Top 3 TEFL Courses To Teach in Asia

6 min readApr 6, 2019

Wondering what the top TEFL courses are for teaching English in Asia? Looking for the top TEFL program online or maybe in-class?

But…

There are so many options for TEFL courses that it is starting to make your head spin.

I understand.

I am here to simplify your life and reduce your options to just 3. That’s right just three simple options.

And if you don’t feel more clear after you read this post then you can go back out there into the wild and try to figure it out yourself. But I am pretty sure that you are going to be more clear.

Here we go.

Here is option 1.

1. Don’t take a TEFL course

What?

That’s right you don’t necessarily have to take a TEFL course in the first place. Some TEFL providers may lie and tell you that you do, but that is not usually true.

They are not usually “legally” required

You don’t necessarily need a TEFL course to legally teach in Asia: China, Korea, Taiwan or in Japan. You do usually need a degree and to be a native speaker though. Those are for your visa.

A school can require or prefer TEFL certificates, but they are rarely required to “get a visa” in much of Asia.

Some schools will prefer them

Sure some schools can prefer or “require” them especially if you don’t have experience.

Besides being required or not is there another reason why you might want to take one?

Yes, to learn, but choose wisely if you take a course.

You can teach yourself if…

You can teach yourself how to teach English. You can scour the web for info and read some books. Jump into the classroom and learn.

So let’s break it down and look at the good and bad sides to skipping a course.

Pros:

It’s free. You don’t have to spend any money.
You teach yourself.

Cons:

Where do you start?
How are you going to learn?
A lack of training can lead to bored students>out of control students>stress>unhappy students>unhappy parents>unhappy boss>unemployment>_____.

In China

“The way I started is not to be recommended. I arrived in China, jet lagged after a long flight. I was shown into a classroom and told, “OK teach this class,” by a person who had little ability to say anything else, and who promptly disappeared out the door.” — Derek Harkness on Quora

In Korea

“I had my first day yesterday and was basically thrown into the deep end as many people say they are — just given the textbooks and told to teach. To put it simply, I have no idea what I’m doing and I don’t know how to pull myself up out of this. Sounds really weak but I just wanna cry lol. Any advice for teaching from textbooks and creating lessons? (I teach kindy/elementary, the kindy kids don’t even listen to anything lol).” — hidechic

That’s pretty normal in my experience too and I have the solution to the above person’s problems and I’ll tell you those later. I worked for a number of different schools in China, Korea and Taiwan. Many of them just sent me to the classroom and expected me to teach which is similar to this girl’s experience.

Only a few schools provide training. If they do it is usually very limited.

Takeaway:

If you’re savvy or gifted you can teach yourself. Many of the worlds greatest people did not undertake any formal training to rise to the top in their field. But if you’re not savvy then this can likely lead to a not so good time abroad.

Let’s look at your next option for the top TEFL courses.

2. Take a CELTA course

CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) and Trinity TESOL courses are considered the creme of the crop when it comes to short term TEFL courses. They are often considered the most widely accepted and respected courses.

Pros:

In-class feedback on your teaching.
This is probably the most “prestigious” TEFL certificate that you can get and pretty much every other TEFL course out there tries to copy at least on the surface.
Good for teaching adults.
Good if you want to teach English abroad for the long term.
Good for teaching in Europe and the Middle East.

Cons:

It’s expensive. You’re probably looking at $2000 or more.
It’s not easy. It’s intensive. Cramming is not good for absorbing information.
You could fail and not get a certificate.
Many schools in Asia don’t recognize the difference between TEFL/TESOL/CELTA courses. So if you just want a certificate you may be disappointed when you find out your school isn’t impressed with your CELTA or that it didn’t prepare you well to teach...
It’s not focused on teaching kids.

“…Celta — it was just off the scale in terms of pressure. A total level of commitment and effort is expected by course tutors and the workload, once you have taken lesson planning and assignments into account, is easily a 14 hour day.” — Anonymous

“I did a Celta program in Bangkok at IH. The course started out with around 12 students. 7 dropped out before completing the course. Not one of them got their money back.” — Austin

Takeaway:

If you are serious about teaching English abroad, are focused more on teaching adults and you are in it for the long term then you might want to take a CELTA course.

“Agree!:) I failed Celta mostly because I thought it was the best for me, when actually children were my target group..” — Ksenija Gulina

3. TEKA

TEKA is short for “teaching English to kids in Asia”.

Take ESLinsider’s course.

Pros:

18 sections (levels) of interactive content
You can work on it when you want. There are no timelines. Access is for a lifetime. Other online courses are for 2–6 months.
Learn by observing other teachers via classroom instructional videos
Get feedback from your teacher on assignments
It focuses more on teaching children 6–13.

Cons:

It’s online. If you don’t want to take an online course then it’s not for you.
There’s little theory and English “language” study if that’s the useless stuff you want to learn.
Not for teaching business English, TOEFL, only adults or university students.

Takeaway:

If you are going to be teaching ESL in Asia to mostly children then take this course.

IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE MUCH BETTER.

Yes, I am biased, but so are you.

You have a limited knowledge of what you are getting yourself into. You need concrete tools to teach and not a bunch of theory, grammar or jargon.

Those things are useless 99% of the time. The problem is not just with TEFL courses the problem is with education. How many useless classes did you study in high school and college?

For me it was chemistry, geometry, biology, etc. It’s the same with TEFL you’ll study stuff that’s useless and not enough stuff that is practical. That was the case with the 2 courses I have taken.

Anyways…

I think this could be your best option if you’ll teach mostly kids because:

It’s targeted. It’s not a general “one size fits all” TEFL course. You need a special skill set to teach kids and you’ll learn real tools and not useless theory that you can apply to your lessons.
It’s practical and research suggests that an online course like this will lead to a better outcome because you can see teaching in action, you have to write plans and classroom problem solving assignments and you’ll get feedback on those from a teacher. This further cements your training.

Summary

Here you read about your top 3 options for TEFL courses.

1. Don’t take one. You can teach yourself.

2. Take a CELTA. It’s good for teaching adults, it’s very reputable and career orientated.

3. Take ESLinsider’s course focused on teaching mostly children in Asia.

“I highly recommend these courses if you are serious about gaining practical knowledge of ESL teaching from someone who has been there.” — George P.

Related to TEFL courses (here on Medium):

Top 3 TEFL Courses To Teach in Asia

1. Don’t take a TEFL course

2. Take a CELTA course

3. TEKA

Related to TEFL courses (here on Medium):

Related Youtube videos (playlist):

Written by Ian@ESLinsider

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