If you’re looking for a TEFL or TESOL provider, you want to know that they will be professional and reputable. That’s where the WTEFLAC came in.

Every year tens of thousands of people study for a course which can allow them to teach English as a foreign language. TEFL and TESOL courses give them internationally recognised qualifications which allow them to teach English to foreign students anywhere in the world.

Demand for these courses accelerated, as people sought a new career option. The explosion of online learning created new and exciting opportunities for anyone to start a new career or to find a new income stream. However, with that demand came a surge in the number of courses offering relevant qualifications. Just run a quick search online and you’ll see a myriad of courses offering quick, affordable, and easy routes to qualification.

Unfortunately, as with everything in life, some of these courses are better than others. Many were poor quality run by people with little or no qualifications. Some were run by those seeking to take the money of students without offering any useful qualifications in return.

Differentiating between legitimate providers and others could be difficult. Anyone can put together a good website with marketing material which promises the Earth, but that doesn’t mean the final product matches the promises. Students would have to do a great deal of research, such as searching for the provider’s name online to get reviews, to have any idea if the provider was up to scratch.

That’s why the World TEFL Accrediting Commission was set up. They recognized that there was a problem in this sector and an urgent need to improve standards. To provide people with the guidance and reassurance they needed, we drew up a code of conduct and a detailed accreditation process which would assess and verify the quality of courses on offer.

The code of conduct covered the key features any provider would need to offer such as:

Clearly laid out and sequential courses.
Effective and valuable feedback.
Detailed assessment.
Quality assurance and constant improvement of courses.
Highly qualified teachers with direct experience teaching English as a foreign language.

The Commission also reviewed all marketing material from the providers to make sure it was open, truthful and provided an accurate representation of the course on offer.

The accreditation process involved several different steps which included assessment of literature and course content, the staff involved and the marketing material. If the provider offered teaching on premises it would also include on-site inspections.

Once this process was completed, the provider would be able to display the WTEFLAC accreditation on their website and would be included under the website’s list of accredited providers. It was a badge of honour which differentiated them from the many other unaccredited providers and gave customers a way to verify all the bold claims made in a site’s marketing material. It helped give people the information they needed to choose a course that would provide the knowledge they needed to further their professional aspirations.