TEFL Certificate/ Contract packages: Scams or great deals?

Hi there David and Laurette Mears here, we know of several good tesol courses which are Not scams and we actually have a course ourselves, which can actually be achieved in approx 160 hours and all our graduates have now attained working positions, but we do know of a couple of Schools running these courses which seem unusaual i.e. 1 day to qualify as a teacher...questionable??

I´m currently taking a TEFL Certification course in Bangkok. It´s run by the AUA, connected with the SIT TESOL Program. VERY credible, definitely getting my money´s worth.

Last year I tried applying to a TEFL INTL special program where tuition was waived, and I´d have a teaching position ready after being trained. Bought my ticket, paid my deposit, then the schools I was to teach in, looked at my passport. They thought since I was born in Korea, I couldn´t possibly speak native English, so they dropped me! I´m not even fluent in any other language.

So, be careful, but there are certainly good ones out there.

Hello everyone! I´m a native of the Philippines,an English teacher for over four years now.I´m just wondering why almost all needed English teachers in schools abroad are looking for native speakers?! We Filipinos are also good speakers and very conscious about grammar specially English teachers. Can´t we not be given a chance to prove ourselves our worth?

yes arcie i tend to agree as i have been living in Manila for the last 2 and a half years but in the call center business many of the of the customers from abroad cannot understand the Filipono agents in english. i know this because i have been a trainer in a call center here. While ther are very good speakers of english here they represent only about 10% of the population. Filipinos are sensitive about this as American call centers have chosen this country as a location for their off shore operations. However the corporations are unwilling to pay for native speakers to train the local agents dspite the fact that they are enjoying huge savings here. I have seen this first hand.But who cares anyway as these corporations like IBM,HSBC,etc are hoping the callers will hang up and not bother them about their enquiries etc. So if they cant make head nor tail of what the agent is talking about all the better. The quality of spoken english in Phils isRAPIDLY DECLINING AS IN SINGAPORE INDIA HONG KONG.