Topic: Courses, it's been asked so many times already

[MariaV]

Hi -- I know this question's been asked many times; however, I'll ask in my own little thread 

With most of the other "which course" questions, the emphasis seemed to be which school to actually attend.  For me, that's not a possibility.  I need to utilize an online course, and could, with notice, arrange time for practical training.  Right now I work seven nights a week (my employment affords me about six or so good hours a night to do an online course).  I have no time for achieving TEFL certification in any other mode.

There are so many to choose from, and I'd like to try to make sure I'm not throwing my money away.  I seem to be down to a choice of three and, after reading this board, now to four.  They are TITC, TEFLOnline (Bridge Linguatec), ITTO, and ICAL.  Price differences between the four are not enough to make a huge difference.  What does anyone think about these?

My second question, and one that may assist in making a decision as to which to go with, is how important the Business English and Young Learner certifications are as separate entities, when looking at TEFL certification.  Two of my choices are allowing "specials", wherein these certifications are included (five extra hours, respectively).  The other two don't mention any distinction.  If I'm going to go for it, I'm thinking going for the whole package is the best option.  Thoughts?

Okay, so I have a third question.  Sorry, I thought I only had one!    The whole university degree issue.  I've traveled all my life, lived in three countries (although I like to say four countries, as I consider Sicily a whole other country from Italy  ), and traveled to many others.  I'm older (give me a few more months and I get to join Saga!), speak two languages fluently, with a smattering of words in four others, was a paralegal for twenty years and have been a hotel front office manager and concierge for five years, and have been told I'm a damn fine writer (while being told I need to stop being such a grammar, spelling and punctuation n*z**!).

But I have no university degree       I want to continue to travel and think TEFLing it may give me a good opportunity to do so.

So, again, any thoughts, advice, guidance?  Thank you so much for any help!

Maria

[Nemesis]

Well, Maria, I guess the big question is where you want to go. I think that would be the biggest factor in choosing a course. Once you have experience teaching where you got the course will matter less.

Bridge Linguatec seems to be big in Latin America, but I don't know their course.

ICAL was reviewed here and appears to be pretty good.

TITC is a website I have never really understood. On some pages they refer to themselves as TEFL International and on others they give themselves another name. That confuses me and I would be hard pressed to spend money on a course that I can't even figure out who issues the certificate.

ITTO has a good reputation with most people who have completed the onsite courses, but I dont know the feedback on the online TEFL course.

Not to muddy the waters further, here is another one:

http://www.innovative-english.com/tefl-online.htm

We don't have a review for it yet because we have been a bit slow, but the user  Guy Courchesne is connected with the course and they tend to use a lot less marketing hype for their courses.

Every piece of paper with the word certificate will impress many people who are doing the hiring so a Business English or Young Learners Certificate is good for extra papers, but in terms of practical training, a 5 hour online course in Business English or YL is not going to give a lot in the way of practical knowledge.

About no degree: Again, depending on where you go, that will be a lot less of a problem than you might think. Of course some Asian countries will be completely closed to you, your age ad life experience will open up doors in others.

[MariaV]

Well, Maria, I guess the big question is where you want to go.

Everywhere I possibly can and everywhere I haven't been     Seriously, though, I'm not sure at this point.  I get the feeling Thailand's over-saturated. Turkey would be interesting, and I've always wanted to see it.  I love Spain.  Scandinavia would be fun, but English is pretty widely spoken there.  A friend of mine fell in love with Antigua, Guatemala, and it sounded really nice.  There are many countries left I want to see, and I wouldn't be able to begin to name them all 

TITC is a website I have never really understood. On some pages they refer to themselves as TEFL International and on others they give themselves another name.

Understood.  I've been reading a lot of posts and my head's about to explode 

http://www.innovative-english.com/tefl-online.htm

I saw that site earlier while I was reading through a lot of the topics on this board, and found the fact that they also offer the practical training that others don't, interesting.

Every piece of paper with the word certificate will impress many people who are doing the hiring so a Business English or Young Learners Certificate is good for extra papers, but in terms of practical training, a 5 hour online course in Business English or YL is not going to give a lot in the way of practical knowledge.

While I was living in Italy, many people were working in schools that targeted business people.  They seemed to want that something extra that said they could "specialize" (or something to that effect).  I have no plans to teach in Italy, as I prefer to move forward, not backward.  Because so many of the online courses offer the BE and YL certifications, it seemed to be important.  Since I really don't know, I thought I'd try to find out if this is something required, or desired, if one is teaching adults in a business setting.

About no degree: Again, depending on where you go, that will be a lot less of a problem than you might think. Of course some Asian countries will be completely closed to you, your age ad life experience will open up doors in others.

Some of the sites have separate links for jobs, and some would do a comparison country-by-country.  One of the columns in their comparison schedule was "degree needed".  I became concerned when I saw how many they put a check mark in, as opposed to an x.

I thought that at this point in my life, and with my desire to continue my travels, coupled with my age and my good command of the language and grammar and blah blah blah, TEFL may be a way for me to achieve this.  Many have suggested it, so I've started to look into it very seriously.  Doing a google search for "TEFL online" comes up with so very many advertisements, that it's quite difficult to actually make a choice.

Thank you so much for your input!  All comments are greatly appreciated 

[ICAL_Pete]

>>>> I saw that site earlier while I was reading through a lot of the topics on this board, and found the fact that they also offer the practical training that others don't, interesting.

Actually, of the courses you listed in your earlier post, ICAL also offers an online TESL/TEFL Certificate course which includes observed teaching practice.

[MariaV]

Okay, I've made my decision on which company I'm going with.  I was impressed by the professionalism exhibited by the person, and the fact that he took the time to talk to me about their course and give his opinion on what I would like to do (and where I'd like to go) with the certification.    By tomorrow, I should be signed up and ready to go!

Maria -- who hopefully will find somewhere warm to teach, since we skipped summer here this year