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It is certainly true that globalization is driving our world at a rapid pace. In such a fast-changing digital world, English is a must for everyone to be able to actively integrate into the global educated community. Online teaching covers a significant part of the language learning market. Access to the labor market as an online teacher has become easier with the widespread of the World Wide Web and the Internet. A TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate could enhance teacher’s skills to be able to deliver the best practice while teaching online. This essay will explore the necessity of getting a TEFL certificate in terms of online teaching with reference to several examples. Nowadays everyone wants to speak many languages. Learning a foreign language expands the horizons, improves career prospects, makes traveling easier. English is considered as the most common foreign language because of its dominating position in business and being in demand across the globe. In a fast-paced development of new technologies it’s obvious that learning English as a foreign language should be taught in the fastest, the most efficient and the cheapest way. Hence, the online teaching gives a perfect opportunity to master a language, develop the ability to speak, improve grammar and pronunciation. All receptive and productive language skills can be covered. Online education has been evolved in the recent two decades. Self-development, online university and college degrees, teaching and learning various subjects, languages, acquiring new skills – now all is possible just having a device (laptop, tablet, smartphone) with a stable internet connection. Online teaching of English as a foreign language has its certain positive aspects: -Flexibility – any time or location restriction is eliminated. Every student/teacher can find his preferred teacher/student and the best time to learn/teach. -Price – online lessons are cheaper than private face-to-face. Both teacher and student save time on commuting. A teacher also saves time on lesson preparation – same material can be used many times for different students. The drawbacks of teaching English online could be: -Lack of engagement – a student needs to be self-disciplined and motivated to learn because a level of teacher’s control and monitoring of a student is very low. -Low interaction – a student can feel isolated. A teacher needs to consider practicing various types of activities as it’s quite difficult to involve many people in one single online teaching session. Consequently, the following questions for the future teachers may pop up: do I need a certificate to teach English online if I don’t have a degree in English/Pedagogy/Languages, etc.? If I do need a certificate, which one to choose? What could I offer to my future students? On the other hand, should I probably go to the university spending at least between 3 to 6 years to get a degree to become a professional teacher? Can I become a professional with only 60 or 120 hours of the online or on-site delivered training? The list could be never-ending. Current market situation encompasses many fresh teachers or people who are eager to teach online and who worry about these questions. There is no straightforward answer for every case, whether a TEFL certificate is needed for online teaching. A TEFL certificate could be required when an individual without a degree would like to teach English abroad where English is not a native language. It increases the teacher’s chances to get a better position and gives essential teaching background. How does a TEFL certificate can be used for online teaching? We can admit that “online” is a synonym of “abroad” as online learners are usually based in a foreign country, and the need of having a TEFL certificate is evident. The necessity of getting a TEFL certificate can be split depending on the level of teacher education, motivation, a course to be taught (general conversational practice, grammar, pronunciation, writing improvement, listening, etc.), type of students (adults, children, business/ medicine learners, bilingual students, etc.) Hence, getting a TEFL certificate could be considered for the following cases: -A person who has a strong willingness to teach English online, has an excellent command of the English language, has at least a High School Diploma or a Bachelor’s degree. TEFL certification will give a significant basic understanding about the teaching methods and techniques, various examples of activities, materials to be used and lesson planning. -A teacher with a degree in English/Languages who would like to get deeper insights how to teach English online (similar as “abroad”) and who has no experience in teaching English as a foreign language. Overall, a TEFL certificate could be an essential source of teaching techniques and ideas for a person who are not familiar with language teaching or it could serve as an add-on for more experienced teachers. As a result, a decision should be made on the individual basis if a TEFL certificate fulfills the person’s needs how to efficiently teach English online. Therefore, for inexperienced online English teacher without a degree in the relevant area, it could be strongly recommended to obtain a TEFL certificate to teach English online.
