Viewing topic: TEFL/TESOL certificates - which are excepted?

Hi guys,

i'd really like to know what qualifications a teacher needs to officially teach in st peters' school of english. like, some schools say they need Cambridge tefl or trinity tesol or equivalents. what are the equivalents? i wanted to get an online TEFL diploma. the company is accredited by ODLQC - british thing. now i'm thinking that if only cambridge and trinity are accepted, will it be of any use to get this latter one?

and what's the general qualification needed to get a teaching job? would be cool if u share ur experience cos i'm a lamer in this field

um... okay... prolly too tired to surf. lol. sorry for the typo

At the moment schools are too desperate for teachers to be picky about certificates. If you're a 'native speaker', you often won't be allowed to leave the office until you've agreed to take at least 12 hours a week

Okay, not quite as extreme as that, but I know most schools (including ones that shout REALLY loud about needing certificates) don't really care.

Plenty of people have got jobs with a Via Lingua CTEFL. Although it's not 'officially' considered an equivalent to CELTA, it's in the same league. I even know someone who got a teaching job with an i-to-i online certificate. Yuk.

Generally, experience is of just as much use, if not more. Higher education (a university degree) definitely helps.

Depends what you mean by working 'officially' - if you mean working legally in a public school, then a university teaching degree is almost certainly required for you to be employed legally and officially.

As far as CELTA alternatives go, I don't think a lot of schools here are all that clued up. Try contacting a few schools before taking the certificate, tell them when you'll finish and ask if they'll have a job available for you.

Good luck!

ok so basically you're saying i-to-i online's bad eh? what about their weekend course? its not online but real studying. i just have no idea how it all works.

officially i meant visa support and accomodation at least for a month until could find something else if needed.

I wouldn't go as far as saying i-to-i online is BAD exactly, it's just not an option if:

a) you want a qualification that will really give you a competitive advantage in getting a job

b) you want training that will set you up for a successful teaching career, i.e. long-term, and will give you all the tools you need to do a good job.

It could well give a good grounding to start accumulating experience and work towards a more serious qualifiaction.

My only knowledge of the course is from a few online 'trial' sessions and the accounts of three others who did the course.

One was very disappointed and went straight on to do a CELTA.

One was overjoyed but he couldn't name a single verb tense.

The organisation pretending to be a Benedict School hired him.

The third stayed quiet.

From the online free trials, I'd say you'd get just as much from buying a copy of Jeremey Harmer's book and sitting down for a few coffees with an experienced teacher.

The funny thing is that people can get away with being really terrible teachers in Russia. You can get away with not knowing grammar and not being able to spell (I've seen it done) just because there are so many schools. Six months in each school in Saint Petersburg would keep you going for at least 20 years.

Most people would get pretty fed up after a while though.

Maybe a job with training would be a better way to start? I think that a lot depends on your first few months of work. If you go in with training from some international catch-all TEFL programme you could be missing out on a lot of the particularities of Russian students that a good school here could prepare you for.

hmm thanks for the info. the fact is that i've already worked in st petersburg as a teacher. my grammar and spelling are good (well usually, except this subject line lol) and i've already got a degree but its not teaching though close. also humanitarian - history. i was just thinking if any diploma would raise the possible wage. CELTA is good but i'm not planning to be a teacher all my life, just supporting myself during studying in russia. and from what i understood i could do it without any diplomas right? would this BA degree do any good in Russia btw? i mean, should i take it with me?

oh and forgot one more. where could i get this job with training?

Speak to Mike Sherman at American Language Master - he has a vacancy advert at http://www.visarus.co.uk/jobs/index?cmd=view&ID=21

He gives training for new teachers and has conversation classes where trainees can practice, pick up ideas and get confidence.

It would be a good idea to ask what he thinks about your training question (he doesn't bite

There are other places that give training but I'd recommend speaking to Mike first. At the very least you'll get a qualified second opinion on the matter.

And I'll get accused of favouritism if I'm not careful