I have done a forum search and there was only one brief comment on another thread.

I was wondering of people have done a TEFL course? I have been looking at these on their websites, and am thinking of doing a weekend Stage 1 and 2 course. Is this the best language course to do, or are there others?

I am going to be moving to Brazil in October, and will be living with my girlfriend who will have an apartment. My reason for doing this would be to enable to teach English say for 6 months, in order to allow me to earn some money while my own Portuguese improves. By then, I should be able to find they type of work that I really want to do long term.

Luckily I do not have to earn enough to cover rent, but obviously I would like to earn at least enough to make a contribution to living costs, and not have my girlfriend pay for all the rent and food.

Is TEFL the best course to do? There is an on-line option but I was thinking that it would be better to do the residential course, and have time with teachers.

Any feedback is welcome so thanks for your help.

Si

The most widely recognised TEFL is a CELTA course. Takes a month and can be costly.

I did a an online effort, just to get an idea of what I was supposed to be doing. (I actually got a job teaching english simply because I was English, available and living in the area). It's a the kind of job that you learn to do as you do it. Observing other teachers was more useful then the online course I did.

In your situation, i'd just do an online thing (I did i-to-i ) they also do weekend practical sessions. At a guess, you'll find it easy to get work once you are there simply because you're a native speaker.

The 2 main ones are the CELTA run by Cambridge and the CertTESOL run by Trinity. I did the latter intensively, and later the Diploma online.

They're very similar, with the Trinity courses placing more emphasis on the performative aspects of language, ie pronunciation. The CELTA is slightly better known.

If you haven't taught English before I'd recommend doing a course with as much tutor and peer contact as possible. The grammar can be a sod if you weren't taught it at school and it's good having folk to work it out with.

Feel free to email me with any questions. It's a great job and you'll have a lot of fun doing it.

Cheers folks. There is a language school here so I will also talk to them to see what they also recommend. I'll also check out those other course too.