THE NEW DIPLOMA COURSE FROM TEXT-AND-TALK ACADEMY
Of all TEFL Diploma
programs
in the world, ours is at once the most unique, the most practical, the
most affordable and the shortest. (Click here to see our discounted fees!) It is not difficult to describe the
difference between a TEFL Certificate Course and a TEFL Diploma Course:
The former is to train people and give them the skills and confidence
to teach conversational English as a foreign or second language to
natives of
non-English speaking countries. The emphasis is, and must be, on
conducting successful conversation classes, as that is the most urgent
need for all foreign learners of English. It does not, and cannot,
train teachers to teach more specialized English classes, however.
A TEFL Diploma Course, on the other hand, comes after the Certificate
Course and is concerned with teacher development.
In other words, it is designed to help already-trained teachers to
improve and continue to improve and grow throughout their entire
careers, in terms of teaching methods, techniques and cutting edge
knowledge. It focuses teachers on how to improve, what techniques other
teachers use and how successful these are, and on what new teaching
discoveries have made that can be applied to one's own students. Such
courses could be, for example, the Cambridge DELTA (Diploma in English
Language Teaching to Adults) Course, which is conducted online for
about six months (an approach we do not quite approve of), and the
Trinity Diploma Course which can run as long as two years to complete.
Other diploma courses (heavily burdened by intensive educational
theory) typically run full-time for 12 weeks, and still do not focus well, if at all,
on the teaching of advanced skills courses.
Most such courses, and a number of others, are worthy of the study,
particularly if one aspires to write his or her own textbook materials
and/or aspires to share knowledge that has been learned with others as
a speaker at a TESOL Conference. However, in the real world that we
share with teachers who need to maximize their earnings, and who in
order to achieve that need must develop skills in teaching very
highly-paid English classes other than just conversation, we see a
diploma course as an Advanced Skills Diploma Course, i.e., one that
facilitates
teacher development in the most important sense...
in order to be successful in both their lives and their careers.
In
this approach, teachers trained through our course become focused of
their own accord on their professional development, and on all of the
new cutting edge developments that are being made in the EFL/ESL
world. In other words, we minimize theory in the course by giving trainees the advanced skills they will need to best advance
both themselves and their students, while at the same time motivating
them to continue on their path of self-improvement. They
will develop themselves, and many, we have little doubt, will end up as
authors of teaching materials and speakers at any TESOL conferences
they might choose to address.
The Diploma Course Content. The content of our Advanced Skills
Diploma Course is of two divisions:
1. The Career
Studies Division. In
order to get the best jobs, EFL and ESL users of English must have very
high levels of English ability, ititially just to enable them to study
in universities abroad. It is vital that such students take
and pass either the T.O.E.F.L. (Testing
of English as a Foreign
Language) Exam or the I.E.L.T.S. (International English Language Testing
Services) Exam at a high level in order to achieve this objective.
Unfortunately, very few English native-speaking teachers in Asia have
been trained or are otherwise qualified to teach these students, with
two very unfortunate results: The quality of teaching is very poor,
resulting in poor test scores;
and there simply are not enough teachers around to meet the demand.
Another type of course is required to enable Asian students to obtain
work in the airline industry in such jobs as air hostesses, check-in
clerks, accountants, baggage handlers, controllers or pilots. This
latter group prepare for their employment by taking the T.O.E.I.C.
(Testing of English in International Communications) Exam, though this
test is also administered to persons throughout the business community
as a
gauge of how well staff are able to understand and relate to foreigners
using English.
Still other teaching needs are courses to help students with their
study
skills, reading skills, writing skills and listening skills. Business
English, per se, must also be
taught, and taught well, to enable staff to do their jobs effectively
and advance
their positions. And students with special needs require teachers with ESP (English for Special Purposes)
skills such as, for example, how to
locate companies, set up appointments with managers, and powerfully
present proposals to foreign company executives, while they are
traveling outside their own country.
2.
The Young Learners Division. A TEYL (Teaching English to Young
Learners) Course is a very valuable
block of training for anyone aspiring to teach English successfully to
young children. While such a course is not mandatory, and our own TEFL
Certificate Course provides enough substantial information to enable
one to embark on teaching children, most teachers would prefer more
specialized and intensive knowledge, in order to teach as well as they
are capable of teaching, and to acquire the best-paying jobs.
Unfortunately, such TEYL Courses are quite rare in Asia, and
this
division of our Advanced Skills Diploma Program fills that void with a
pleasant, but comprehensive, internal course. Therefore,
if you are planning on teaching English to children, or accept that
that may be the best English teaching job you may be able to get for
awhile, it would be a very good idea to take the TEYL course after the TEFL Certificate Course, just as
soon as it can be arranged. (You can take just
this part of the Diploma Course, initially, if you wish, and follow up
on the other half later on.)
All of the above skills, and
many
more, are what you will acquire if you do
our TEFL Advanced Skills Diploma Course, which consists of only 80
hours, spread easily over sixteen weeks by providing study on Sundays only .
