Hi
Can anyone recommend a good online training course? There are many out there and there doesn’t seem to be much to choose between many of them. I’ve heard good things about i to i – has anyone trained with them? Or any others? I want to teach in China, so it needs to be one that is recognised by schools there.
Thanks
Best online TEFL course?
Moderator: Joe
Re: Best online TEFL course?
I'm in week 5 of the 11-week-long online TEFL course offered by the International TEFL Academy in Chicago, Illinois, US. I'm very impressed. The reading material is excellent, and I learn a lot from it; our teacher is very responsive; there are many live and taped videos and webinars that I've found helpful; there's a lot of written work, but it's definitely worthwhile, teaches us a lot, and is assuredly not busywork. Once this course ends on March 11, I'll be taking short online courses from ITA on how best to teach EFL online and on how to teach business English. We have to do a practicum of 20 hours. When I have the time--this course is indeed rigorous, and I spend a lot of time on it--I observe local Zoom TEFL classes. Toward the end of the course, I hope to start practice teaching as part of my practicum. If you want to check out the program, the website is internationalteflacademy.com
Re: Best online TEFL course?
95% of on-line TEFL courses are either scams or just plain garbage. This should help you find one sponsored by a legitimate university... https://www.esl-jobs-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=7628
Before taking any teaching job in China make a quick visit over to https://reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentral and https://reddit.com/r/TEFLreviews so your dream job does not become a nightmare.
Re: Best online TEFL course?
I did a lot of research on TEFL courses before I picked the one that I did. I don't believe that all online TEFL courses should be avoided and that only university programs are good. A large, accredited, brick-and-mortar university where I live (I don't know if I should mention its name, lest I open myself up to libel charges) offers a TEFL course. It takes a long time to complete, and it's very expensive. I've talked with a number of people who have taken this course, because it is indeed one of the ones that I researched. Each told me that he or she learned absolutely nothing about how to teach EFL. The course spent a lot of time on language acquisition of bonobos. How, exactly, that helps anyone teach is beyond me. The people I talked with felt that the course was utterly worthless, a waste of time, and that they came away knowing as little about English and how to teach it as they had known before they started the course..
I earned an MS in Education in TESOL from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1979. The program has since been disbanded, taken out of Indiana University's School of Education, and moved to the Linguistics Department. I have no idea what the current course is like. The MS in Ed. that I earned was indeed an in-person course from a respected and accredited university. It was utterly worthless. It was all theoretical. We learned only about transformational grammar and the fulminations of Noam Chomsky. Period. There were many students from many countries who had come to the US to take the course. The then-director of the program loathed foreign students and made that abundantly clear. He was rude and condescending to every foreign student who had the courage to ask a question in class. One of the students, who became a friend, asked me in puzzlement, "Why does ___ hate us so much?" The director proudly announced, repeatedly, that "The only language I know is American English, and I don't need to know any other language or anything about any other culture." Our teaching practicum, for which we had no preparation, gave us the "opportunity" to teach EFL to a group of students from various countries. I taught, if you can call it that, for between 1 and 5 hours in toto. I had absolutely no idea what speakers of other languages might find difficult about English. I felt as though I were letting them down.
Because this degree was so worthless, because I had never earned a TEFL certificate (which seems to be a necessity nowadays), and because I decided to change career directions, I began several years ago to research online and in-person TEFL courses. The one in which I am enrolled can indeed be taken in-person. It is based in Chicago, Illinois, and is a full-time course. (The online course I am taking is part-time because I also work and simply do not have the time to take a full-time course.) I considered that option. However, moving to Chicago, a very expensive city, and attempting to find lodgings for the duration of the course was simply too financially prohibitive for me.
If anyone would like to contact me privately, and I'm new to this forum and not quite sure how one goes about this, I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions about the International TEFL Academy in Chicago, through which I am taking an online course. I have no affiliation with the school other than as a student, and I can only tell you my opinions, which are very positive.
I have earned a BA in German and English, an MA in German Literature and Linguistics, and a law degree, in addition to the MS in TESOL. After all these degrees, I think that I have a pretty good "handle" on what is a good and what is a bad degree program.
I earned an MS in Education in TESOL from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1979. The program has since been disbanded, taken out of Indiana University's School of Education, and moved to the Linguistics Department. I have no idea what the current course is like. The MS in Ed. that I earned was indeed an in-person course from a respected and accredited university. It was utterly worthless. It was all theoretical. We learned only about transformational grammar and the fulminations of Noam Chomsky. Period. There were many students from many countries who had come to the US to take the course. The then-director of the program loathed foreign students and made that abundantly clear. He was rude and condescending to every foreign student who had the courage to ask a question in class. One of the students, who became a friend, asked me in puzzlement, "Why does ___ hate us so much?" The director proudly announced, repeatedly, that "The only language I know is American English, and I don't need to know any other language or anything about any other culture." Our teaching practicum, for which we had no preparation, gave us the "opportunity" to teach EFL to a group of students from various countries. I taught, if you can call it that, for between 1 and 5 hours in toto. I had absolutely no idea what speakers of other languages might find difficult about English. I felt as though I were letting them down.
Because this degree was so worthless, because I had never earned a TEFL certificate (which seems to be a necessity nowadays), and because I decided to change career directions, I began several years ago to research online and in-person TEFL courses. The one in which I am enrolled can indeed be taken in-person. It is based in Chicago, Illinois, and is a full-time course. (The online course I am taking is part-time because I also work and simply do not have the time to take a full-time course.) I considered that option. However, moving to Chicago, a very expensive city, and attempting to find lodgings for the duration of the course was simply too financially prohibitive for me.
If anyone would like to contact me privately, and I'm new to this forum and not quite sure how one goes about this, I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions about the International TEFL Academy in Chicago, through which I am taking an online course. I have no affiliation with the school other than as a student, and I can only tell you my opinions, which are very positive.
I have earned a BA in German and English, an MA in German Literature and Linguistics, and a law degree, in addition to the MS in TESOL. After all these degrees, I think that I have a pretty good "handle" on what is a good and what is a bad degree program.