They are called ‘i to i’ and offer a 2 day certificate in TEFL and you can later go back and do a diploma later on.
The price is comparable to the local TAFE ESL course.
Do you think its worthwhile to do the 2 day TEFL certificate program? Will it help me find work in Taiwan? I already have a Masters in Multimedia but have no English teaching skills (although spent many years teaching music to kids part time)…
Your Masters degree will be enough for you to legally find work here. A TEFL cert really needs to be at least 100 hours to be of any use - and have a teaching component, which the short courses generally don’t have. They are usually theory only.
Having said that, when I first started teaching, I initially did a short 40 hour course. The reason I did the short course was because I was working in corporate IT at the time, contemplating a career change, and didn’t really have enough spare time to commit to a 100 hour TEFL. It served to give me a vague idea of what teaching was like, and was a pretty good review of all the basic grammar I’d learned at school. It wasn’t much else. And didn’t make any difference to finding work in Taiwan (although it was all I legally needed for working in Vietnam).
If you have some experience in teaching (music in your case), you should have some foundations for things like time management, lesson structure etc. In my case, I had a little experience in teaching English, gained during a short volunteer stint in Sumatra, plus I had a fair amount of experience in workplace training (mainly training adults on database systems), so those helped me more in Taiwan than the short TEFL course did.
Please excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes - I haven’t finished my first coffee of the day and am still half asleep.
If you have a masters degree you fit the requirements for employment nicely.
I personally think that you’re going to be wasting your money on a two day course. They will have a talk about lesson plans,and the importance of games in the classroom. Then you will make a sample lesson plan and a game up. All the adults will play. My point is, for the money and what you’re going to learn, you could easily scour this websight for links and ideas and many first hand experiences in the art of teaching English in Taiwan. Other great websites include Daves ESL and even tealit. (sorry forumosa). Follow the links. find some books.
Don’t waste your money on a two day intensive course. You don’t need it to get a job here and it won’t really help you much. First hand experience here!
Uh sorry, I’m thinking you want to teach kids. I think my advice would be much the same for adults.
Im glad that I asked first. I have been reading this forum for hours each day and its just neverending all of the links and information and blogs and so forth… Fantastic site Cheers
I will pass on the 2 day cram course and get stuck into some books and reading through the sites that you recommend.
My basic ‘gameplan’ when I first arrive is to get some easy work in one of the Bushiban(?) schools and just get settled into the lifestyle again. Then find an apartment etc etc…
Taiching is my preferred location, and Tainan is tempting too. Then again, I only spent a few days in Taipei so I may have seen only the bad side… Ive been reading that Taipei has wonderful hiking tracks and mountains but I didnt see any of that unfortunately.
Taichung would be a good start because I have friends there who I can stay with indefinitely in Wu-Chi.
I like working with kids and have experience doing puppetry workshops, animation and cartoon festivals - that kind of stuff.
Basically I just want to get the hell out of Australia and soak up the surreal Taiwan lifestyle again - but this time on a more permanent (at least 1 year) basis.
Im keen to get some kind of TEFL training under my belt before arriving in November this year.
There is a worldwide TEFL college that offers online training and weekend courses in TEFL, called ‘i-to-i’
Have any of you heard any positive or negative stories about i-to-i?
Im interested in doing their 80 hour weekend and online diploma course which involves
[ul]* 20 hour weekend course
40 hour online course plus
20 hour GAM (Grammar Awareness Module - I need this BIG TIME. I got A rank in English throughout highschool but that was mainly coasting on my creative writing skills, as opposed to grammar know-how)[/ul]
The blurb says
Its $855 which is almost the cost of a return flight to Taiwan… So I would appreciate any input from your knowledgable selves before shelling out the bucks…
On their brochures it has a logo for ‘ODLQC’ Open and Distance Learning Quality Council and the claim of ‘Over 20,000 Graduates Worldwide!’
I think that two questions you should be asking are: “How much observation and teaching practice do I get on the course?” and “To what extent is the qualification recognized outside of the training organization?”
I don’t know a great deal about i-to-i but from what I know, the answers would be, respectively, “Not much,” and “Not very.”
Why not do a Cambridge CELTA or Trinity Cert. TESOL?
Hi joesax
Are the cambridge CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL available online?
Im working at the moment and the I-to-I course appealed to me because I can do most of it at work (I do a boring security job unsupervised)
Alternatively - does anyone know of any TESOL/TEFL courses available in Taiwan?
Good on you for trying to get some kind of EFL qualification.[quote=“pubba”]Hi joesax
Are the cambridge CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL available online?[/quote]No, I don’t think so. You see, two very important elements in those courses are the observation and the teaching practice. However, you might consider doing the Cambridge TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test), which is a kind of introductory qualification with no obligatory practical element. cambridgeesol.org/TKT/index.htm
I’ve just downloaded the handbook to have a look and it seems that the TKT really is quite useful. There are three modules, one of which is called “describing language and language skills” and includes some grammatical and other linguistic terminology. cambridgeesol.org/support/dl … nloads.htm
You can take the TKT in Taiwan. In itself, it’s just a test (or three tests if you do the different modules on different days). As it focuses on knowledge and does not test teaching ability, I think that you can just get the coursebook, which is supposed to provide between 60 and 90 hours of study and includes practice tests. I can’t imagine that buying the coursebook and entering yourself for the test would be hugely expensive.
Alternatively, I expect that some of the exam centres are offering prep courses to go with the TKT. However, I’m not sure whether the main teaching language would be English, as I think that many candidates here are local (rather than foreign) teachers.
Thats a whole avenue that I didn’t know existed at all - thanks for the tip![/quote]You’re welcome. As I say, just one idea.
[quote=“pubba”]Downloading the coursebook now … [/quote]Well, to be precise, that’s the handbook you’re downloading. You’d have to buy the coursebook. Here’s an Australian bookshop that sells it: collinsbooks.com.au/featured … 9925&db=au
As a Trinity Cert and Cambridge trainer living in Taiwan, I have to agree with everything Joesax says - online courses usually aren’t worth much at all, and rarely if ever recognized outside of their own little world. TKT will help with some theory, grammar and perhaps your confidence, but will not give you any practical experience. Also, it’s unlikely to mean very much to most EFL employers here.
However, getting a job without an EFL/ESL qualification should not be a problem in Taiwan.
I’m working at British Council, 106 Xinyi Rd Sec 5 (near 101); we only offer TKT courses to Taiwanese High School teachers, but if you want to pop in for a chat about it when you get here, you’re very welcome.
I finished the i-to-i 40 hour class. My teacher changed halfway through, and they’ve never mailed me a certificate although I’ve asked at least 5 times by email. On the other hand, it was slightly interesting to take the course, and there is no reason to have a certificate in Taiwan anyway as far as I can tell. If you’re taking the class for your personal entertainment then I’d recommend it.
[quote=“Hartley”]I’m working at British Council, 106 Xinyi Rd Sec 5 (near 101); we only offer TKT courses to Taiwanese High School teachers…[/quote]I guess that means taught courses, right? I’m assuming that anyone who wants to can pay their money and take the test.
Yes, sorry if I wasn’t clear. The TKT is open to just about everyone, and in fact a group of foreign/local buxiban teachers have just taken the test. However, I must stress that taking the TKT is in no way a substitute for doing a CELTA or Trinity Cert.
[quote=“Hartley”]However, I must stress that taking the TKT is in no way a substitute for doing a CELTA or Trinity Cert.[/quote]Right. But it seems to be a good introduction to some key concepts and issues in ELT. I think teachers and teaching institutions in Taiwan need more of these kinds of connections to the wider world of language teaching.
Do keep trying to get a CELTA course going here, if you can!
I started a thread on CELTA a while ago, looking at how many people might be interested, in the interests of presenting research to my bosses. Unfortunately, the upshot was that we might be able to sustain one, maybe even two courses, but long term vu=iability seemed unlikely. Given the amount of admin, man hours and money it would take to set up here, there’d need to be more evidence of long-term interest, or partnership with another institution that was looking to train up arriving staff on a regular basis.
It’s definitely still a possibility, but those are the stumbling blocks.
i-to-i offers a 40-hour online course for a TEFL certificate. Anyone have any experience with this + an associates degree? Is it accepted by the Taiwan Ministry of Education?
I should have looked into this beforehand… I’m about to receive the cert in a few weeks. Now I’m just trying to put my biggest worry to rest. ><
