Reddit reviews The Practice of English Language Teaching with DVD (4th Edition) (Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers)

I can almost guarantee that it's a pretty shitty course made up of copy and pasted bits from Jeremy Harmer. You may learn something, but why not just buy his book for £30

If you do this course it's kind of like telling your future students to go fuck themselves, you're only in it for the money.

It's fairly insulting to anyone who's studied a masters to call it a masters course. I will say at least they were honest in this part:

>For some employers, this course is more than sufficient, combined with being a fluent English speaker to get paid teaching work.

Some employers in Asia will accept this as reason to give you a job. Although I think even in South Korea they are becoming more aware of how dodgy these online courses are and are asking for more of a face to face component.

Not meaning to berate you. It's very hard to tell which courses are worth anything before you start out in the business. There are a lot of con artists around and they all claim to be offering 'internationally recognised certificates'. Before I started out I almost did something similar until someone already in the business warned me off them.

The truth is though, only accredited courses with face-to-face teaching experience with genuine learners are of any real use (It doesn't have to be CELTA or Trinity although these are the most well known). Even these are really only a very basic introduction. If you're wanting to volunteer then any decent organisation would provide you with better training than you get from these online courses for free.

Instead of giving 49 quid to these de facto scam artists you'd be better off buying this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practice-Language-Teaching-Handbooks-Teachers/dp/1405853115/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333046577&sr=8-1 If you want you can even send me the difference and I'll send you an 'internationally recognised' certificate'.

>The benefits of doing it in England is that English is the teacher's primary language

Not sure what you mean by this. All CELTAs, as far as I know, are completely in English; I can't imagine why they wouldn't be.

As for price, you might look at International House in Budapest, Hungary. I had a very good experience doing the CELTA there, and the course fee and living expenses are lower there due to the Hungarian forint. I know it's not China or Japan, but it's worth looking at. From the UK, flights to Hungary would certainly be less expensive.

As for resources, Michael Swan's book Practical English Usage is excellent. Also try Jeremy Harmer's The Practice of English Language Teaching for a good overview of a lot of what you'll see on CELTA.

The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer. Read it. Then go in for your interview. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Language-Teaching-Handbooks-Teachers/dp/1405853115