 TEFL TESOL Guide to Teaching English Abroad Online courses Online TEFL courses are offered 100% by distance learning and can be taken with or without the support of a personal online tutor. Some courses offer the option of downloading the course materials so you can work offline while other courses you need to be online in order to access the materials. Courses can vary in duration but you should really be looking for a minimum of a 50 hour course, though most employers would prefer you to have a 100 hour course. As it is an online course there is no classroom time and no teaching practice component. You will however, usually have the opportunity to see actual lessons taking place through CD-ROM and some courses are now offering the option to study almost completely by DVD so it is even more like being in the classroom. Online TEFL courses are primarily designed for those people who wish to train to be an English teacher but have time and or budget constraints which don't allow them to attend an in-class or combined course. The advantages of online courses are that you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home office or anywhere else you have access to the internet. You can literally take the course from anywhere in the world and online courses are usually priced very reasonably. You can find out more information about online courses at www.teflonline.net Combined courses Combined TEFL courses are named as such because they combine the best of the online and in-class TEFL courses. You study the principles and theories of TEFL online at your own pace and then go on to attend a training center usually for one or two weeks to gain classroom teaching practice. These courses are ideal for those people that wouldn't enjoy the intensive nature of an in-class TEFL course but would like to gain some teaching practice. As the combined TEFL course only usually requires one or two weeks of attendance at a training center, it is also more suited to those who aren't able to attend an in-class TEFL course for four weeks. The cost also tends to be slightly lower than an in-class course so it can be the best of both worlds. The only downside is that combined courses aren't as common and so the number of locations available for teaching practice is more limited. The combined course features all the same components as an in-class course and therefore results in equivalent TEFL certification. The information on combined TEFL courses can be found at www.teflcourse.net. TEFL TESOL Guide to Teaching English Abroad. Specialized Advanced Courses. A range of more specialized or advanced qualifications is available for teachers that already have or are studying for TEFL certification. The most popular and specialized courses are certifications in teaching business English and specialist certification in teaching English to young learners. Both of these are usually 50 hour online courses and therefore no classroom attendance is required. There are useful qualifications for anyone who wishes to specialize in either of these areas as well as providing additional useful qualifications to a teacher that has just completed a TEFL TESOL course. The most advanced TEFL TESOL qualification is the diploma in TEFL. This course is a very high level, 250 hour course that builds upon knowledge gained from the TEFL certificate course. TEFL diploma course again is a 100% online course without any requirement for classroom attendance but you must already possess an internationally recognized TEFL certificate in order to be accepted onto a TEFL diploma course. Beware of courses claiming to be diploma courses but which offer less than 200 hours of study. These qualifications are not true diploma courses and most employers will not recognize them as such. You can see more information on specialized and advanced courses at www.teflcourse.net.