Our CertTEYL program is the best professional development available for those who teach ESL/EFL to children. In conjunction with the practicum session, the CertTEYL can also be a qualifying certificate for novice teachers.

Excellence and quality should be your primary concern in deciding how to invest to improve your skills and knowledge.

Accreditation, Validation, and Recognition

Overview

Many potential course participants are hesitant to take our CertTEYL course because they are not sure about its accreditation. We will address all of your concerns and help you to decide if our program is right for you.

Please keep an open mind and read through all of the information. We feel that we have the best program of its kind and we hope that our candor and honesty will be appreciated.

What is accreditation?

Here is the dictionary definition: accredit /&-'kre-d&t/ to recognize an educational institution as maintaining standards that qualify the graduates for admission to higher or more specialized institutions or for professional practice
[Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

It is usually the institution that is accredited and not the courses that they offer. When we speak of accreditation we are normally concerned if the course will allow us to join a professional organization or to complete a post graduate degree at a university.

This accreditation is usually administered by a higher body such as the ministry of education or other government agency. This may be done on a national level or within a state, district, or province in the country.

Just because a course is accredited in one country, it does not automatically signify that it will be accredited in other countries. There is no international body that accredits TESOL, TEFL, TESL, or TEYL courses. Any accreditation is done on a national level. Unfortunately, even on a national level, there is currently no country which accredits TEYL courses.

Reasons for Accreditation

1. Education - the main reason to be concerned about accreditation is for further education. In our industry this usually means the MA TESOL. Several universities now offer the MA TEYL. To enter these programs you require a university degree or diploma. No certificate in itself will gain you admittance into a reputable Master's program.

Our Advanced Certificate in TEYL is a perfect warmup to an MA TEYL. If you decide to enter a Master's program, the university will likely accept our program for partial credits. We will help with a letter to the university and information on the content of our course.

In fact, we have been contacted by several universities to consult on diploma and master's programs in TEYL.

2. Employment - we are currently the only company or institution offering an advanced level of certification in TEYL. Most employers will recognize that we are the leading course provider internationally and you will realize that recognition (see below) is more important than accreditation when it comes to private language schools.

It is often the employers that contact us to train their teachers. Many teachers are already fully qualified and have other certificates, but the employers want the specialized training that we offer to those who teach children ESL.

If you are still not sure, please ask your current employer or potential employers what they think of our course.

3. Teaching Qualification - our course is not designed to be an official teaching qualification. These type of qualifications are offered exclusively by universities and require at least 4 or 5 years of study. We do not offer a degree or diploma in education. Even teaching qualifications offered by universities are not internationally recognized. Within a single country a teacher may be qualified to teach in one district, province, or state and not in another.

If a course participant completes a 60 hour practicum along with the e-learning portion of the CertTEYL, then he or she is qualified to start teaching in private language schools. Our complete program (e-learning course + practicum) far exceeds the minimum requirements of an introductory course into teaching ESL.

Accreditation versus Recognition

When people ask about accreditation what they are really asking is if the course is internationally recognized. Yes, our Advanced Certificate in TEYL is internationally recognized!

This means that we have made every effort to let the ESL industry know that our course is the best of its kind available. We are currently in the process of expanding this recognition by forming partnerships with universities, private schools, other training providers, and many more organizations.

Are other certificates accredited?

Self-accreditation: Because there is no international organization that accredits TESOL, TEFL, TESL, or TEYL certificates, many course providers turn to self-accreditation. This means that they make up an organization that sounds official and claim to be accredited by this organization. This is very misleading!

British Courses: Courses provided by Cambridge or Trinity College have gained international recognition through clever marketing and by the effort of the British Council (a non-profit organization that promotes British arts/sciences/industry and administers English language learning schools worldwide).

These courses are not internationally accredited. They are accredited only in Britain. Even in Britain, you cannot start a career in teaching ESL, in the public school system, with just these courses. You still need to be certified to teach and to possess an education diploma from a university.

There is currently no independent international board of accreditation for TEFL Certificates. Cambridge and Trinity are not accredited by a university — accreditation has to be approved by a body higher than a university.

Cambridge certificates only have an "associative" or franchise-type of agreement with the University of Cambridge and Trinity is a private company that focuses mainly on examinations for music students. They are basically as self-regulated as anybody else in the industry. They just have better recognition because of marketing and self-promotion.

Sometimes these courses are accepted as credits toward a diploma or a masters degree in Britain, but our CertTEYL program can easily have similar status in both Britain and the rest of the world.

Analogy:  If you are asked to think of a good restaurant, a fast-food restaurant will not be the first type of restaurant to pop into your head. However, if you find yourself in a different country, you may look for the logo of a fast-food restaurant because you know that you will be served food that meets certain minimum standards throughout the world.

Advanced Teacher Training is like a fine restaurant and our specialty is TEYL. We are not concerned with how many meals we serve, we take care of one client at a time. We are concerned with the highest standards and we want to provide the best TEYL certificate. Our principal concern is quality and excellence!

Quality and Excellence

Quality and excellence are the most important factors in a certificate program. These factors help to produce a course which will provide the skills and confidence for teachers to become the best in the industry.

We strive to provide excellence and quality to all of our course participants! We believe that our TEYL certificate course is a valuable asset for those who teach ESL to young learners!

The demand for teachers trained in TEYL is increasing as the industry recognizes the unique challenges of teaching English to children. Our TEYL certificate course has set the standard for other TEYL courses to follow.

If you have any questions or concerns about accreditation or any other aspect of our certificate program, please feel free to contact us at any time.