"ICAL" Online TEFL Training - your input requested!

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Hi everyone!
Since this is my first post, I’d like to say hi to everyone and what a wonderful forum this is!

I am intersted in getting a TEFL certification BEFORE arriving in Taiwan, and I’m wondering if you guys have any opinions or experience with ICAL’s Online training…

icalweb.com/cms/index.php

TEFL course review has pretty good reviews, but the more opinions about it the better :thumbsup:
teflcoursereview.com/ical-on … -training/

Any suggestions, recommendations, opinions welcome!

Thanks for your time and input! :thumbsup:

2

Is online TEFL/TESL certificate accepted in Taiwan, or do you need to take a classroom course?

What do you guys think about;

  1. ICAL - icalweb.com/cms/index.php

  2. TEFL Online - teflonline.com/

Thanks for your input.

3

In general you don’t need a TEFL qualification to land a job in Taiwan, although every little extra helps in the present climate and some of the better chain schools will pay you a little more if you have one. In my experience Taiwanese managers don’t seem to be interested in them. My first school here put my degree certificate on the wall, not my CELTA. I assumed that the punters probably wouldn’t have known what it was. With hindsight I’m not sure that the managers did either.

If I were looking to recruit someone I definitely wouldn’t put much weight on an online certificate - how can someone be trained online for a practical skill? I’d much rather see some classroom experience.

I can’t comment on the differences in quality between the online courses. I would guess that they’re all pretty similar.

4

[quote=“tomthorne”]In general you don’t need a TEFL qualification to land a job in Taiwan, although every little extra helps in the present climate and some of the better chain schools will pay you a little more if you have one. In my experience Taiwanese managers don’t seem to be interested in them. My first school here put my degree certificate on the wall, not my CELTA. I assumed that the punters probably wouldn’t have known what it was. With hindsight I’m not sure that the managers did either.

If I were looking to recruit someone I definitely wouldn’t put much weight on an online certificate - how can someone be trained online for a practical skill? I’d much rather see some classroom experience.

I can’t comment on the differences in quality between the online courses. I would guess that they’re all pretty similar.[/quote]

thanks for your reply tomthorne :wink:

I guess the certification is of a self-improvement thing rather than something that the employeer looks for. But definitely something that I will look into since I’m kinda new to teaching…

Thanks again for the reply and let’s keep this thread going (since I couldn’t find a thread dedicated to TEFL certification) :discodance:

5

It’s kind of a money making racket to provide online TEFL certs. As they have no practical component, why not just read a few books? $265 is a lot of cash for what you get.

Try and get hold of ‘Learning Teaching’ by Scrivener (MacMillan).

6

OK, I’ll keep it going. Can’t sleep at the moment.

I assume you have good reasons why you want to do an online course, but if you possibly can why not just take a month out and do the real thing? I’m not sure how much it costs these days, but I’d guess not much more that $1,300. It just seems strange to do an online course unless you have to.

7

[quote=“tomthorne”]OK, I’ll keep it going. Can’t sleep at the moment.

I assume you have good reasons why you want to do an online course, but if you possibly can why not just take a month out and do the real thing? I’m not sure how much it costs these days, but I’d guess not much more that $1,300. It just seems strange to do an online course unless you have to.[/quote]

Yup, it just seems like a waste of money if it’s no practical use; spend the cash on books.