I took the intensive 4-week CELTA certification through Oxford TEFL. The tutors were all first-rate, knowledgable, and experienced English-language teachers, and you will learn a lot from them if you enroll in this course. They are not joking when they say "intensive" --you will be working your tail off from Day 1 until the very end. That's okay, though, if you enjoy learning. You may even meet some wonderful people that you connect with. You will learn the CELTA method, how to plan lessons, analyze language, and you will get 6 hours of hands-on teaching practice, as well as time to observe your peers and experienced teachers. As a teacher for 20 years, I can say that they are definitely more generous than I would be in allowing students to resubmit assignments that they fail the first time. If you work hard, it's pretty tough to fail this course, so you can enter it feeling confident that you'll pass. A few things Oxford TEFL could work on: 1. Organization. There were problems with setting up Teams accounts and accessing information. In addition, one of the tutors messed up and assigned the same lesson to two students, forcing one of them to create an entirely new lesson plan without a lot of time--and lesson planning takes the majority of your time in this course. 2. The Careers office doesn't seem to know what they're doing. For example, they sent out an email that was like "apply to The Bridge in Bratislava, they always need teachers," then when I and at least one other person I know of wrote to that school, the hiring manager wrote back to both of us and said "nope, we're good, we don't need teachers right now." 3. Oxford TEFL's CELTA course trains you to teach ADULTS, yet for some reason the majority of the schools they partner with and send information about involve teaching children (like, 3-12 year olds), something we were NOT taught to do. This makes no sense, and I imagine that most of us did CELTA because we don't want to teach 3-year-olds, which is really babysitting, let's be real. 4. If you are not an EU citizen, basically you haven't a hope of getting a job in an EU country unless you're willing to work there illegally. Don't think, "Oh I'll do this course and then I can teach English in France/Spain/Portugal/Italy/etc." You can't. No one will sponsor a work visa for you. If you're not an EU citizen, plan on teaching children in Asia or South-East Asia. read more

I loved being in the Oxford TEFL program in BCN. The staff was great and more than willing to go the extra mile to help you out. It was hard work, but you walk away with knowledge that you could not find anywhere else. My only complaint is that timing is everything here. I did the March program, and it is in the middle of Spain's school semester. If you intend on teaching in a school, I highly recommend waiting until the school year starts. You have to find a job on your own (they help with resume), so you should plan to start the program for the type of job that best suits your needs. Other than that, highly recommend! read more