Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Online Learning: The Good and the Bad.





THE GOOD

I am currently enrolled in ESL-AQ Level One. It is offered through OISE/UT. I chose to do it online because I am currently doing an internship at The Bata Shoe Museum and I didn't feel like sitting in a class for five hours (twice a week) after a full day of work.

I am very impressed with the way this course is run. The other students have a wide variety of teaching experience and we interact everyday through online forums.

The cost of the course is $865. I think this is a bargain. It qualifies me to be an ESL teacher in Ontario high schools. Since demand for business studies teachers isn’t so great, this will help me to get my foot in the door.

I give this my stamp of approval. What else could you expect from OISE/UT?

http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/aq/candidates20065F/esl/

THE BAD

INTESOL INTERNATIONAL

I did this TESOL certificate course by distance while working in Korea. I give it a big thumbs down. It cost over $1,000 and was highly impractical. I enrolled in this course because I no longer wanted to work in a language mill. The next job I got really didn't require me to have this certificate and it's of no use to me now. Finally, I don't recommend this to a new TESL teacher because their is no observed lesson component. Find some other course.

http://intesolinternational.com/distance-tefl-course.shtml

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wore nothing but Bata sandals for three years once in Indonesia. They were the most comfortable sandals I ever wore -- pair after pair after pair!

Henry C.