About a year ago, as I was preparing to vacate the UK to teach English in China I suddenly had the urge to get a TEFL qualification. In a mad rush I bought myself a £65 TEFL Express 120hr advanced course from Groupon without really doing my research, only stopping to check whether the course was accredited.
In the mad rush which often associates itself with travel, my TEFL course was lost and forgotten about, undone, but where I was going, unneeded. So, after about 8 months of teaching English as a foreign language at NDI in Zhengzhou, I decided it was about time to get a professional qualification in what seemed to be becoming my bread and butter having only earned £23.59 from travel writing (feel free to click on the adverts on my site).
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| Despite this Photo, TEFL express offers no classroom teaching or opportunities for experience. |
So I found my old Groupon Voucher which was packed away in some unopened suitcase and activated my account with TEFL express. With this course you only get 75 days to complete it, "not a problem", I thought to myself as a whizzed through the first module. "At this rate I'll be finished in a few months", narrated my smug inner monologue. But then I started to wonder, "why is it so easy, a 5 year old could complete this course!". You have to doubt an online professional qualification which is ludicrously easy with a 55% pass rate. I'm currently on 95.6%, losing marks only due to a page with a very unclear exam layout.
However, more worrying than this is the site's constant unreliability. I work everyday from 2pm to 8pm, meaning my free time is in the mornings. Every morning (Chinese Time), the TEFL Express website is down meaning, I can only access the course at night, after a long tiring day at work.
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| Erqi Square, Zhengzhou. A stones throw away from my Flat. In Zhengzhou, like many Cities in China, you don’t need and ESL or TEFL qualification to teach at schools or Private Training Companies like The New Dynamic Institute (NDI), the place I work! |
Because of its unreliability and Primary School style easiness, I woulden't trust TEFL Express as far as I could throw it, and I don't know anyone who can throw a website.
TEFL Express is useful only for people coming to China, where qualifications are often fabricated and having a certificate which says, your name, and TEFL Qualified, will be enough to get you a well paying job, however, I think it's best to steer well clear of TEFL Express.
12 comments:
Sammy, you need to do a CELTA or Trinity TESOL TEFL cert. They include observed in-class teaching practice.
True, but it seems easy enough to get work in China, I think I'll live with the status quo until I go to a country with standards.
nice share
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I want a certification WITHOUT classroom time, because I did a 1-yr internship, but I still don't want it to be crap... I dunno I'm going to Colombia tho so I wonder if it would at least help me be able to teach company-mandated ESL classes.. In Spain I wasn't able to teach because I didn't even have that crappy piece of paper lol Anyways thanks for the review - I was debating it.
PS:if you get a sec I'm doing trip-prep posts right now but I'm going to start writing about Colombia if you wanna check it out
http://www.chasingthesunnn.blogspot.com
While you have got a point that the TEFL Express course is indeed shit, (I did one about a year ago now) I didn't buy it for the TEFL knowledge. As I had already got 1 year TEFL experience, I was already all right at it, I bought the thing merely so I could put it on my CV. I know a lot of places won't consider you without one, and look favourably on those who have one. This was the cheapest piece of paper I was ever going to get, so if that sounds like you it might be worth it.
Groupon has let out a lot of daily deals.But its upto the customers to make sure that when they purchase the voucher, they should be able to gain something from it.We can cross refer before buying any voucher.
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I'm biased but try www.teflengland.co.uk for a reliable and accredited online TEFL course.
Hope this helps.
George on the go, you're quite right, I did tefl express for the same reason and because of this silly bit of paper, im now an official foreign expert in china and have an easy (16hr a week) job at a local university. It's pretty good if thats all you need it for!
Hi :-)
There are so many course options out there on the web and as a general rule if you have no or very little teaching experience then it's advisable to take a full-time residential course. If you do have teaching experience then an online course is usually enough and most of the time anyway any TEFL is required for the visa process in most Asian countries. There is an excellent TEFL course review site: http://www.tefl-courses-reviews.com .
I'm also biased as we run both residential and Online courses.
All the best and great blog btw!
Neville :-)
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ITTP TEFL Prague / Online
It's a cool thing that there is a Virtual school now like that of with WGU.
Warning To All: OnlineTEFL.com is a top notch scam. Here are the details: http://internationalteflreviews.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/beware-onlinetefl-com-is-a-sophisticated-scam-in-progress-targeting-work-abroad-teachers/
You know what, groupon never fails to give us hints on what are the cheap online schools.
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