104 reviews of ICAL TEFL

Review 90 of 104 ICAL TEFL

90%
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I currently live in Bangkok, Thailand and teach English at the Baptist Student Center. The certification was not a requirement however the course proved very helpful for me as I interact with the students. The material gives great insight into “live” situations in the classroom. There may be instances when you have to create your own material. ICAL helps facilitate that as well as provides as resource for the future with student access to their student center. Further, the tutor I had gave very concise, prompt, helpful feedback on my assignments. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the course, usefulness and relevance. Great job! Keep doing what you are doing to better equip teachers to do their job with excellence.

Review 89 of 104 ICAL TEFL

80%
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I’m a high school teacher in the Caribbean, with an MA in Education, who wanted to do a TEFL/TESOL for years because my students seemed to have difficulty learning English although it’s their first language. After finally researching and doing nothing for a year, I decided to read reviews of courses in 2011.

I shortlisted three – ITTO, ITTP and ICAL…needless to say, I chose the latter based on the reviews on this site, the tutor profiles, the cost – (I especially liked the choice of different currencies), the FAQ on the ICAL site, and the course content (modular and sequential). It was superior to the other courses and very objective..I didn’t feel pressured into enrolling.

The pre-registering Q&As were priceless, it seems everything was covered and answered. My rationale for choosing a tutor was ‘someone whose name is close to mine or who I felt I resonated with. I chose Ellen, not only for name but she has over 30yrs experience in the field and beyond.

From my first to final assignment she offered invaluable suggestions and her comments assisted with the course, and I could use them in my daily teaching – so my students and I were benefitting from day one. My confidence level soared because it was MY work, my ideas, my creativity that was supported by Ellen.

Initially, I thought there wasn’t enough information to complete the assignments, but this was a good thing because it forced me to research further. additionally, I knew the structure of the modules so I was prepared to do extra work for high grades and adding to my knowledge pool.

I really enjoyed the course, and as a spin off, I’m now thinking of a second Masters or PhD in linguistics – focussing on Haitian creole and its influence on the English speaking Caribbean, which stems from the research from Module 1 and observing my students language acquisition.

If you’re looking for a course that will challenge you, this is for you. It’s not a fast track to TEFL/TESOL. It’s a well thought out course with expert tutors, and almost instant feedback. It delivers what it says.

I may or may not teach abroad, but at least I’m equipped and prepared to do so -and continue using it in my classes.

Thanks ICAL you’ve truly prepared me for life, and I share the knowledge with my colleagues on my tiny island in the Caribbean. You may soon get an influx of students from my island as we have many non-English speaking students coming to our schools.

Review 88 of 104 ICAL TEFL

95%
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I am very happy about my choice. ICAL TEFL course, is very useful and clear. Since the first e-mail I sent, I felt the ICAL people are really great professionals and great persons. The course itself has been surprising, I already teached in Brazil, but after doing the ICAL TEFL, i discovered that there were a lot of things to learn.I would suggest anyonw to take this course.

Review 87 of 104 ICAL TEFL

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It was Golda Meir who said that “Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.”

Yes! She couldn’t have said it any better. When ignorance like darkness veils your eyes with its many shadows, your ability to see clearly diminishes . You move around with this illusion, overshooting your goals. You know, near-misses every time.

Then one day, awareness like the rays of the sun graces your eyes, penetrates and melt the scales that blinds you. And you begin to see with astounding clarity your goal and the tools latent within you that will help bring out the best in every student that passes through you.

I’m glad I took this course. I believe that it worth every second that I spend on it. The cost? Negligible especially when you compare it with the benefits you will see in the end.

For any individual that have chosen teaching as his or her own path, I recommend you take this course. If not for anything, let it be to dare yourself and see whether those abilities you presume that you have holds true or not.

Take this journey! You will love every part of it especially if you have by your side, a Tutor as mine. He is indeed a Teacher! When you come out of the tail-end of it, you will be amaze at how much you didn’t really know.

Review 86 of 104 ICAL TEFL

93%
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The ICAL course is a professionally run course. I was able to complete the modules at my own pace, and my tutor always returned my assignments promptly and with very insightful and valuable feedback. My tutor was excellent. I took the course while already tutoring a few students and each module helped me to improve my teaching as I went along. I was able to see what went wrong with some lessons and how to improve. I had zero teaching experience when I started, but now I definitely feel more confident. Even though I do private tutoring, the skills and techniques I learned through ICAL can be applied to each of my students in some way.

Review 85 of 104 ICAL TEFL

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I greatly enjoyed the ICAL TESL course. It was well organized, dynamic, and the student support was incredible. Online courses can be daunting where there is no direct interaction. With ICAL however I never was remiss for guidance and feedback. My tutor was excellent and the whole course through I felt as though I was a part of a conversation. The experience was extremely beneficial and I feel as though it has allowed me invaluable insight that will incredibly benefit my effectiveness and competence as and ESL teacher.

Review 84 of 104 ICAL TEFL

93%
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I finished the course three weeks ago. I did it at my own pace, which was nice. I found it very interesting and full of useful information for new teachers or old teachers who want to improve their teaching skills.

I liked how the course touches various aspects of teaching, like correcting grammatical errors errors, developing a syllabus, lesson planning, classroom setup, and classroom management, to mention a few. The course gives enough details on all the aspects with enough extra resources, such as the ICAL TEFL WIKI and the assignment help page, to help you do your assignments. I found these to be quite relevant to my classes. I realized where some of my previous classes went wrong and how I could improve in my future classes.

My tutor’s comments were very positive and detailed and helped me see where i made mistakes. All my assignments were returned on time.

I’m also quite happy with the ICAL admin. All my emails were responded to promptly and all my questions or concerns addressed.

Thank you ICAL and good luck to all who wish to take the course.

Review 83 of 104 ICAL TEFL

100%
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The ICAL Online TEFL Training course was a very professionally run course with an excellent course tutor. I found the administration of my assignments was dealt with very efficiently and my tutor always returned my work with her comments very quickly. I learnt a great deal during this course and will be using my assignments and the comments and suggestions of my tutor as a good base for my English teaching. I would highly recommend this course as I found the whole process to be very simple, helpful and will no doubt be extremely useful in my future teaching of TEFL.

Review 82 of 104 ICAL TEFL

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I have finished my ICAL course last week, and I wanted to say that I have found it very informative and I also felt proud of myself after every assignment. I have been already teaching English in Italy for several years, and I had suddenly decided to do something just for myself, and that is to get a certification that qualifies me as an English mother tongue teacher. I have chosen ICAL thanks to a friend that has talked to me about it in a very positive way.

This course has helped me more to understand how I can improve myself as a teacher.

I have enjoyed the assignments, and also appreciate my tutor Sheila’s help.

I also appreciate the price and the fact that I could do it in my spare time, without rushing, and that I have always got my corrections back at times even before three working days.

Sheila’s comments on my assignments have all been very precious. I now feel more confident in my abilities as a teacher also thanks to these. Reading comments such as: good, good idea, well done and others have meade me feel that I’m doing the right thing.

I thank Sheila and all ICAL administration for the help I’ve recieved during this course.

I now really feel like an EFL teacher, and I highly recommend ICAL!

Review 81 of 104 ICAL TEFL

97%
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I recently finished this course – last week actually! – and definitely enjoyed it! The course itself can be done fairly quickly (I did mine within about a month – give or take) so that’s pretty important if you’re on a time constraint. Though of course, everyone finishes the program in their own time.

What I enjoyed most about the course was the one on one help I received from my tutor (and the fact that you can are sent a selection of tutors – I had two – based on a questionnaire you fill out in the beginning. So any tutor you get will have some similarity to you – which is great! I enjoyed how thorough and personable it was). Because of my own time constraints, I loved how quickly my tutor got back to me with corrections on the assignment. His comments always proved useful and they gave me a deeper understanding of the module in terms of what I missed or didn’t understand.

Another great thing was the expediency of each correction: within 3 working days, my tutor got back to me (and sometimes much faster than that!).

Ultimately, I really liked this TEFL course because it gave me a lot of insight into what it might be like as a teacher. I’ve never handled a classroom on my own before, and the course definitely opened my eyes to what it would be like as one. (For instance, I had no idea how hard or thorough lesson planning was until I had to do it!). The modules also force you to be creative in coming up with new ways to teach students, instead of just relying on old, or rehashed methods. I thought this part was great, and it’s something you get slightly better at as the modules continue. When I first started, I had NO idea how to be creative in my teaching approach and this TEFL course helped me explore new ideas.

But aside from the TEFL class itself – the administration for ICAL is really top-notch. I loved how responsive and thorough each admin was, and got back to me fairly quickly. This is so fantastic. I love good customer service, and ICAL is right up there. If you’re having any problems, or need a question answered – then they’re right there to help you.

The only reason I haven’t given a score for Job Placement is because I haven’t used ICAL (yet!) in this manner. Hopefully, one day I will but for now, I can’t comment on it.

So if you’re looking for a thorough – but not too long course – with great admin support then ICAL is the best! And the price – $265 – makes it fairly affordable as well; if that’s an important factor for you.

(I didn’t spend a lot of time in the forums or connecting with other TEFL takers, so I can’t comment on that. But their TEFL wiki is really cool and goes into great detail. There were so many things about English grammar that I never knew! Heh.)

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