Chapter 3: Examining Courses, Qualifications and Jobs 41
What the course covers
Most distance certificate courses run along the same lines as taught courses
(see information in the preceding ‘Signing up for a certificate course’). You
usually have assignments or work books to complete and get feedback from a
designated tutor.Some course providers work in collaboration with a school so that trainees
can get practical experience in the classroom, at least through observing
others if not through teaching lessons themselves.How much it costs
Prices vary widely depending on what the course has to offer. However, you
can expect to pay up to £400 for a course with about 100 hours tuition.Contact TEFL Training (www.tefltraining.co.uk) for introductory week-
ends in the UK and mainland Europe and distance courses. This is a well-
established organisation with very professional tutors.
Going for a diploma course
After you’ve been teaching English for a couple of years and have decided
to make TEFL your career for some time to come, you can consider doing a
diploma course. This means demonstrating deeper theoretical knowledge
and more practical ability than holders of a TEFL certificate.If you’re going to invest your time and money in a diploma course, stick to the
most well-known courses for the country you live in. In the UK these are the
Cambridge DELTA and Trinity DipTESOL.What you can do with this certificate
With a diploma, you can now call yourself a fully qualified EFL teacher. You’re
in a position to apply for most DoS jobs (Director of Studies) and ADoS
(Assistant to the DoS) roles too. Employers usually require officially recog-
nised teacher trainers to have this qualification and schools accredited by
more prestigious bodies such as the British Council need to have a certain
ratio of diploma qualified teachers on staff, so this makes you more desirable
to employers. You can legitimately ask for a pay rise once you have your ‘dip’
so that you’re set apart from the initiated teachers.You can study a diploma intensively over about three months or by distance
learning over a year or two. However, with both the Trinity diploma and the
DELTA you need to sit an exam and have your teaching assessed internally by
your course provider and externally by the awarding body.