11/09/2021
hey everybody it's lisa here and i'm super glad to welcome you at another
live stream session with itttt um in fact frankly speaking it feels
like i haven't gone live for ages but it's been just a week
uh that's how i love uh this live stream sessions they um give me so much joy um
especially because i can keep in touch with all of you guys
um i really love to be uh helpful and um i'm i'm 100 sure that my
colleague linda uh loves these live stream sessions as well so don't forget
to check um our content twice a week uh because this live stream sessions are
regular and at the beginning of the week it's my turn usually and linda goes live
every thursday or friday um and yeah we try to be as helpful as
possible so today's live session is devoted to
things uh you have to think before you
start your tefl or tesol course so before you even choose
a tefl course you should consider some minor i would say not even minor but
some uh important questions um that
might be crucial when you decide whether uh to start a course or not
uh so i'm going to wait for some more people to join us um but um while
joining in please let me know if you hear and see me clearly uh on the first
place um and also just give me your greetings
yeah send me a readings to the chat box uh so that i could see that your guys
there that i'm not alone um i am tuning in from uh yukatenburg russia
in the middle part of the country let me know where are you from
i know that we are truly global uh there are many people from uh the eastern part
of the world and at the same time um we see visitors from um the western part of the
world i really love it i have i feel so lucky that i can
communicate with this international community and i know that you guys are the most um
incredible people who want to uh progress constantly who want to work
on self-development it motivates me a lot so feel free to
say hi in the comments i'm so so happy to see you all right i
see that there is adam i actually know that adam is our um
regular um viewer regular visitor to the itt this
page thanks a lot for joining in and adam is from dubai that's awesome
so warm in there right now um and in my place it's pretty cold and
uh gloomy yeah this is how russia usually looks like around this time of
the year but um well really soon we will have everything covered with snow and it will
feel uh much better okay there is also um
z1 li from south korea i hope to pronounce the name correctly if i'm
mistaken feel free to tell me and i will also appreciate if you explain how to
pronounce uh your names as well okay
so um as i have already mentioned today we will look at top 10 things you have
to ask before you start your tefl course uh this information is gonna help those
people who want to um who are right now uh picking a tefl
course and probably doubting um in terms of what provider to choose
um what course suits best and so on so um i think that
it is the time uh to begin uh let me just quickly switch on this
banner so that everyone sees uh what topic we have
and i'm gonna deliver this live stream session this way probably
no not this way constantly forget how to change
the slide so that it is seen and everyone can
understand everything um what is written clearly so
um yeah this is my uh quick introduction uh but basically if you have already
participated in this live stream session that you know um so you know that my
name is lisa and i'm an esl teacher from russia so i'm a non-native esl teacher
that's why uh this live stream sessions are helpful for those who want to
work as esl teachers online or abroad
and they are also non-native speakers i also help as a marketing uh manager uh
to those who want to uh develop their businesses online uh and i'm also a tefl and tesol expert
with itt so we are here and this live stream is
actually provided by itt and uh there is also mean pa or p um
hope to pronounce correctly um sorry if i mispronounce it
but she's from myanmar that's cool i actually dreamed to travel to this
country because um it is really beautiful in the pictures and i would prefer to
see it with my own eyes all right so let's keep going
um this is um the name of the presentation once again
and now the first uh the first thing
you should guys really consider before you pick a tefl course
before you pay your money is other tefl courses accredited and do
they meet international standards so what it means is that you have to
consider that your tefl course you're going to enroll
in is valid and it is
checked out it is checked with some accreditation
body usually there are many different types of accreditations
and you need to look at the international one because
some tefl providers um get some uh inside accreditations
and like um they are not the same as international ones
uh so for example if you get tefl certified by a company that has
accreditation uh not internationally but um in in a
particular country then uh probably you won't be able to use the same tefl certificate all over
the world if you if your dream is to travel from country to country
and work as a teacher wherever in the world you want to
uh so make sure you check out uh this thing and as for itttt
we are accredited by uh two different bodies um the first one is right here
it is called teacher training council it is an international body
and another one is paris college of international education
so once again uh it is accredited um this accreditation body um provides
international recognition so make sure you check out this thing
uh before you uh pick a particular course um to study to enroll into
um what else is important is right here
uh so the next question that should concern you
is what services are included in the course price sometimes um
well you can see not a final price on the course website on the provider's
website but they have many you know additional costs
that might be not that high but at the same time it is not that pleasant for you as
a customer uh to realize um maybe um
in the middle of the course or at the end of the course that you have to pay some extra cash
um so usually um such services as materials
support and job placement they are included um in in the
price uh at some particular um courses
but some other providers just don't include it and then they charge you
extra so you don't want this to happen and especially if you want to get some
specific um quality of services you have to make
sure that it is included in the price so um in our case at itt we definitely
provide you uh the final price uh when you go to the
checkout section uh you won't see any additional costs um
at any point of your course um the only thing you um
probably will need to pay extra is the certificate delivery um
which is like you know some additional copy but in fact you can also um edit
for free uh if you uh agree to get a pdf copy and a regular mail post or
something like that so for example when i got tefl certified in 2017
i wanted to get my embossed apple certificate um via
dhl so i had to pay some extra money uh it wasn't that much uh but you know it
depends prices uh change um pretty
often so you have to check that and if you have any questions you always
can contact the support and request all things related to deliveries and
stuff like that uh but all in all uh this is something important
that you should know beforehand so if you want every everything included
in the price check it beforehand uh don't
ignore it make sure you read everything even something written
in this you know small text at the bottom of the page
because it is actually vital um and you know um i also
so many tefl pro providers that don't include job placement assist
assistant uh in the courses um in in this package
and they then provided at some additional price um and
sometimes the price is unreasonable uh for the quality and for
that type of support they provide so make sure you check everything
in advance the next thing um
is who teaches you um in a real class or
uh who delivers um your tefl course uh online
uh so it is always um necessary to check out
if people who work for the company are qualified and
if they have accreditations as well at least you can ask about their
diplomas and about their experiences it is also vital
because you want to um understand that you get high quality of uh training and
that those people are professionals and you can actually learn from them
uh so at itt team our tefl course is designed by
professional teachers uh who work with internationals students for
many years uh they are certified and they can provide um the best quality
assistance and services as well uh by the way if you get um
that type of course that includes um a tutor a tutor support
uh you can also ask your tutor in person you can always communicate with them via
email and they will try their best to assist you
even if you have some specific questions some unusual questions
all right the next one this is probably the most important
uh the most crucial because when it comes to
everything related to jobs and um you know going to
get some experience um some tefl providers tend to mislead
and um don't give the most appropriate information
in relation to these problems so um you can ask such questions like
here can i get a job and a work visa as a u.s citizen to teach english in italy for
example so you can replace a u.s citizen and italy to something related to you
for example as for me i can ask ask something like can i get a job and a work visa
as a russian um native speaker to teach english in uh let's say
korea or china where can i earn the highest salaries
and the last one do i need a degree to teach there um so in case with in the case with
china i believe that all of you have heard about
the latest um regulations so everything changes so fast um
nobody can actually give you like 100 percent clear information these
days just because uh chinese authorities change the rules
and for example uh this year they prohibited even online
education um not even not not prohibited probably but they restricted online
education um for school kids um that's why many english teachers
lost their jobs and many um online teaching companies stopped their work as
well um when it comes to teaching in a real classroom in china it is still possible
to do it um if you work um in a kindergarten for example so with
i have a lot of friends who actually still work in china and they say that like
they are on the safe side but you know this is this year it might change next
year so everything everybody should be concerned everybody should um make sure
that before even getting tefl certified uh you just question uh some
um loud statements uh in relation to particular countries
because this year regulations are one type of regulations next year they
change and um it is just impossible to predict
uh if it is still possible to work or not and at the same time
it's not just a matter of your origin like for example many native speakers believe
that if they have this uh us passport or um let's say
the uk passport they can work wherever they want and
they can get this work visa but sometimes it's just not true
and uh tefl companies sometimes tend to mislead um in this situation so you have
to ask questions and expect um honest answers if you feel like
there is something behind that um probably it's not the best challenge
it's it's not the best choice and you have to pick another temple provider
and as with some salaries uh it also varies um so for example salaries in
russia like average salaries are not that high but for people who come from um
countries that where salaries are even lower they would
probably believe that well russia is a great country to make money
but if somebody from the u.s comes to russia it's not equal so you have to consider
that um we all have different costs of living we all have different average
salaries and uh if it is pretty high for some
people here in a specific destination it might be
extremely different for other citizens
and you should also consider it before um picking your tefl certification before
enrolling into the course if you if you notice that the provider misleads
you if they um list some uh strange information on their websites
then just go and check somebody else
just try to find someone frank who doesn't [Music]
who don't worry about uh saying this bitter truth
bittersweet truth um the next one uh it is also closely
related to all
they available job assistance and then um the next question should be
answered as well um is this job assistance paid or is it
for free sometimes tefl providers do
like this they um they
promote their services and then say that they will send you out a list of jobs
and that's all and that's like their job assistance but it is not the same for some other
tefl providers so for example at itt t our job assistance
is lifelong if you want any help related to how to
find a job how to design your cv how to um
answer questions uh when you go to an interview everything will be found um as a part of
this job assistance and we provided uh to all our
um graduates uh right after getting tefl certified
with us and at no additional cost so this job
assistance service is included in the course fee
so you don't have to pay anything sometimes um if you have some
um unusual like requests probably um
some other type of uh temple providers might offer you some additional
um things like internships for example but um as a matter of fact internships are
usually unreason unreasonably priced and you can't um get um a job as a as an
intern uh for a long term it's usually like for half a year for
example and then it is cheaper for the companies that provide you this this
type of job assistance this type of internship to um fire you and to find
someone else just to replace because you basically pay for these internships
and this this is how companies make some extra cash as well
uh so make sure you check out that um this line like job assistance is included in
the course um in the initial course you enroll into
all right question six um can i see alumni reviews
um well we all live in this you know global society and uh these
days it is really strange when companies don't have
any reviews even if they have uh like a landing or a
website um and list some you know reviews uh like
screenshots from social media for example um i would say that uh you can't trust
it well although screenshots from social media is well somehow trustworthy
but you would probably um try to look for something that gives
more credits like google reviews trust pilot and reviews dot io
so these um websites um they are not re these bodies um
this review bodies are not related to the websites particularly and it is
actually possible to write anonymous reviews
so if you go to this website uh usually uh trustworthy um tefl
providers list such websites um on their uh pages as well
um like we do um at itt team so you can go there and check out what reviews
people write about companies uh sometimes you can sort um
and check out not just positive reviews but also negative ones and what you
should look at as well is how company responds to this or that type of review
uh sometimes you know companies just completely ignore um
those negative reviews and it's actually a bad sign if they don't know um how to
respond to bad um reviews uh it might be that they have this poor
service for uh customer service they don't know how to deal with
negative situations and um that should be a reason why you should just go and choose another tefl
provider it's actually related not just to tefl courses to any courses to any
services you want to buy online or even offline
because these days um different countries um even offline
countries offline businesses uh try to get credits out of
review out of reviews people write about them
so make sure you check out reviews as well
the next one so which tefl course is right for me uh once again it's really subjective
um what suits you best you know best probably but we are here to just give you a piece
of advice and to make you thinking so if you for example know that
uh online mode of training isn't for you you get distracted
you can't concentrate you can you can't finish a single online course
then try to opt for in-class courses or combined courses
so these days combined courses at itt are provided
via zoom as if i'm not mistaken uh you should just check it out
on our website by the way let me drop the link to the chat box
so if you follow this link it's actually a coupon link uh you will get to the temple course.net
website which is our official itt's website
you will get this 30 percent discount because you watch this live stream
um and there you will be able to check out um different types of courses so if you for
example check out the combine courses you will see that that um you can
pick an option like in what country to uh to study
um like um i don't know china or
barcelona spain uh what else phuket so there are different countries uh listed
there uh you can just pick uh the best location for you
and the same about in-class courses well um they all i would say that
there is something really uh beneficial about bank
courses at the same time during this period um well due to kovid restrictions
there are still many countries that are uh closed for international traveling
that's why it might be challenging um to get to some specific locations
uh for example if you want to travel to thailand
and at the same time uh to benefit from going to a tefl course uh it might be
challenging these days for your uh specific country for your specific um
nationality or on the contrary you can find um a destination where you will be
able to get an in-class training if you want to study online um it is okay you
can do it at any time you want so no problem with online training
but just be uh be concerned when you check out some other
tefl pro because not all of us have the same
approach to delivering courses some companies still have just in-class mode
and do not have online courses or even combined courses although um the previous year actually
changed uh changed this year completely and these days well i would say that
almost every um company has online and combined courses as well
so just make sure that you pick um the best mode of training for yourself
and at the same time if you want to get some specific table
certification uh you should also consider what is listed on the website
uh just make sure you are attentive and you read everything on the website
um all right uh the next question is actually also nice and um it is
um well pretty related in terms of
staff experience so when you choose a tefl course
um i always recommend that you check out uh stuffs um personal experience if they
live abroad if they traveled abroad if they work there
and um what level of teaching um you know they
acquire as well so for example uh at itt
uh well i would say that the whole uh company the whole team of
um staff is um well either living abroad uh not in in
the countries of origin or traveled and worked abroad and um at the same time uh some people
also train to work online and we are pretty successful in it so for
example here you can see my picture at the top of the screen and this is my
colleague linda so um as i've mentioned uh several years
ago i worked in china then i lived in thailand
and these days i teach completely online but my
students are from uh different countries all over the world for example i have a
group of adult students who most of them uh live in the u.s um and they are
non-native esl speakers that's why they uh study with me
some of them are from the um european european union
and they also need english just because they either travel abroad or work with
international companies so i can say that my experience is pretty um
um is pretty different so i have different types of um
teaching uh in my package and linda she's
a native english speaker and she lives in korea in south korea she also
used to teach in china for a couple for a couple of years i believe
so she is also a professional and she can give you a piece of advice these
days she also works online so if you are a native speaker or even a non-native
speaker you can always can ask linda whatever
comes to your mind yeah in terms of international experiences and works
abroad okay um let's see the next one
so what are my chances of landing a job a job with your tefl certificate
so this is probably another question that uh should concern you
another point that should concern you when you pick a particular tefl provider
if they um give you a lot of promises like
this is the the only tefl certificate that provides you um
job opportunities that guarantees you job opportunities all over the world and
stuff uh then it is also a bad sign and you
should be aware because everything is really subjective
um nobody can be 100 sure that uh tefl certification will um
pro will will give you 100 chances uh to find a job um at your
favorite destination or um even to find you a job online or in your country
because it's not just about the temple provider itself themselves it's
also about you uh who you are what experience you have
uh what motivation you have and um so many other questions like regulations um
different rules related to authorities you know um everything
uh so just my personal example uh when i um decided to go to china at that point
of time it was actually possible to get um a work visa as a non-native esl
teacher i couldn't get it because i was under 21 years
so at that time they actually started their first restrictions
and if my colleagues could get their work visas because they were over
24 years i couldn't get my work visa and i
risked all the time although i didn't know about it uh when i get to china
with my business visa so um just at that time i was really
young i wasn't that concerned i wasn't that
scared you know everything like that and i
i ignored some specific science uh that just made made other
people think that it's probably not their destination
but these days it is even more restricted
and less people these days um are allowed to get work visas even
um native english speakers can't get work visas in china just because
this is uh restricted uh for there is this restriction for uh teaching companies in
china that provide service extra services to school kids and stuff like
that so you have to be really careful and
my advice is that you should be proactive in terms of searching for
information uh sometimes it looks easy to send out an email to um a tefl
provider or to an hr manager and to ask um
if if it is okay um and they may say like yeah don't
worry but when it when it comes to real things uh
you will um you will you may meet many
restrictions and many obstacles you you may face many obstacles
so make sure you check everything yourself first then you ask for a second
opinion and something like that and let's see the last question
what makes your tefl certificate better than others so usually tefl providers tend to say uh
many good good stuff about their services we also do at itt because um there is
something we we can be proud for um and if you are interested you can check out
this webpage um on our website why choose itt
so we list um all single details uh why our company is trustworthy
uh why you can be 100 percent sure that it is safe to
get table certified with us and still if you want to
consider some other tefl providers you need to um opt for something similar so
you need to request either information related to their
credits or you need to go to their website pages where they have these
benefits um why you should choose them um i bet
this is the end of the presentation uh but i would really love to answer
whatever questions you guys have uh so write them in the chat box if you have
any even if you have some concerns you know or you want to get a piece of advice
from me feel free to do so feel free to ask
i will try my best and let me see the chat box right now
okay so there are no questions um at the very moment so let me
um let me drink some water
but if you guys want to ask me something particular maybe not related to temple
certification you can ask me about online teaching teaching abroad
anything okay and by the way uh i feel like um
at this time of the year uh it is really important to discuss
some future plans and some maybe outcomes of the year um something
that we have achieved um for me it feels like almost the end of the year
although we still have almost two months uh well anyway i wanna i wanna ask you
uh what do you think if i go live with some tips for um non-native esl teachers
who want to um work on their personal career and uh
skills related to english and english teaching would you which would you like to listen
something about it let me know if you have any other questions
um feel free to ask as well okay so there is a question a question
from lisa or liza by the way so my name is lisa
this is how everyone calls me in russia and it is written with a z
but i know that um in the u.s and in the uk so in english it is actually um
correctly to pronounce like liza uh all right so let me quickly check out
the question and then answer it
so if there is a solid chance to become an english teacher for someone who is
not a native speaker of the language of course of course you have a chance so
just look at me i'm a non-native esl teacher um i would say a self-made a self-made
teacher so um i was trained as a linguist and
an interpreter at university so i didn't learn anything related to
teaching methodology teaching services and stuff
and i just decided that if i know english it's not enough to teach people
that's why my beginning the beginning of my teaching
career wasn't that successful so because i was completely
uh blind when i taught people i didn't know how to uh explain how to um you know explain
some specific details like grammar and stuff and i decided to get tefl
certified um and that was probably one of the best decisions because it helped
me a lot uh to understand how it works from scratch so the tefl certificate
the tefl course gave me understanding how
gave me understanding of different teaching methodologies and to pick uh
several ideas that are suitable for different styles of
teaching different modes of teaching then i learned more about
some challenges and things related to classroom management
it was especially helpful um at that period when i worked in a real classroom
in china so i had to teach around 40 kids um
at at a time during that period and it was so so
difficult to well just make them organized to make them attentive and
stuff uh so teaching methodology um includes not just um those things related to the
language itself but to classroom management planning and so on
so um i really recommend looking at getting tefl certified
and then you have to look for experience as well so these days i would say that the
easiest way to find um to work on your english teaching
experience is via online so you can find um an
esl teaching platform there are many of them like probably italki
and and stuff so many teaching platforms you just have to check one of my previous live streams
because i believe at the beginning of the year i uh delivered such uh such a
live stream session and talked about different um teaching platforms
um otherwise you can work as a freelance teacher so uh in my experience i i did both
first i worked for an online teaching company then when i
understood when i realized that it is convenient and
i can control everything myself i decided to
move on and just um quitted that job at an online school and found
my one-on-one students and groups as a
as a single teacher you know as a freelancer so it means that
if i could do that and many other non-native speakers could do that you
can definitely start teaching as well but uh my recommendation is not only get
tefl certified but work on your english skills constantly um you know for me it
it is um pretty it was pretty challenging in terms of speaking well um
i won't say that it was challenging uh when i worked um
one-on-one but when i started working um in a bigger group
i found it slightly different and not every time i felt comfortable
so i had to work on my speaking abilities as well apart from grammar vocabulary and stuff
so make sure you also work on your english skills as well because you want
to provide the best quality services uh as a
teacher and you want to give uh the best example
to your students that's it uh do you guys have any further
questions so let me know i will try my best to answer and i think
that we will wrap up uh just let me remind one more time
that if you want to get tefl certified uh and you consider itttt you can
scan this qr code uh right here
or you can follow the link from the chat box
let me drop it once again so you will get a 30
discount of any online tefl courses it will it will be really affordable and
it's actually a nice incentive uh because you will save much more
um than um if you pay the original cost um we also uh provide job assistance and
we uh try to be as helpful as it is possible
so if you guys don't have any further questions i think that
that's the end of today's live stream session uh as i've mentioned if you have any uh
suggestions in terms of uh some future live streams feel free to recommend as
well because i like every week i plan for the next week and then i think
what should i talk about what should be interesting for the audience
i i bet that next week i will go live uh with something related to
um english um skills publishing english skills for
non-native esl teachers so if this is something
you are interested in uh make sure you um subscribe to the
channel if you are not um to the web not not to the website to our
social media we are presented on various social media
and what else um yeah just um just check out for updates
and yeah that's it so that's the end of today's live stream
session thanks a lot guys for tuning in i really appreciate your interest and i see
everybody who joins regularly so adam uh letter
thanks a lot for coming um i hope to see you next week oh and
the last thing i forgot to mention is that um i have my facebook group on facebook
so if you want to get some assistance if you have some
further questions related to um teaching english teaching or tefl certification
joining joining my facebook group and keep in touch yeah
so that's the end and have a great week guys bye bye
