By popular guest writer “TEFLista”
“The accreditation and marketing practices used by some course providers can be more slippery than a freshly buttered ice rink. In a world where sales often come first and the truth comes second, avoiding dodgy course providers altogether isn’t an easy thing to do, especially for someone trying to pick a course for the first time. Part 5 of this series gives a few more points to keep in mind when navigating through the tricky territory of TEFL Marketing.
Slippery Accreditation
Before anyone can sell you a course, they must first convince you that they are trustworthy and this is where accreditation fits in. To appear solid, providers will use official sounding acronyms or logos on their websites, many of which may look good but are often meaningless affiliations. Keep in mind that virtually all courses will claim some sort of accreditation, including even the worst of them. Here are a few things that you may come across on an ‘accreditation page’ that are often not what they seem to be:
University Affiliations – this was covered in Part 4 of this series (see link below).
Teacher Organizations
By and large, teacher organizations exist for the purpose of professional development and they do not inspect schools or certificate course providers. Memberships are offered to all individuals and institutions (businesses) that apply and one need not even be a teacher in order to join. Three of the most commonly used and abused affiliations by course providers include IATEFL, TESOL Inc., and the College of Teachers. Right now, and even without a TEFL cert, you could become a member of these organizations if you wanted to.
Ministry of Education
Surprisingly, I’ve come across a lot of dodgy courses that seem to sport this endorsement. Unfortunately, some countries do not require private school owners, teachers or trainers to have a teaching qualification and this is usually the case when a country only requires a ‘BA in any field’ to obtain a visa. In short, a MOE license does not always ensure that qualified training staff are on board, so don’t be quick to make such an assumption.
The Logo Cloud
This is when a course provider slaps up three or more different logos on their accreditation page and it’s more often than not bad news, especially if one or more of them is a teacher organization. The idea is that they’ll throw a bunch of names at you in hopes that this will beef up their credibility. I once followed up in detail on a course provider who had a car manufacturing logo on their website and was surprised at the findings. The course provider’s side of the story was that they are one their many happy clients. The car company’s side of the story was that they did in fact use that course provider’s services, but only very briefly because they soon switched to a different one, and that the training in question took place more than seven years ago. So it seems that a logo, too, can be worth a thousand words…
Multiple Websites
Duped By Wrong Course
Picture this: You decide to take a TEFL course, so you do a Google search using the name of the city that you want + TEFL certificate. Up comes a page of results which you THINK are all different course providers because they have different names and different URLs. You avoid course provider number one, because they appear to have a bad reputation and you sign-up for course provider number six. Then after you pay, you fly half way around the world to take your course only to find out when you arrive that the TEFL cert you will be getting is actually from course provider number 1 and that course provider number six is actually in charge of sorting out your accommodation. Then you have problems with your course and suddenly six is blaming one, and one is blaming six, and you now find yourself stuck in the middle and wondering ‘how on earth did this happen?’
Believe it or not, it might be easier to sign-up for the wrong course than you think. Some course providers attempt to ‘bait the waters’ better and increase their chances of having you take their courses just by having multiple websites that offer the same course using different names. You know that page of search results that just came up with 12 hits? Well, maybe only eight are from different companies, not the the 12 that show up. So how do you know? Simple. Just check the dates listed by the course provider. Then Google the dates and the location. If they are a match, then chances are that it’s the same exact course.”
Thanks TEFLista, and comments, emails and guest pieces by others on the same or other topics gratefully accepted.
Other parts of this series:
Part One – Bait and Switch/ Linguistics Dictionary
Part Two – Call Anyone a Trainer
Part Four – The University Language Institute
Stuff on the same topic by me
10 typical meaningless or misleading statements by TEFL course providers – LINK FIXED
15 reasons to avoid a TEFL course – LINK FIXED
TEFLtastic 