Description
ICAL TEFL is one of the first and earliest providers of online TEFL certification courses. We have over 20,000 happy graduates, many of whom are now enjoying fulfilling careers teaching English online and all over the world. All of our courses are fully supported by professional tutors and our graduates have excellent career prospects once they have completed the course.
Our 120 hour TEFL course includes everything you need to qualify as a TEFL teacher. This course will not only qualify you; it will also fully prepare you for the job as a confident English language teacher.
Our grammar foundation course will improve your teaching by giving you an in depth understanding of English grammar and explain why the English language is structured as it is
Courses
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Certifications
Additional Features
Specialist Courses
At the time, I chose this online TEFL course because it had the most feedback in terms of number of reviewers and raves. That was a year and a half ago.
After finally completing this course, I have to say it was worth it. For the price ($265) and the number of hours earned (100), it was good value for the money.
In terms of the course material, it was spot on. You go through 5 modules with online quizzes as checkpoints related to each module. Once you pass the quiz to a module, you download a pdf on the website that gives you instructions for an assignment that is to be done in writing, usually on a word document that is to be completed and submitted to a personal tutor that you have contact with through the online course. The tutor is probably the most valuable asset to this course. You can e-mail your tutor any questions, and he or she will assist you in a reasonable time period. Say for example you submit an assignment, your tutor will respond back within 3 days with very thorough feedback highlighted in a different color addressing each section of your assignment. My tutor did a great job of affirming my correct work while gently rebuking my incorrect work with positive alternatives and suggestions.
As for the modules themselves, they focus on the four main language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. By the time you get to the fifth module, you’ll have to prepare a full blown lesson plan using all four skills. It’s a daunting fifth module, but with your knowledge gained from the prior four modules and with a moderate level of self-motivation, you should be able to knock it out successfully. The modules cover everything imaginable: grammar and punctuation, pronunciation, preparing a syllabus, organizational use of the whiteboard, methods of teaching, ways to motivate a class, how to teach classes with different numbers of students and gender ratios as well as age differences in the same class, focusing on lesson targets, concept checking, praise and reinforcement, formal testing, correction, self-correction, supplementary material, drills, controlled practice, free practice, and sub-skills such as skimming, scanning, predicting, inference, listening for detail. And much more.
The course will probably take you between 1-3 months depending on your level of work ethic and dedication towards completing it. I finished 4 of the 5 modules in 1 month, but never got passed the 5th one because I got hired to teach in Korea right before I completed it. And since the school in Korea that hired me was indifferent to having a TEFL qualification, I never had a sense of urgency to continue on with the class. I should have though, as I would come to find out a year later when I decided to resume where I left off that I had to pay a $50 renewal fee if there has been no progress in the course in over 12 months. But even still, I learned a lot, and particularly more this time around after finishing the 5th module because I could constantly relate the course work to my classes that I taught in Korea for that year.
Even though my school was indifferent to a TEFL qualification (because it paid one of the highest starting salaries of any hagwon in Korea), most schools will look at a TEFL qualification with raised brows, and it could get you an extra 100K to 200K won raise when doing salary negotiations in Korea. Aside from monetary benefits, the course did help me improve my teaching skills. Make sure to reference back to the material when coming up with new ideas for lesson plans in your classes, as you could easily get caught up in your own routine without thinking about using what you learned. Utilize what you learn!
So, I picked this course because it had the most reviewers, and there seems to be a good reason why – It’s the best out there.
Overall, I definitely recommend this course to anyone who wants a resume builder and enhance their skills in teaching English as a foreign language.