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online certificates
Posted By: Martin McMorrow <mmcm@hotmail.com> In Response To: Re: Anyone heard of Tesols.com (TESOL Prep Academy (Denise G)
Date: Monday, 7 January 2013, at 1:13 p.m.
If Denise (or any of the others who've taken up this offer) are satisfied with the experience and feel that they've got some value out of their fairly modest outlay, then that's all well and good. If the learning materials and tasks are working for them and they're getting useful feedback online, then they may well feel it's been money well spent. However, I think it's worth anyone else considering the offer to think of possible alternatives.
Another option would be to borrow a grammar book (e.g. English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy) and a book about teaching English (plenty available - e.g. by Jeremy Harmer, Jim Scrivener, Paul Nation) from your local library and read them. And for actual information about working overseas, again, see if you can get your local library to order Susan Griffiths' book on teaching English abroad - also available online for a few dollars.
For some classroom experience, you could also contact local schools or colleges to ask if you could observe classes and / or volunteer as an assistant. Here in NZ, there's an organisation called English Language Partners (like ESOL Home tutors in the UK) that runs free intro courses and then organises voluntary tuition partnerships with local migrants. There might well be such an organisation in your local city and your local library will probably be able to help you with this or other options. Again, what have you got to lose.
Any of these could give you an initial taster of what TEFL / TESL is like - and allow you to put something on your CV. They aren't a substitute for a course in which you practise teaching, receiving guidance and feedback from qualified and experienced trainers and receive a certificate based on your professionally assessed performance - but for that you'd have to pay as much as you might do for a holiday overseas.
If you do decide to invest anything, however little, in a qualification, I think you need to be especially critical about the issue of credibility. How convincing (or even grammatical) is the information provided? What performance criteria is the certificate based on and what are the credentials of the organisation and the trainers who award it? Are the 'trainers' actually anonymous and is the contact address actually an office services agency rather than a real bricks-and-mortar institute? These issues will only take a few minutes of your time - about how long you'd spend choosing a pair of socks.
That's not to say that a certificate from an obscure online company might not impress some language school owners somewhere enough to offer you a job. Who really knows? But before you accept what appears to be an enticing offer, it's worth remembering that half of nothing is still nothing.
Martin McMorrow, Auckland, New Zealand
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