So far, so good

The course?

I feel that I should put down some things about the course, so if anyone wants to do it they can look up what my thoughts were on TESOL in general, and also my course provider.

After speaking with a few different course providers, I ended up choosing the Advanced Certificate through Seek Learning. I know, this surprised me too. I never really looked at any of the Seek courses seriously but to be honest they had the most comprehensive information, and the guy I spoke with was a really fantastic resource. Whether or not the whole thing is just sales or what, he was great and answered every question I had with honesty. He also managed to get me enrolled in the Diploma for the same price as the Certificate. Again, maybe a sales ploy but it totally worked. Seek work on behalf of the Australasian Training Academy (ATA) who are a nationally accredited training provider. I did some googling on them too and found lots of positive info so I felt confident that I had made a good choice. And I went ahead and enrolled.

The structure of the course is really flexible. It can be done entirely online, or you can attend face to face sessions for the core Foundation elective. Depending on what level of training you have decided on, you may have 1, 3, 5 or I think 7 electives. As I was upgraded to the Diploma I will be undertaking 5 electives. The minimum requirements for a TESOL certification is the foundation plus 1 elective, so once you have achieved this you can start applying for jobs. Then you can either complete the rest of the electives at home or while you are working overseas, depending on what you want to do. 

Another thing that i really liked about this course as opposed to others is the help they can give you when finding work. They have a guarantee on placements in China and Vietnam or you get your money back. They have an extensive job network for a heap of different countries throughout Asia and also Europe. They also help you with your resume and applications. I believe they will cover a lot of this sort of thing during the foundation core. 

I have just submitted all my assignments for my first elective, IELTS and TOEFL Preparation. It was not all that time consuming, I did it in a weekend. But I have plenty of time. Originally I was a bit concerned about how I would get answers to my questions in regards to the content as the assignments in general, but they were super fast getting back to me via email. No one is available over the weekend, but I had email responses by lunchtime on Monday and was able to fix up my assignments and submit them later that day. I got a response to my submission too, saying that marking can take up to 15 days and to get in touch if it goes longer than that. So we will wait and see...

And tomorrow I start the core component, so that will be something different again. I am looking forward to doing this one, to get some face to face time, and also to see what sort of other people are taking the course and what sort of directions they are going in. It would be nice if someone else was planning on heading to Korea as then I have someone else in the same position as me (or close too). Again, we will see...

In summary, so far I feel positive about the course. The people are accessible (although nothing beats actually sitting down and learning something with other people) and really nice. They are also knowledgeable and appear to be giving sound advice. the next couple of weeks will decide whether or not I would recommend it to anyone. 

I am a bit nervous about tomorrow night (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's sessions are evening classes in the city) but I think it will be fine. I have already packed all my stuff, like pens and other misc. stationary. I will pack the Mac when I shut it off later. Always good to be prepared.

Its still not feeling real that I will be packing up and going anywhere. There is heaps of stuff going on at home with the family, and I still haven't gotten the horses sorted out. I need to find somewhere to keep my old horse, and someone to break in the baby horse. Its already June and if I am aiming to get away by August I really need to get everything powering forward. plus I need to be really careful about my money situation - I pretty much have none, and need to make the last $500 stretch till I leave. 

Which is an interesting thing to start to take notice of - how much this endeavour is costing me. So far, its only been the course, which I should add was $1750. And then I have been getting all my course materials brined and bound at Officeworks so it's all together and i can take it with me. I will start a bit of a tally, and I will try and include anything I buy that is related to the Big Shift. So I will include course costs, moving costs, flights, visas, new clothes etc.

Spend Tally - 

Course - $1750

Printing (to date) - $47 ~

I think thats about it for now, I will do another update maybe Thursday and let you know how the course is going. Or if anything else weird is going on, or interesting or whatever.

xx