EBC International TEFL Certificate Blog

Study in Greece - Problems in Greece

2010-05-12T10:42:00.002+02:00

Although the City of Athens has received some bad publicity over the last week or so, this has no bearing whatsoever on the rest of Greece. The new economic measures proposed by the government concerning employees in the Greek civil service sector sparked an angry response and as is often the case and resulted in some demonstrations down in the centre of Athens.

With regard to the Island of Crete and many other places, we have not encountered any problems and TEFL students traveling via Athens have done so without incident. Crete is quite a wealthy island so the new economic measures enacted by the government have had little or no impact on the island.

As is so very often the case, the media has a tendency to sensationalize and paint a somewhat grey picture, when in reality it is not an accurate representation and more precisely refers to isolated incidences.

Olga McLean,
Centre Director,
EBC TEFL course, Chania,
Crete, Greece.

Tax refund for studying with EBC

2010-05-03T20:44:00.001+02:00

If you want to get a study tax refund, read on!

Can I get a tax refund for my studies with EBC?

In three words - YES YOU CAN

EBC is a legitimate, externally moderated, accredited TEFL course so as long as your country allows tax deductions for training, you can use your EBC tuition fee as a tax deduction.

As long as your country allows you to declare your tuition fee as tax-deductable you can use your EBC tuition fee to lower your taxable income and either get a refund or pay less tax.

Many EBC graduates have been successful in claiming a tax refund because of the course they took with EBC.

For the 2009 filing of income tax returns, some EBC graduates have been able to get a tax refund of anywhere between 400 USD - 800 USD (over 50% of the tution fee!)

EBC will provide you with all the documentation needed to apply for a tax refund based on the course you took with us.

Has the global crisis had an impact on TEFL jobs?

2010-03-02T17:47:00.000+01:00

Has the crisis had a serious impact on TEFL job opportunities? From EBC's perspective it hasn't and there are quite a few others in the TEFL area that are saying the same thing. Here's a quote from a recent independent article: "Demand seems to be booming still with little signs of it reducing."

There's no doubt that some sectors of the world's economy (especially those that use a lot of unskilled labour) are hurting, but in general, the sectors that use skilled labour still have the need to learn English. It's even more urgent now because a lot of non-English speaking countries are looking to make money out of increased exports which means that they MUST learn English to do business globally.

As a means of cross-cultural communication, English is the most widely used language in the world, and it will be used by even more people in the future.

Non-native English speakers outnumber native English speakers 5 to 1.
As of now there are an estimated 1.8 billion people that speak English where only 400 million are native English speakers.
The world’s estimated population is 6.6 billion people so almost one third of the entire globe speaks English.
The number of people needing to learn English grows every day.
English is the language of choice for almost all business transactions.

Unemployment makes people think about their next job, what skills they'll need, where they'll be working. For people in non-English speaking countries, English is one skill that everyone needs.

EBC knows this for a fact, because EBC's free English classes given to locals in our training centres are over-subscribed. The non-English speaking world needs to learn English so there is still a healthy demand for English teachers.

A case in point is Spain. Spain is currently suffering from the global crisis, but EBC is still getting work for its Madrid graduates. Everyone on our January 2010 course got work and those that now have a full schedule are still getting calls. Spain is doing what it takes to position itself for when the recovery begins, which we all hope is soon. One way it is doing this is to invest in education - part of which is learning English.

Most non-English speaking countries that are positioning themselves for the future are doing the same. In the Far East and Asia-Pacific countries, the crisis has not hit that hard and they are also crying out for English teachers.

Yes there is a crisis, but even now, there has been no significant effect on the demand for English teachers.

Confused and new to TEFL - "How do I choose a course?"

2010-03-02T16:02:00.000+01:00

EBC is offering help for newcomers to TEFL that don't know how to choose the right TEFL course. If you're a newbie to TEFL you're probably overwhelmed by the number of courses on offer. EBC knows this so we've put together a list of 20 pretty simple, but testing questions that you should ask all the schools that you are interested in attending BEFORE you send them your hard earned cash.

We got a call from someone the other day that put down a deposit on a course and then found our list of 20 questions. He then called up the school he'd already paid for and asked for answers. He did NOT like what he heard and is now trying to get his money back. He wants to come to EBC but there's not a lot we can do to help him out.

BEWARE - before you choose a course, do your homework. If you still haven't chosen a course, go to our web site, download the questions and then ask them.

Welcome aboard

2010-03-02T14:43:00.000+01:00

A warm welcome to the EBC International TEFL Certificate blog from everyone here at EBC.

The EBC blog has been created as part of our social network so that EBC and our graduates can share information about virtually anything relevant to teaching English abroad.

To get ball rolling, here's a short description of what EBC has been doing recently to spread the word about our course and get the word out about quality training out why it counts for something.

About a week ago we started a Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Ross/546737818 and it's become quite popular. We've gone from zero to 212 friends in just over a week. We're also getting some nice stories from our course graduates about what they're up to. Here are a few examples:

"If you ever need someone as a referral to talk about the course to a prospective, I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to answer prospective students' questions."

"I'm working in China teaching schoolkids! Love it - China is very interesting & so friendly! ... regards to John!"

"I now have my own school called Class A and things are going well. I have just started my own face book page so as soon as I have figured out how to customise it, I will join yours. Hope things are going well for you too."

"Hope you're all well, and lovely to hear from you again. I'd like to know if EBC has any post-TEFL courses, such as in Business Teaching. I really enjoyed the course last August, but feel the need to improve my qualifications. Thanks to this course, I'm now working at CEPSA, and getting a great deal of satisfaction in doing so. Hope to hear from you again soon."

We also started a YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/ebcteflcourse showing some examples of our student teachers, video testimonials and other useful stuf about the course and what it's like to teach English abroad.

This blog is our latest addition and we hope that it will help everyone out by being informative and give useful information about TEFL abroad.