ESL Jobs Forum

[virgogirl]

Hi!
I am currently at the beginning of putting together a business plan for a TESOL certificate granting course in the USA. I am wondering if anyone can shed light on the process for accrediting teacher training TESOL courses. I have been a Teacher Trainer abroad, have a Masters in Education and some classroom experience as well. But actually taught for a certificate course in mexico and loved the work.
So far I have come up with Cambridge, Trinity, and Oxford. Next step is to make contact. But I am still listing more possibilities and information about the process.

[Lexicon]

Hi There!

You're getting yourself into far more than you could ever imagine!

Send me an email and tell me a bit about your program ideas and I'll give you the rundown of what's actually involved. It's immense to say the least.

drew (dot) ward (at) CALLEteach (dot) org
_________________
The first step to teaching is realizing that you don't know nearly enough yourself.

My Blog: http://calleteach.wordpress.com

[bgngranada]

Ii would be interested in hearing more about this as well...

[ICAL_Pete]

We have looked into accreditation in great detail over the years. And the bottom line is that unfortunately there is NO independent, international accreditation agency out there. There are very local organisations or there are those which purport to be independent but which are, in fact, fronts from schools.

We would love to see a proper accreditation agency which is transparent, international, independent and so on so if you do come up with something, let us all know!
_________________
ICAL - Quality TEFL Training since 1998

[bgngranada]

Hmm...as far as I know you are right ICAL. Pete It seems that a University accreditation would at least be better than nothing in this case. Are you referring to a specific international accreditation for online courses? or both online and onsite?

From my experience it seems that most people are at teast 'pacified' if there is some larger institution you accredited under (especially universities).

[virgogirl]

Dear Posters:!

I thank you all for your curiosity and input. I plan to grant certificates for on-site 4 week intensives, maybe 3 week. NO ONLINE!!

Having been through a 4 week intensive myself, it gave me method, and live and in person teaching experience. This was imperative for international readiness especially for career changers or non-experienced native speakers without methods. So this is what I believe in.

As far as accreditation, I was hoping to put forth a couirse with CELTA standards. A bit of information I received is that CELTA is only through Cambridge and is expensive. I am more interested in accreditation for the student to be internationally (excluding the USA of course) ready to meet the general qualifications that schools look for in an applicant. As far as marketing, I do want potential students to feel that the course I am teaching holds academic weight. If I am unable to afford the connection with Cambridge, I would be more inclined to sell the course with a marketing slant toward myself as the teacher trainer and less the accreditation status. So I am needing to get more information on exactly what schools are looking for when they hire English teachers, in general.

I realize my undertaking of teaching a certificate granting course is a big venture. I still have about 8 months to play with the idea. The back-up plan is to be an independent contractor for Oxford seminars. They teach out of Albuquerque New Mexico, and I have purposed to them to consider adding Taos as an additional location.

Finally, since this is getting long, I have had a few hits from people who have a course all canned that I could buy for 50-75 dollars a certificate, having to invest in minimum 50 certificates. It seemed a little fly by night and I didn't like their website where students post their data for potential employers. But the positive thing is that there may be BETTER prescribed courses to use and adapt. Having a manual and a certificate granting entity would make it simple to start while I continue to figure out how to privitize all my ideas and methods.

Any feedback is always welcome. Thanks. TERESA