TESL-Canada vs. CELTA

[LinLin]

I am looking at a certificate course that says it is externally approved by TESL-Canada. They say this is functionally similar to CELTA courses. My research indicates that CELTA is more widely honoured as a "name brand." My question is, how important is this name brand, or would this TESL-Canada approved course be a valid option to take? Thanks for any comparisons you can offer.

[Lucas]

Hello,
If you are going to teach in Canada, you need a TESL Canada certificate. You can take the CELTA but then you need to apply for TESL Canada's equivalency and you'll have to spend a few hundred dollars extra.
TESL Canada is highly regarded throughout the world. Many of our graduates are working in the UK, Dubai, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries where they demand highly qualified teachers with a CELTA or Trinity certificate.
You can take the TESL Canada course on-site or online. If you take it online, you will also have to take a 20-hour practicum module (10 hours of class observation and 10 hours of teaching practice).

www.study-at-coventry.com
www.ontesol.com

[systematic]

The above posting appears to be dangerously close to a shill for a couple of courses offered by Coventry House.

1. Accreditation:
ACTDEC is not an officially recognise accrediting authority.
IATEFL and The College of Teachers can be joined by anyone as an Institutional Member: Institutional membership is NOT an accreditation for a course provider. To use their logos on websites, however 'innocently', in a way that could be construed as conveying the impression that they endorse the courses is illegal.

2. The TESL Canada is not (to my knowledge) a government owned federation, and there appears to be in fact, no legal requirement for a TESL Canada certification to teach in the country. CELTA, as one of the most revered of all courses, and provided by one of the most respected universities in the world is accepted everywhere as the de facto level of competency to teach English to non-native speakers. if anything, all other courses are measured by the CELTA benchmark, and NOT vice versa.

[Lucas]

Systematic,
Our courses are recognized by Trinity, TESL Canada, and ACTDEC.
IATEFL and the Teachers of College are not accrediting organizations and we do not state so anywhere on our website or at any blog. We don’t have any intention on our part to convey such message with the level of accreditations that CHI and Ontesol hold. As members, we receive important information and access to conferences and these banners are a way of us promoting them. Just click on the links to find out more.

A TESL Canada certification IS required to work in Canada. Some teachers with experience are hired for a trial period but are then required to upgrade to a TESL Canada certification to obtain a full-time position. Those with CELTA must apply for TESL Canada equivalency. Only a minority of Canadian schools does not require teachers to hold a TESL Canada certification and they pay well below average.

As for CELTA’s “benchmark”, CELTA will not continue to hold a monopoly on quality just because it has existed for a long time. A course faces much scrutiny to receive TESL Canada's recognition and even reputable universities apply for recognition in order to meet TESL Canada’s high standards. One big difference is that TESL Canada’s practicum module is 20 hours, while CELTA's is only 6 hours. So DO expect other organizations to grow and even hold greater standards than CELTA in the near future. ACTDEC, for example, is now applying to QCA’s recognition. Yes, a TEFL school started this organization, and although it is not yet equivalent to CELTA, it holds the greatest standard in the online and distance TESOL/TEFL industry and will continue to grow.
To answer Lin’s question, CELTA is just a well-known brand, and it will lose a lot of ground in the near future as other organizations are able to provide better quality and more convenient training for HALF the price. For example, there is our 250-hour online course with 20-hour practicum (Recognized by TESL Canada Professional Standard 2), which is an extended version of CHI’s Trinity CertTESOL 5-week course (Recognized by TESL Canada Professional Standard 1).

[systematic]

Eight points, then I will close my involvement on this thread:

1. I hardly think that Canada is about to emerge as a global guiding, controlling, and policing agency for the world of TEFL. But I may be wrong. Canada, especially due to the country's two major language zones, may however have a specific domestic market requiring English language tuition. Nevertheless, the country is not one of the world's major destinations for non-Canadians seeking work as TEFL teachers.

2. Canada exports quite a few TESOL teachers - indeed I have hired many. All serious Rrcruiters will always place a genuine CELTA course or a genuine Trinity validated course at the top of the list of their preferred and most trusted qualifications. True is, that Coventry House currently enjoys the position of being the only organisation in Canada that is (or wants, or can afford to be) Trinity validated. Nevertheless, the chairpeople of Cambridge ESOL, and Trinity, will certainly raise their eyebrows in the knowledge that their courses are being subjected to the scrutiny of a self-appointed 'higher' authority.
However, in the past, there have been genuine reports of real scams emanating from Canada, where course providers had been marketing 'CELTA' courses, which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the University of Cambridge ESOL.

3. You may be right therefore, that Canada has decided to insist that only its own agency is competent for authenticating all TEFL certificates for employment in that country, and that all teachers are required to posses its certificate or equivalency stamp. I would suggest that it would be of more help to prospective teachers to know the facts and be able to refer to the Act of Parliament that passed that/those law(s), and the legal decision to adopt the federation as the government's official TESOL accrediting body.
Personally, if such moves are indeed true, I would go so far as to suggest that the federation exists primarily to protect and promote Canda's own domestic TESOL course industry. I may be wrong in the case of Canada, but course providers in other countries have lobbied their governments to do precisely that. Ironically, the net result was that native speakers simply stopped looking for jobs in those countries!

4. I have already mentioned that the use of the logo of the College of Teachers (of which I am a member) in a situation or a position that could even vaguely be construed, misconstrued, or otherwise misinterpreted by a reader of a brochure, or a visitor to a web site as being an endorsement, is illegal. The College of Teachers was established by royal charter.

5. IATEFL - of which I used to be a member - is mainly an organisation that provides resources, and organises projects and conferences for teachers. It is not an accrediting body, anyone can join it by paying the subscription fee. I will leave readers to reflect upon the relevance of the use of its logo on advertising material for TESOL courses.

6. On ACTDEC, which might well be a respected organisation, there are many articles, some of them quite famous, entitled "Who accredits the accreditors?" - one only needs to type that phrase in Google and see the search results. To help other readers understand the implications more fully, ACTDEC answers its own question:
Q:Who passes judgement on the legitimacy of a distance TESOL certificate or diploma?
A:Quite simply, the schools and institutions around the world that employ English language teachers.
- let us also not forget that the OP's question was about face-to-face courses, whereas ACTDEC exists solely to 'accredit' distance courses. The list of ACTDEC members is extremely short when taking into consideration the hundreds (or thousands) of distance providers that have come into existence since the Internet went truly global about ten years ago.

7. I have always made a point of asking, as part of the interview procedure, what the candidates' criteria were for choosing the course they took. The regular, oft repeated questions on this board concerning the choice of courses, reflect the fact that most course candidates naïvely take the the marketing claims of the providers on face value, and do no further research, and that the vast majority do not take the initiative to seek further advice through a web forum.

8. Finally, I do not doubt for a moment the standard of the courses provided by Coventry House. The Trinity validation is an exceptionally complex and expensive procedure - for each course - and is a guarantee of quality. The cost of a course will reflect this, and other organisations offering non-Trinity, or non-CELTA courses at similar prices would need examining very closely indeed.

[Lucas]

ian_g wrote: Trinity and CELTA are the 2 "MUST HAVE" TEFL qualifications globally

Truth is that the extra $700 to $1000 that you pay for a Trinity or CELTA do not add any real value in comparison to TESL Canada except for the name on the certificate. I can state this because CHI offers the Trinity CertTESOL and the Standard TESOL (both TESL Canada Standard 1). The only extra value from the Trinity course is the 4 hours of unknown foreign language (UFL) module and an extra 30 hours of guided private and group work and tutorials. None of these really make much difference as it is the Methodology module and the practicum that make a TEFL course good and these are the same for the Trinity and Standard courses that CHI offers. You can see for yourself at http://www.study-at-coventry.com/chi/courses.htm
The Methodology module of our 250-hour online course is even more advanced than the one from the Trinity and Standard courses, and the practicum for TESL Canada is 20 hours versus 6 hours of CELTA.

You two have said on this, as well as others on other forums, that TEFL schools engage in marketing schemes when stating the accreditations they hold, but you're claiming that CELTA and Trinity hold these great standards when behind them is just a well-known brand, and nobody on any blog even states why... but as I am able to prove, there isn't a big difference, and you can even get more advanced training for half the price. CELTA and Trinity courses are very good, I'm not arguing that, I'm just saying that they will not continue to hold a monopoly on quality when you can get better and less expensive training.

Canada has one of the biggest ESL industries in the world, which caters mostly to international students, so TESL Canada was founded to promote a standard within the local ESL industry and not to protect TEFL schools. Wages here start at $16 an hour and go up to $25 so only those with an adventurous heart travel abroad, but international students who want to take an advanced course can choose one that is recognized by TESL Canada and save $1,000.

[jpeterson]

Is the OnTesol program for people who want to teach in non-English speaking countries or is it mainly for those seeking work in English speaking countries such as Canada, Australia, UK..etc? Or both?

[Lucas]

Hello,
It's for both. If you take the practicum, you'll be able to apply to TESL Canada accreditation, which is necessary to teach in Canada and is also highly recognized in countries where they require CELTA, Trinity, or equivalent such as the UK, Australia, UAE, and others.