Importance of TESOL Certification for English Speaking Teachers

Of recent, people have been arguing as to whether TESOL certifications are a good investment or just an expensive hobby. Away from the obvious advantage of giving the teacher a good understanding of the English language, the certificate offers unlimited opportunities for the teacher qualified in doing this. These are some of the benefits of this course:

Increased job opportunities

The teacher increases his opportunities since they can teach English to non-English speaking countries.

This can be a very interesting course for those people who like traveling; since the course is acceptable worldwide, they can choose which country to teach and if not satisfied, opportunities will be awaiting elsewhere.

In addition, this certificate will increase the chances of the teacher getting an employment in case of new positions. - It is easier to beat non certified teachers when in an interview. This is because the teacher is deemed more qualified.

For those teachers with an ambition to resettle elsewhere in the world, they can bet on this course to ensure that after the relocation they do not go for long without employment.

Promotion and salary increment

By getting this qualification, the teacher is likely to be offered a higher salary bracket compared to those that are not certified. This is since the teacher is more qualified.

Also in instances of promotion at work, the teacher with a TESOL is likely to be considered first before the ones that are not certified-promotion also mean salary increments.

Professional development

Even if in the first place you are not employed because of this certification, you will surely fair well in the long run as compared to other teachers. This because of the intense training one goes through before earning this certificate.

In addition to showing that you are qualified, it also increases the respect one gets from their client and the students would take the classes in a professional manner. Moreover, by being valued at work, plays a very vital role in ensuring that you stay longer in the work.

Networking

By acquiring a TESOL certificate, the teacher is connected to other qualified bearers of this certification. By doing so, the teachers are able to exchange their experiences. This makes the teacher have a route through which they can seek for help in cases where they do not know the best way possible to do a given task.

Refresher course

Teachers that have been teaching for a while and have become disillusioned can pick on this course to refresh things up a bit. It gives the teacher an opportunity to stop and reflect on his career as a whole and strategize about growth.

Although this course has its own challenges e.g. the cost of the course and the time for studying, given the above pointed benefits, teachers are better advised to consider taking up classes in this certification since the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The availability of part time and online TESOL certifications only helps in making the course all the more attractive. This is since the teacher does not have to stop working so as to attend classes.

I have seen that all those students who has qualified TESOL certification are doing good jobs at international level. Now they can teach English abroad with perfect skill

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ESEA Come, ESEA Go

The chatter among the education cognescenti this week is about what is and what isn't in the bipartisan ESEA draft released by Senate education chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-WY).

Let me repeat my prior contention that, politically, ESEA reauthorization is an issue for 2013 -- not 2011 or 2012. The Republican-led U.S. House is not going to give President Obama any kind of a political victory, despite the solid compromise put forth by the Senate HELP Committee. For that reason, the work currently underway is in part about laying the groundwork for a future compromise, in part a genuine attempt to get something done (despite the House), and in part political cover.

The bill itself represents a sensible step back from a pie-in-the-sky accountability goal of 100% proficiency in favor of annual state data transparency, continued data disaggregation among subgroups, and greater state flexibility over educational accountability. Personally, I am not an accountability hawk and am unswayed by spotty evidence and advocates such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush who contends that it was Florida's accountability system (rather than its major investment in literacy and other interventions) that fueled student test-score gains. Chairman Harkin nails it by saying that the bill "focuses on teaching and learning, not testing and sanctioning." Amen to that.

Seeing as I have a day job that doesn't allow me to analyze the entirety of 800-page bills, here is my quick take on a few elements in the draft bill:

Positives

• Accountability: Eliminates AYP. Requires states to identify 5% lowest-performing schools and 5% of schools with the largest achievement gaps.
  
• CSR: Tightens up the use of Title II, Part A for class-size reduction to ensure that those dollars are directed at research-based implementation of smaller class sizes. [UPDATE: This could potentially free up some Title II, Part A dollars for teacher professional development and new teacher support.]
  
• Teacher & Principal Training & Recruiting Fund: This Fund would support state & local activities that further high-quality PD, rigorous evaluation and support systems, and improve the equitable distribution of teachers. The bill's language significantly strengthens existing federal policy language regarding the elements of comprehensive, high-quality educator induction and mentoring.

Concerns

• Equitable teacher distribution: The bill would require states to ensure that high-poverty and high-minority schools receive an equitable distribution of the most effective educators as measured by new teacher evaluation systems that must include four performance tiers. Sounds good and fair. But given that teacher working conditions significantly impact an individual educator's ability to be effective in the classroom (and garner a "highly effective" rating [see DC]), wouldn't this just create a massive game of musical chairs and major disruptions in the teaching pool unless a determined effort were mounted to improve the often poor teaching and learning conditions present in high-poverty schools?
  

Good Coverage & Analysis

Alyson Klein - Politics K-12 - Education Week
Joy Resmovits - Huffington Post
Stephen Sawchuk - Teacher Beat - Education Week
The Quick and the Ed (Education Sector)

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Unintended, Unforeseen Consequences

The challenges surrounding the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) plan to replace principals at underperforming schools across the nation (New York Times: "U.S. Plan to Replace Principals Hits Snag: Who Will Step In?") reminds me of the unintended consequences of California's class size reduction policies during the 1990s.

As the New York Times reported yesterday about the ED's $4 billion plan to radically transform the country’s worst schools by installing new principals to overhaul most of the failing schools, "[T]here simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over."

California experienced a similar human capital problem when it reduced class sizes statewide in grades k-3. An unintended consequence of its state policy was the hiring of more emergency-credentialed and unqualified educators as a result of the additional teaching positions needed to enable smaller class sizes. As this Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning report noted, "[T]he implementation of class size reduction ... dramatically increased the shortage" of fully qualified teachers. In addition, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that it exacerbated educational inequality and disproportionately affected schools that served low-income and minority students:

CSR led to a dramatic increase in the percentages of inexperienced and uncertified teachers. In 1990, there were few differences in these characteristics by racial/ethnic and income groups. Even as late as 1995–1996, the year before CSR, schools with high percentages of nonwhite and low-income students were only slightly more likely
than other schools to have inexperienced teachers who lacked full certification and postgraduate schooling. By 1999, large gaps in teacher qualifications had emerged between schools attended by nonwhite and low-income students and other schools. For black students in schools with more than 75 percent of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, nearly 25 percent had a first- or second-year teacher; almost 30 percent had a teacher who was not fully certified. At the other extreme, for white students attending schools with 25 percent or fewer of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, only 12 percent had a first- or second-year teacher, and only 5 percent had a teacher who was not fully credentialed. These differences reflect the varying levels of difficulty that many schools experienced in attempting to attract and retain teachers following the implementation of CSR.

With all the current hullabaloo about wanting to fire more underperforming teachers as a chief reform strategy, the critical question is: "Who will replace them?" The belief that 'we can do better' does not necessarily make it so. We've got to attend to and recognize such human capital challenges before we put forth such policies, however well intended.

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Movement on Teacher Residency Requirements

As a follow up to my post last September ("Teacher Residency Requirements"), there appears to be legislative movement in both Illinois and Wisconsin to eliminate such requirements in Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively. Both cities require teachers to be residents in order to be employed in the public schools.

From District 299: The Chicago Schools Blog (Alexander Russo), 3/8/2010:

It's an age-old question for Chicago, which is one of few big cities to require teachers to live inside the city limits. Teachers complain about it. Once in a while they get caught living outside the city and have to move or leave their jobs. The recession in making jobs scarcer and the city more expensive. And now State Sen. Steans has introduced language [Residency Bill SB 3522 (Amendment 1)] that, with the support of the CTU, would remove that requirement.

From Wisconsin State Journal editorial, 3/10/2010:

Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature and the state's big teachers union are on the same side pushing for a smart school reform in Milwaukee.

They're backing Assembly Bill 89, which would prohibit Milwaukee Public Schools from requiring their teachers to live in the state's largest city.

My belief is that, while this might be good politics or even economic policy, it is bad education policy. In urban school districts that struggle to attract and retain talented and effective teachers, such a residency policy needlessly reduces the number of qualified candidates for teaching vacancies and lowers the quality of the overall selection pool.

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Rhode Island Targets Teacher Assignments

The latest edition of the National Council of Teacher Quality's newsletter highlights the efforts of Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist to eliminate the practice of transferring teachers based on seniority. Instead, openings should be filled "based on a set of performance criteria and on student need," according to a memo sent by Gist to the state's school superintendents.

Generally, given the evidence that veteran teachers tend to flee so-called hard-to-staff schools and leave those schools populated by less experienced peers, I am generally agreeable to such policies that promise to lessen such inequitable teacher distribution. I say that with two caveats. First, policymakers and researchers should work to ensure that there are no unintended consequences as a result of such a policy. For instance, might this policy result in some veteran teachers leaving a needy district, leaving the state, or taking an early retirement rather than continue to teach in a location that they no longer want to? Second, the state of Rhode Island would do well to address teacher working conditions which research shows have greater bearing on teachers' decisions to stay at or leave a given school more than other factors, such as pay.

The state's teacher unions -- the National Education Association Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFT) -- are not happy with Gist's approach and may take the issue to the courts, saying that Gist does not have the authority to direct such a change and that it limits collective bargaining rights. That all said, however, this aggressive leadership on the part of Commissioner Gist is why folks are beginning to mention the Ocean State as a serious Race to the Top contender.

See some past thoughts on this issue.

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