Getting certified: Part VI—Are we there yet?

I’ll try to keep my assessment of the other major TEFL players brief, since I know that you and I both are getting anxious to sign up for a program.

International TEFL Teacher Training (ITTT) has what is, in my opinion, a bad user interface. The site has highlighted text and elements that light up when I mouse over them but do not allow me to link through to the desired information. Very frustrating. The home page is text heavy, and the graphics are amateurish.

On the positive side, it offers a 100-hour online certificate, which is the most time-intensive online certificate I’ve found yet. However, I can’t imagine 100 hours of trying to navigate through what I assume, by the looks of the website, will be a poorly organized program. Another benefit of ITTT is that it offers job placement services at no extra cost, a rarity among online providers.

It is accredited by the International Association of TESOL Qualifying Organizations (IATQUO), which already raised a red flag in my mind since I read somewhere that there is no international TEFL accrediting body. I then read the following on the blog I reference earlier:

“IATQUO or the International Accreditation of TESOL Qualifying Organisations is one of those clever little schemes where a school decides it can’t get accreditation through the usual channels so they set up their own accrediting agency...”

While the prospect of job placement assistance is very attractive, a disagreeable interface and sketchy accreditation make me say NO thank you to ITTT.

As for the International Teacher Training Organization (ITTO), it has a decent user interface. Like i-to-i and Bridge-Linguatec, it charges $295 for its basic online TEFL course of about 40 hours.

It offers certificate recipients the opportunity to go to Guadalajara for 5 days of in-classroom experience, but does not discuss the strings attached. The website only says to “please contact us for the exact fees.” Exact fees? I don’t even see the inexact fees listed anywhere.

Like ITTT, ITTO offers free job placement to its students, but I can’t help but feel like they are both compensating for something. It’s like the small man syndrome of TEFL courses. All the unsubstantiated promises and hyperbolic sales points scare me rather than convince me.

Also, while ITTO is a member of several ESL institutions, it doesn’t appear to be accredited. If anyone finds out otherwise, please let me know.

So what will it be?

Though there are a lot more providers out there—enough to warrant a book rather than a blog—I am ready to take the plunge. I am going to go with the Bridge-Linguatec online TEFL course, with the Business English and Young Learners endorsements. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on how it goes.