[clivehawkins]

I did the CELTA course - Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults and yes, it's simply a tefl course. It was 160 hours (if I remember correctly) over 4 weeks and was both the most terrifying and exhilerating course I've ever done. I guess we can all remember the first day, thinking how in the hell you could prepare enough material to last an hour and how it could be possible to teach 30 hours a week if a twenty minute lesson takes half the night to prepare!

The course was with 3 tutors and 8 trainee teachers. The tutors were fantastic, giving us enough help to point us in the right direction but also enough freedom not to stifle our creativity :-) The feedback was thorough and they were skilled in getting the most out of each individual's strengths. The classroom experience was invaluable - seeing the whites of the eyes and smelling the fear - mine that is, not theirs! You need to get a feel for when you're losing their interest, pacing the lesson, changing the activities, getting them to interact with each other, sharing a joke, acting, miming and yes, even losing your patience sometimes.

The first lessons were tough and not pretty but thankfully the tutors and peers were there to put Humpty together again after the fall. This input \ feedback was what really helped to improve.

I don't see how an online course can give you any of that. Any further training I take will be face to face.