TEFL Thailand In-class
ESL jobs are increasing in demand as they are a viable career options. This
in turn raised the demand for procuring TEFL certificate, without which it’s
not possible to secure a profitable ESL teaching assignment.
One may procure the TEFL certificate either by doing online or on-site
courses. The two courses have the same goal – to become a certified ESL
teacher. However there exists a slight difference between the onsite and
online TEFL certificate course.
The purpose is to make the candidate enrolled an effective teacher. The
Onsite course attains this by making the candidates imbibe all the
techniques and methodologies from the excellent faculty who man the
institution. While Online course achieves the same by making candidates /
trainees interact with tech savvy, experienced tutors online or over the
internet. The faculty, whether onsite or online in either case is concerned
about the trainees progress and offers cutting edge technology and sincere
assistance to hasten the candidates progress. The advantage of Onsite is
that the trainees have immediate access to the tutor and proximity helps in
resolving certain doubts faster.
The online and onsite courses both offer the fundamentals of theoretical and
practical knowledge necessary for an efficient TEFL teacher. The online
course is more flexible and allows the candidates to pursue the course at
their own pace and convenience; what suits you is important – as there isn't
a set time limit for completing each part of the course The onsite course
has a fixed time schedule of 120 hours and it hastens the process of
acquiring the certificate as once one is enrolled for the course one must
complete it within the stipulated time.
On-site training holds some obvious benefits. It provides the opportunity to
teach students in real life classroom situation. The practice teaching
sessions in regular schools with real student are extremely necessary
experience for effective implementation of the methodologies taught in the
course. This classroom teaching experience helps to concretize what was
learnt as theory.
The practice teaching experience which is included in onsite training
program is also an advantage when successful candidates look for placements.
Thus the online course may seem cost efficient but there is greater merit in
doing onsite as it has greater acceptance since it provides its candidates
direct teaching experience.
Further the onsite course is essentially more hands on, functional as it
contains observed teaching practice sessions of every candidate and the
approach is inclusive and detailed and totally involves the trainee.
The online course being a distance education program it lacks in real life
class room environment and is more theoretical in its approach.
The other benefit of practice teaching is that the students can receive an
immediate feedback on their performance and quickly rectify their mistakes.
If one conducts a class in the presence of observers - tutor and peers,
one’s errors and faults will be instantly pointed out and corrected just as
the skills shown in classroom will be lauded and praised. This opportunity
is not possible in online course.
What is of prime importance whether one settles for the online or on-site
option is that they select a reputed and worldwide accredited TEFL course.
The courses must be acclaimed for maintaining high teaching standard and
producing international standard teachers of English language.
