Why the 60-Hour Certification?
As I mentioned in my last post (Winter in Spain) teaching in Spain with CIEE doesn’t require the traditional 150-hour TEFL certification. There are countries where it is required for teaching, including Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Thailand, so if it’s your dream to teach in one of those countries, you should get hopping (150-hour page). Therefore, while I didn’t technically need training, you don’t travel 3,000 miles to a new job in a new industry without doing some prep-work up front.
I decided to take a look at CIEE’s offerings, including the 150-hour certification they were mentioning on the application. Initially I thought, of course, that's what they recommend, I'm going to do it. However, that was until I went through the site, and learned there was another course I could take that wouldn’t let me teach my own classes, but would teach me the fundamentals I needed.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a copy of the pro-con list I made to decide which course to take:
150-Hour Certification
Pros
Lifetime Certification. Forever. I could teach English anywhere, forever.
Exhaustive, I'll know nearly everything
Practicum- no starting from square one on day one
Set class sizes and an instructor so I'll have a group of people I'm going through this with.
Instantaneous feedback
Cons
Do I want to teach English anywhere, forever?
$$$
Do I have the time? 12 hours per week, plus assignments and the 20 hours of practicum in Boston
Practicum is intense. ... What if it goes horribly?
What if I end up too busy to finish and it's a wash?
What if I'm too lazy to finish?!
60-Hour Certification
Pros
Fundamentals without getting too granular
Cheaper than 150-hour
Less time per week
No practicum
Cons
Won’t certify me forever, will really only get me to Spain
No set instructor (real people grade the assignments though)
Completely on my own with no due dates or benchmarks. Would need daily motivation.
No practicum. That experience would be vital to get out any nerves.
The three major factors that ultimately made my decision:
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Time
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Price
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Fear of the 20 hour practicum
In the end, I'm taking the faster, cheaper course where I can hide behind my laptop for a little while longer until I'm in front of a class. For some reason I’m not worried about being in front of a class in Spain, but am in the United States. I enjoy public speaking and intellectual discourse, but there's something different about it here. Maybe because I know I was harsh on new teachers or TAs in school. Maybe because I'm worried my lessons won't be engaging or effective. Regardless, I'm going to have that first day in class be my first time ever. Time to work on projecting my voice.
While fear was my #3 reason to not commit to the 150-hour, #1 and #2 are pretty compelling.
Time: Having a full-time job in a city means your weekdays consist of working, commuting to work, and two hours at night where you either try to have a social life and hit a brewery or concert, or let your mind go fallow and watch The Office for the sixth time. Normally, by the time your train arrives at your stop, you can’t muster enough energy to push back the other sardines and give yourself space, let alone muster enough to sit down in front of a computer for your tenth hour and retain knowledge.
This was a difficult conversation to have with myself. I believe in the value of continuing education, but also in the value of unplugging. Spending nights and weekends on grad school, post-grad certifications, even industry webinars, is an amazing feat. There’s a spot in the Good Place for all the Bostonians working and working towards their Master’s or PhD, and let me tell you, there are a ton.
I’m not one of them, nor did I ever think I could be. The 60-hour let me allocate about ten hours per week, a perfect compromise.
Money: $1,100 isn’t something you find in an old pair of pants, it’s rent. I understand why the certification is required for certain programs and geographic regions, but it wasn’t for Spain, and I couldn’t justify it financially. The CIEE TEFL 60-Hour course is $300. Perfect for gaining fundamentals, and if I end up loving the experience, I’ll consider taking the 150-hour when I return. After all, there’s something appealing about the life-long ability to move to any country and embrace a new culture through teaching. The one major con of the 60-hour certification is that it won’t get me any fully fledged teaching jobs, or allow me to teach online.
What’s the 60-hour course like? Come back tomorrow when I dive into the mechanics.
MM