TEFL certs: a commentary

One of the little known parts about getting a job overseas, despite only usually needing a 4 year degree is that some places require a TEFL certificate.  TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and programs generally come in many different hour packages both in classroom and online.  Manda and I decided to do a 120 hour online version from the company i-to-i.

The courses are designed to do a few basic things, teach you the basics of teaching, give you some ideas for lessons you may teach, give you cultural context to your teaching so you don't look like a moron, and finally help you find a job.  Note that it does do a few of these things, it helps you prepare for teaching, and it does give you ideas for lessons, but it does not help you find a job and they are filthy sexy liars of they say otherwise.

When looking into online courses you should know that most programs that require a TEFL cert (such as teaching in public schools in South Korea) require at least 100 hours.  Anything less is largely useless, other than to get yourself into the practice of creating lesson plans for your students.  You should obviously research the programs to find which would be the best fit for you.  At least with the course that Amanda and I took we had 90 days to complete the certification(s) which was more than enough, but if you are busy with full time work, or other large commitments it may be harder for you.

So about the course itself, well other than letting me know that my grammar awareness is absolutely awful it was very useful and broke down the ideas of what it is like to be a teacher step by step with modules.  Broken up by "checkpoints" which are basically open ended essay tests that test your knowledge of the subject matter you were just taught.

There are some issues with the course that I'd like to talk about.  The checkpoints are by in large hard, and some of the questions are tricky for the purpose of screwing you over which kind of sucks.  That I do not have a problem with, when you get a question wrong you should fix, or re-adjust your answer to fit the situation better.  The problem is that you get three chances total to get everything correct on these checkpoints, which is a problem when the questions can be extremely vague.
The tutors aren't any help either, if you get something wrong they will be "This is not correct do it again."  That is not a helpful statement when it comes to open ended essay questions!  It doesn't address what is wrong or what needs to be changed, or well anything helpful.  Funnily enough while doing a certain checkpoint with Amanda (we answered the same since it wasn't an open ended question) the tutor graded my test wrong but hers correctly.

While I would recommend a course for those who need to learn how to teach English as a second language, be ready for some frustration unless you do your homework well.  I know I wish I had!

Of Degrees and Certifications

Sometimes you never know what will show up at a Goodwill store!

So, as of right now, it's probably pretty evident that you need at least a passport to teach English overseas, but what about all that other stuff? You also need to be proficient with the English language or bilingual and do some testing. In our case, we just speak English (he knows some German and I know bits and pieces of a few languages) and are from the US, so we're good there.  We will get more into the certification piece and language a bit later, but for now we'll just discuss the important thing: having a bachelor's degree from a college or university.

You don't need a degree in English or education, but you do need a degree from a college or university. While the previous degrees (and probably minors) would probably be very helpful to you when it comes to teaching, it's not necessary. They can give you a bit of an increase as far as pay rates go, but experience with children (I have no room to talk about adult and university teaching, so I won't go there now) is also a plus and can do the same.

I come into teaching with some experience volunteering at a few festivals doing activities with kids, working at a daycare center for about two years with a variety of age groups, and working with kids and families from my casework experiences. As far as the degree goes, I have a bachelors degree in psychology with minors in anthropology and sociology. Zach has less experience than I do, but he has some; he also has a bachelors degree in anthropology.

In short, we're set in the degree department, once the paperwork hoops are taken care of on that front. Now, I did mention certifications such as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and various other similarly coined certifications that can help with securing a position (particularly with programs like EPIK and GEPIK which are public school related).