UPDATE: Answers from WTA plus my reaction and some (as yet unanswered) additional questions in the comments section.
They don’t actually seem to be an association, and that is only the beginning of the strangeness. My initial emailed questions to them were:
Your FAQ page invites feedback/ questions, and I have quite a few:
“Generally speaking, you should possess a very high level of grammar before enrolling on a CELTA course.” I’ve never heard this before. Could you elaborate?
“Some of our approved courses are accredited by CELTA & Trinity College and this is detailed on each location page and map listing.” I clicked on almost all of the map listings and couldn’t find a mention. I also believe you need a high level of education to enter those courses, but your page says you can enter all courses without qualifications. There don’t seem to be any location pages.
“TKT is internationally recognised, highly respected and a benchmark for quality.” I’ve never seen a job asking for TKT. Will it really help?
“The WTA is fast becoming the worlds largest network of reputable TEFL course providers.” Could you provide details/ evidence?
“You will gain a fully accredited…” and “Externally moderated & accredited” on the main page. Most TEFL courses have a page on accreditation but I couldn’t find one.
“Internationally Recognized TEFL/TESOL Certificate courses are accredited by the World TEFL Association No: 1024867” What does this mean? Does it mean that the CELTA and Trinity courses you mentioned are accredited by the World TEFL Association?
“Our TEFL/TESOL courses are accredited by the World TEFL Association (WTA).” Doesn’t that mean you accredit yourselves? And are you really an association of TEFL courses?
“Also you don’t always need to have a degree in order to find a teaching job in most countries.” Could you tell me some countries where I can get a legal working visa without a degree? Is it really “most countries”?
“Exceeds international regulatory standards” Are there regulations about such things?
Thanks
Yours
Alex
And questions that have occurred to me since:
Can you really register people for the TKT in all the locations on your map? If so, will the exam dates be just after the TEFL courses end?
TEFLtastic 
I don’t know if it was prompted by my email, but there’s been some kind of reorganisation since I sent the questions above, e.g. it no longer mentions CELTA or Trinity. There’s also a photo slideshow that only shows one photo with the caption “The beach parties were wonderful” over and over!
LikeLike
Excellent article as usual. Its good to know that someone is fighting the good fight against all the crooks,liars and criminals in the TEFL world.
Any tips,advice or articles would be warmly received in regards to the DELTA or DIP TESOL.
keep up the good work
LikeLike
Dear Alex,
We received your email on Saturday 1st September while our office was closed. Your next email was received by us on Monday 3rd September stating you did not receive an answer to your email and ‘you would post the questions publicly on your website’. We are in the process of changing over our website to a new server and platform, which was just launched on Friday and some text and photos are still being updated. Once our new website has been proofread we will respond to your questions.
Sincerely,
Andrea Freeman
Program Manager
LikeLike
Dear Ali McLauchan,
Thats an interesting response considering you completed one of our TEFL courses and volunteer programs at Koh Samui, Thailand with Teach Abroad Thailand. You gave us an outstanding testimonial. Here it is below for your reference.
=====
[EDITED – private email shared without permission]
LikeLike
As it stands, we have no idea as to why this testimonial was actually written and for all we know, it could have been required by the course provider before actually issuing their certificates. And if it was actually a bad course, would participants actually say so if they needed a recommendation for a teaching job? What IS interesting is that they would post participants words on websites and apparently all without their informed consent to do so. If they have time for that, then they certainly have the time to address Alex’s questions, so I look forward to reading the responses to those.
LikeLike
I agree with TEFLista that posting what seems like a private email is morally dodgy, and if Ali wants me to edit it to take out the email part I’ll be happy to.
However, I also agree with Andrea that I did rush things a little and a week seems very reasonable for changing the website and a full reply. I’ll then make any additions or changes that seem needed.
LikeLike
“We have been running TEFL courses in Thailand since 2002 and have hundreds of satisfied graduates.”
So, less than 100 a year for 10 years – can’t imagine that is really the most popular in the country!
LikeLike
“Make sure the TEFL/TESOL course is moderated or accredited by one of three global organizations; Cambridge ESOL, Trinity College or the World TEFL Association.”
That one made me literally laugh out loud!
LikeLike
Andrea
I never mentioned anything about your organisation in my comment and was extremely happy with Thailand experience.
I think you are due me an apology.
Maybe I should write a detailed article about tefl WTA..Thailand experience I can’t speak highly enough of
I was making a general comment
Delete all my quotes now
LikeLike
Dear Ali
My apologies for my error as I didn’t mean to post your email address. I was just surprised why one of our happy students was making these comments!
regards
Andrea
LikeLike
Andrea
My comments were not directed towards your organisation it was just a general praise towards TEFLtastic (but i can see how it has been misconstrued)
To be honest i didn’t even realise that it was you and the Thailand Experience in the article (i think your name may have changed). It was my mistake.
For the record i have nothing but praise for the Thailand Experience and your organisation. I had a brilliant time, during my volunteer spell and TEFL course and would recommend (and i have numerous times) the course to anyone.
I don’t want to be involved in a slagging match. This was not my intention
sorry
keep up the good work
LikeLike
Glad all that is solved, but I should point out that it was the content of the email that shouldn’t have been shared without permission, not just the email address
LikeLike
Dear Alex,
In response to your questions.
Our goal is to create the world’s largest TEFL association and to be the leader in advancing trust in the TEFL industry.
We intend to accomplish this goal by:
* Creating a community of trustworthy TEFL/TESOL course providers.
* Setting standards for trust and ethical business practices.
* Building trust in the TEFL/ESL marketplace.
* Encouraging TEFL training providers to deliver results in accordance with our standards and addressing customer concerns in a timely, satisfactory manner.
We are an established TEFL association, incorporated in 2010 as a limited company to create a legal entity in Hong Kong, as there is no clear, legal foundation for associations in many Asian countries. (This allows us to, e.g, open bank accounts, enter into contracts, rent offices, hire employees, take out insurance policies etc.)
We currently have 15 institutional members worldwide and are negotiating with one major TEFL provider who intends to join us in 2013. With all of their members on board, this will make us one of the world’s largest TEFL organizations. A full member list will be made public once the legal obligations have been met by all parties.
We do not accredit or operate CELTA or Trinity courses. We are affiliated with several of their privately run training centers. The global recession over the past 2-3 years has seen our number of Trinity partners fall from 3 to zero. Some of our other TEFL partners have cut their number of courses from 10 per year to just 3 due to a lack of enrollments so our membership growth has stalled. We currently have just one CELTA partner but we hope to have more CELTA schools on board soon.
All CELTA applicants must pass a written application and grammar exam before being accepted. We have received several high quality candidates on our TEFL courses who were unable to pass this CELTA entrance exam, hence our statement that a high level of grammar is required to be accepted on a CELTA course.
Most of our TEFL courses are self-moderated and we maintain a very high standard. We have a 99% satisfaction rate from our students and no outstanding complaints with anyone, as far as I know.
We believe that having a Cambridge TKT certificate along with a TEFL/TESOL certificate will enhance a teacher’s job prospects & qualifications as well as give them confidence in applying forgetter paying positions.
Authorities in many countries, such as Thailand and China, now state that a BA degree is required to teach legally. In reality, this rule is disregarded if an employer can convince the local authorities that there is a teacher shortage and/or that students in the local community will be deprived of English tuition if their non-degree teacher is not granted a permit to teach. This is often the case. Virtually all ‘non-degree’ graduates from our TEFL courses in Thailand and China were able to find employment and were provided with a valid visa/work permit by their employers to ensure they could teach legally.
I trust this answers your questions and thank you for posting our response.
Regards
Andrea
LikeLike
Dear Andrea
First of all I notice that the prices for your own courses in Thailand are set at a similar price to a CELTA (with some useless bells and whistles like Thai visa support)
It sound in your letter though like you are admitting that the course you have on offer is of a LOWER standard than a CELTA.
Anyone who fails the CELTA entrance exam needs to go back and develop a better awareness of English. Failing the CELTA itself is unfortunate for those who do but there needs to be some kind of assessment and criteria before a teacher is paid to deliver a service. I’m unsure if your course would ever fail anyone.
I personally have little respect for these courses where you go and have ‘loads of fun’ learn some ‘tricks’ for the classroom and then off you go on the next backpacking adventure.
I think the CELTA does have its’ flaws and it’s not great at helping you generate entertaining lessons. It’s more about making a teacher self-evaluate and consider their goals of the class. Many schools as you said though don’t require this but after a few years it can be the case that you have to go back to a centre and take the CELTA (or equivalent) if you want to continue being a teacher and get a more senior position.
Well I’ve had my say but I’m sure your courses will still get a steady flow of people off on their TEFL backpacking adventure. The more the merrier (For school directors that is who can then lower the wages for teachers)
LikeLike
Hi Andrea
Thanks for the response. I’d like to give a similarly detailed answer but it is complicated by the fact that some of the things you say contradict what was on the site when I read it and will presumably be changed on the updated site. Can you let me know when the site is fully updated, then I’ll analyse that and reply to your statements?
LikeLike
I absolutely agree that anyone who can fail the entrance test for a CELTA course should never be paid to teach English. What Andrea doesn’t say is that you will be given a full grammar reading list before taking the test (which is anyway taken at home with full access to reference books), so if you can’t understand those books well enough to pass a short test what are the chances you will be able to explain anything to your paying students?
LikeLike
Cor, this World Tefl Association sounds great. Do you think they’d like some publicity from Sandy McManus?
LikeLike
Having thought about it further, it makes more sense to answer these points based on the information on the website when I wrote my original post and then go and look at the updated site later.
– “We do not accredit or operate CELTA or Trinity courses.” Your site suggests all the courses listed are accredited by WTA
“The global recession over the past 2-3 years has seen our number of Trinity partners fall from 3 to zero.” Then the mention of Trinity needs to be removed.
– “We currently have just one CELTA partner but we hope to have more CELTA schools on board soon.” I couldn’t find it. Which one is it?
– “All CELTA applicants must pass a written application and grammar exam before being accepted. We have received several high quality candidates on our TEFL courses who were unable to pass this CELTA entrance exam, hence our statement that a high level of grammar is required to be accepted on a CELTA course.” This is not strictly true – individual CELTA courses decide how they will judge that candidates are suitable for the course, mainly meaning likely to pass it. I’ve dealt with the rest of this question above – “What Andrea doesn’t say is that you will be given a full grammar reading list before taking the test (which is anyway taken at home with full access to reference books), so if you can’t understand those books well enough to pass a short test what are the chances you will be able to explain anything to your paying students?”
– “Most of our TEFL courses are self-moderated and we maintain a very high standard. We have a 99% satisfaction rate from our students and no outstanding complaints with anyone, as far as I know.” So, WTA does not actually accredit or moderate the courses in any real sense at all. This certainly doesn’t match ““You will gain a fully accredited…”, “Externally moderated & accredited” etc etc.
– “Authorities in many countries, such as Thailand and China, now state that a BA degree is required to teach legally. In reality, this rule is disregarded if an employer can convince the local authorities that there is a teacher shortage and/or that students in the local community will be deprived of English tuition if their non-degree teacher is not granted a permit to teach. This is often the case.” That’s a good point, but those are the only two countries I know of where that is true. What other countries would make up “most countries”.
Two questions not answered (one of which was not in my original email):
– “Exceeds international regulatory standards” Are there regulations about such things?
– Can you really register people for the TKT in all the locations on your map? If so, will the exam dates be just after the TEFL courses end?
LikeLike
I taught and assisted in the employment of many teachers while working for a large chain of English Language schools in China and I can tell you that it is ALWAYS illegal to employ teachers who do not have a BA degree, and I believe they also require 2 years post graduation teaching experience now too.
I also have a CELTA and you need a BA degree to get on one of those courses too.
Don’t take non CELTA or Trinity TESOL certified TEFL courses — they are not worth the paper they are printed on!
LikeLike