Before we get into the actual review of the course, let's start with some background about me. So I'm majoring in Linguistics right now, minoring in TESL and Japanese. Looking at that you can probably figure out that I want to work as an English teacher. It's not so much that I want to be an English teacher, but I want to be an ESL teacher. Here in California, I think some schools call it ELD? Anyway, so my ultimate goal is to teach at an international school overseas. I want to be that teacher who takes the students who struggle with English out of their classes (I want to work in elementary) and work with them for a few hours in the day. Basically, I want to teach English LANGUAGE at an English speaking school. Unfortunately, with my major now, it's hard for me to get a job in that field. Everybody wants to go teach overseas and because international schools are usually pretty expensive, the quality of education and educators is pretty high. It's almost 100% that they'd hire someone with experience and most like a Master's degree. Another problem that I have is that because I'm not a certified teacher, I won't be able to apply for any teaching jobs here in California. I'm going to graduate in a year and there was a possibility that I won't be able to find a job! 

I go to my academic advisor every semester and the last meeting was getting pretty serious. We were talking about graduation and making sure I meet all the requirements and whatnot. Ultimately, the best option that I had was to go straight to grad school. Get my Master's in TESL in 2 years and then I'd be able to work where I want to right away (hopefully). It's a really smart idea and so that was my plan up until late spring.

I decided that I wouldn't go to grad school right away, but I'd just go teach English abroad. There were a lot of reasons for that, but the two main ones were experience and independence. I've done plenty of tutoring over the course of my life. When we lived in England I helped my mom, in Japan I tutored my mom's friend's kids, in Korea I worked with my cousins and family friends, and here in CA, I had a class where I was a TA in a kindergarten class and I also volunteered at church. But none of that is remotely enough to consider it teaching experience. I figure that it does nothing just to have all the qualifications and no experience. I mean, if anything, it'd just make it hard for me. I feel that I wouldn't be able to live up to expectations. 

Then independence thing is...I just want to get out of the house xD I've lived with my family for 20 years now, so it's about time I move out, right? xD No but seriously, I feel like 21 is a good age (I'll be 21 when I graduate) to get out. I've been so babied until now, I really don't know how to do anythingㅠㅠ I can't live and depend on my parents forever. 

I've decided that I want to go to Japan to teach. I really only had two options: Korea or Japan. The reason I didn't choose Korea is that I wouldn't have that independence I want. I have family in Korea and I know that  I'll rely on them so much that it would be like I never left home xD I have friends in Japan, so I won't be completely alone, but friends are different from family, you know? xD 

I did some early job searching and found that a lot of the teaching jobs had TEFL certification as a preferred qualification. I'm already minoring in TEFL, but I figured that having a separate TEFL certification would higher my chances of getting a job. 

So I spent about a week looking at different TEFL certification programs. I debated between Oxford Seminars and ITTT the longest. Oxford Seminars only has in class session, and I really didn't want to spend my Saturdays in a class (9am to 6pm) during the summer. So ITTT it was! 

ITTT has three types of courses: online, combined, and in-class. Obviously the online courses are the cheapest, in-class courses are the most expensive. Because I only took an online course, I can only talk about the courses offered in that category. 

There are 5 courses total:
1. 60-hr course: $190, $290
2. 120-hr course: $240, $349
3. 50-hr CTBE (Teach Business English): $240, $290
4. 50-hr CTEYL (Teach to Young Learners): $240, $290
5. 250-hr TESOL Diploma: $590, $1390

There are two different prices for each course because you have the option of choosing whether or not you want Tutor Support. With the first two, when you get Tutor Support, you also get supplemental videos. 

So I chose to do with 120-hr course with tutor support/video for $349. I'm not 100% sure if it's the same now, but when I paid, I also had the option of adding a CTBE or CTEYL for free. This option was only available for 120-hr + tutor support/video course. 

You have 6 months to complete the course, but I don't think it'll take you 6 months to complete the course. I finished in half that time. Overall, the course is very simple. You log in and go to the sections labeled "Units" and it has the list of chapters for the course. You're only able to read/download the unit you're on. On average, the chapters were around 15-20 pages. At the end of each chapter there's what's called a "task sheet" that you can use to test yourself before you take the actual unit test. What I would do is I'd read the chapter and then watch the video. After that I'd do the task sheet to make sure that I understood everything before I'd go on to take the unit test.

I did that for most of the 20 units. Some chapters I wouldn't watch the video or do the task sheet...sometimes I wouldn't do both. Some chapters were easier than the others so I felt confident enough to take the test right away. It's really up to you how you study for this course. 

I actually didn't use tutor support while I was going through the chapters. Everything is very straightforward so I didn't really need to use it. Each chapter is very informative and thorough, with plenty of examples and teaching ideas that really help understand the material better. As long as you pass with an average of 75% and above, you'll be fine. But, just reading and taking tests won't get you your certification.

The last assignment comes after you take (and pass) all 20 chapters. Because it's an online course, there's no way for ITTT to assess the student's learning. They have no way of knowing if you actually learned anything. So what they have you do is create a lesson plan. They give you the topic and then you create a 1-hour lesson. You're provided with the template and you just fill it out. As easy as that sounds, it's very hard. The reviewers are very strict and understandably so. My topic was to create a lesson plan for a pre-intermediate level class to teach "a single usage of the present continuous tense and for the students to be able to use it effectively." It took me a few days to make my lesson plan. It wasn't as simple as it sounds. There are specific steps you have to make and there are also specific categories those steps fall into...and it's just not a simple task. You have to take the time and really focus on how you're going to effectively teach the content.

After you submit your lesson plan, a tutor (an actual person) will review it and tell you your results within two working days. If they find your lesson plan to be unsatisfactory, you'll be asked to resubmit a new lesson plan. I think you're given two opportunities to resubmit.

I had to resubmit my lesson plan once. After I submitted it, I got a response two days later. In the email, the tutor (her name was Tania and she was super nice!) detailed everything that I needed to fix. Luckily for me, I only had to fix three things, two of which were just simply to put actual examples of the type of language I'd anticipate from students during certain activities. The other issue was a bit more complicated and I had trouble understanding it. So I replied to the email asking for a bit more clarification on what she meant, and she replied the day with a very descriptive explanation on what I had to do. So basically, all the corrections were spelled out for me. I was told exactly what I needed to fix and once I did it, I just submitted my lesson plan again, and I passed! 


It took almost 2 weeks for my certificate to arrive, but I was already expecting that. After you submit your lesson plan (the first time), you're asked to input your information: how you want your name to be on the certificate, your address...etc. After that, you have the option of Air Mail which is free and takes 2-3 weeks or DHL which was $50 and I think it would arrive within the week. Obviously, I was in no hurry to get my certificate, so I opted for the free shipping.

This certification is just for the 120-hr course, but remember I also got the CTEYL course for free. The thing with that, is that it isn't automatic. So after your lesson plan passes, you get an email that congratulates you on completing the course, gives you access to their lesson plan database, talks about the teaching practice and TEFL diploma courses they have, and asks for feedback on their Facebook page. There is also another section that talks about that free course they promised when you paid. In order to get that free course, they ask you to make a video review of the course. So between 30 seconds to 2 minutes, you just talk about the course you took. It's not hard, but I am so awkward, it took me like 2 hours to make a one-minute video. It was so hardㅠㅠ but I did it! I won't be posting that video here, so don't ask! xDD

So I just logged in to my CTEYL course on Thursday. Luckily, this semester I'm only taking 4 classes, so I have a bit more free time during the week than I did in previous semesters. Like with the 120-hr course, I have 6 months to complete the CTEYL course. It's a lot shorter than the 120-hr course, so I think I'll finish it pretty quickly. I'll probably update this post once I finish it, and tell you all about how it went!

Now on to the highlight of this post~ 

The discount code~

The discount is for 15% off for the 60-hr and 120-hr courses. That a selection of four choices, 60-hr or 120-hr and with or without tutor support. So the code is ZJCOI2016I 

To make things easier, here is the link for the courses so you can look at the description for each one: https://www.teflcourse.net/?cu=ZJCOI2016I or if you want to go straight to the apply page: https://www.teflcourse.net/apply/?cu=ZJCOI2016I