesol?
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Hi.
I’m not familiar with Houston, but here’s one possibility worth looking into:
http://celta.nhceducatesu.com/
Best
T.