How to avoid TEFL certification scams?
TEFL course is the certification along with bachelor degree being native English speaker to help you to find the English teaching job. Thus TEFL which stands for ‘teaching English as a foreign language’ is essential to boost your resume and make it more appealing because Chinese recruiters find out that you’ve done a bit of training to become an English teacher.
Before taking these TEFL courses you will be aware of some factors. These days many people think that they are getting scammed as they choose a TEFL course. Some of them think that the TEFL course isn’t recognised internationally; some of them are really cheap; some of them are dear, huge disparity in the cutting price. If you are not sure which TEFL course you are going to sign for is legit we will give you our advices as we have worked in the industry over 10 years.
- Not necessary to take the TEFL ‘in-CLASS’ course. It usually gives you some experience in the classroom with the actual teaching interact with students, usually 20 hours in class. On the other hand, the online TEFL course is purely practical like assignment completion and material review. In my opinion, an in-class TEFL course doesn’t give you many benefits over the online TEFL course. In the past two-year research, we have spoken to most Chinese Human Resources or Administrators of private schools or academies or language centres in China who unanimously thinks that in-class component doesn’t make any difference for their consideration of recruitments.
- Not necessary to take the TEFL course - over 150 hours. Although the more hours you study the more experience you gain, almost all schools or language centres in China can accept the qualification of 120-hour TEFL certificate as the minimum requirement. If English is your native language, 120-hour TEFL certificate is sufficient to be seriously considered by human resource department of schools in China. Thus you could save much time and money for TEFL course. Moreover, we believe that you have done plenty of presentations and projects or assignments during the 4-year life of university as you have lots of experience for communication. So more than 150 hours of TEFL course are not necessary.
- Pay attention to the fee of the online TEFL course. Like what I talked about the above point, you’ll save lots of time and huge money. The 20-hour TEFL class course will probably cost you extra £150 or above. On the other hand, an online 120-hour TEFL course usually costs up to £75. And the TEFL certificate will be recognised and legalised by Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO). Please don’t consider the TEFL provider if the fee of a 120-hour online TEFL course is above £100.
- Make sure that the TEFL certificate is issued in the UK as an UK document. Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) won’t legalise any international TEFL certificates which are originated oversea. Thus it will not further be authenticated by Chinese Embassy (Consulate) or Vietnamese Embassy, Thai Embassy or others. FCO in Milton Keynes has recognised about ten UK TEFL providers so far. however, other providers’ certificates will probably be rejected.
- Pay attention to your full name's issue. After you are successfully awarded with the UK TEFL certificate please request your full name into it to avoid any potential issues for the further applications. This will avoid lots of hassles as you move to the next stage. If you are studying in the university for the final year it is ideal that your full name will be requested to the certificate instead of first & last name or short form of the first name etc.
After above, it is difficult to choose the decent provider. If you enquire what the best choice is, we'll strongly recommend the best TEFL provider TEFL UK Ltd. Their fee is £73. Excellent service and great quality of the course!