Program Reviews

Vantage’s professionalism consistently surpassed my expectations in their one month TEFL training learning course!

I learned a ton about teaching techniques and educational theory from the Vantage curriculum. But their lead trainer, Chris, put in all in perspective for me given his 25 years+ experience of teaching overseas. The wealth of his classroom experience that came out in our classroom discussions put a lot of what the course book said into perspective.

Vantage particularly excels in their practicum—the observed teaching practices—where my new teacher skills were born. After each teaching practice, I was given fantastic feedback from the trainers that showed me where I was strong and, diplomatically challenged me in areas where I still weak. But before I enter the classroom, I first had to learn how to make a lesson plan that would successfully meet the learning needs of my students.

Vantage also met my special requirements. I use a service dog and they were able to both find me accommodation that would allow my dog ‘Tagg’, but they even found a way to use Tagg’s highly trained obedience regimen in to a hugely popular and highly effective practice class.

In Canada, I was a popular keynote motivational speaker—based on my book ‘Moving Forward’. The one absolute I’ve consistently advanced in my talks is that we must walk before we run in any avenue of life. Vantage’s program completely embodies just that!

They also helped me achieve a highly competitive advantage in the teaching marketplace. The Power Resume they created was miles above what I had before. Just the week after graduation, Vantage’s powerful networking resource landed me interviews with leading recruiting companies in Thailand,

To those seeking a high level of professional training, Vantage is the best choice you could make. It comes highly recommended.

I have worked in the US education system—mostly in California—as a teacher and as an administrator for over two decades. I decided to do a TEFL certification as I want to expand my teaching qualifications to students studying English.

Thailand offers many TEFL program choices. I read many of the reviews and contacted the key schools. Vantage responded immediately with full information on my questions regarding accommodation options, travel, and visa arrangements—basically everything I wanted to know about TEFL. In the end, I felt completely confident in choosing Vantage for my certification.

As a veteran teacher, I have trained under many different models of teaching methods. The ESA (Engage, Study, Activate) approach which Vantage implements is super teacher and student friendly. Lessons were easy to create and could be adapted to the specific needs of my students.

Chris, the lead trainer, has decades of experience and it shows. He’s unbelievably knowledgeable of all aspects of teaching English. Any questions I had regarding my lessons or material presented in class were answered very thoroughly yet easy to understand. This is an intense course—it’s only four weeks. And while there were a few times where I did feel a little overwhelmed, the lessons were engaging, meaningful and, importantly, fun. Vantage really helped me change the way I thought about teaching in a positive way.

Another fantastic aspect of Vantage is I was able to implement my lesson plans with real non-English speaking students at a nursing college. I saw firsthand the effectiveness of the ESA method. My Thai Students were fun to work with—even though they were at an A1/A2 level of English. The entire experience was incredibly rewarding.

Vantage has their own Jobs Coach. Kevin sat with me one-on-one and we created a created a “power resume”, which including a video and cover letter. My new resume highlights my strengths and is so much stronger and effective. I was also coached interviewing strategies and tips, many of which I wasn’t aware of before.

Finally, a word about the accommodations. The recommended apartment where I stayed is located in a great area—surrounded by wonderful cafes, fantastic food markets, shopping centers, movie theaters—and much more—all within a 10-15 minute walking distance. This area is incredibly safe, inexpensive and fun.

My TEFL experience help me see the endless possible opportunities of teaching English abroad. It also renewed my excitement about education. Vantage absolutely receives my highest recommendation for TEFL certification.

I chose to study with Vantage TEFL due to their unique offering of the Combined Course. The course curriculum I did online over three months as I was working full time. Then, during a 2 weeks annual leave, I did my practice teaching in Bangkok afternoons/evenings.
Vantage was more than accommodating and let me attend any of their regular sessions with their full-time students that I chose.

The teaching practices were eye-opening. I had to do one lesson plan for my online portion. Now I had to do six more—each one on a separate language topic. I got great feedback on each one so by the time I stepped into the classroom I had a plan that I was more than confident would be successful.

It was extremely satisfying to put my lesson plans into practice and see the real-life application of my online learning. And after delivering each practice teaching session I was ‘debriefed’ by the trainers on my teaching performance and what they would like to see in the upcoming session.

I learned a lot of knowledge on the online part of the course, but it was only through real teaching that my knowledge became teaching skills.

Having gone through the combined course, I believe I was sensible with my decision as it allowed me the flexibility to study when and where I wanted, but still receive the same high-quality qualification.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Vantage TEFL to anyone considering such a qualification and the practical exposure offered in a course like this offers an unparalleled experience to any solely online class.

The Vantage instructors and staff were highly professional, super knowledgeable and, importantly, had a great sense of humor. The lead trainer gave us an easy-to-understand grammar review. He has decades of classroom experience and his practical advice of what to expect and do in the classroom went far beyond the course book.

We got one-on-one help and feedback for each of the six lesson plans we had to create for each practice teaching session. These all had to be on a different language topic. Then we got great feedback on each session as well as a new challenge for the next classroom. We also had to observe the other trainees and it was incredible to watch them all get better day by day, session by session.
Vantage has a Jobs Coach and he trained us in resume writing and interviewing techniques. I worked with him on creating my own Power Resume and other job supporting materials like cover letters and thank you notes.

The Vantage trainers have lived in Bangkok for years so they imparted a ton of local knowledge about the Thailand which was very helpful to many in my class.

This was a fantastic course. I’m now professionally certified and I'm ready to teach.

Though I already had success as a teacher, I wanted to learn best teaching practices for teaching students learning English as a second language. I chose Vantage as it’s certification came from an American accredited university.

The course was very insightful on all levels. I first learned how to formulate great lesson plans that would be successful in the classroom.

Vantage emphasizes the ESA teaching methodology and it’s a smart and more effective than the techniques I had had been using before. I will continue to use this technique moving forward.

Many schools I taught at previously had no course plan little in materials. Beyond the actual learning experience, Vantage gives its students a vast database of teaching books, worksheets, video and other relevant materials that will be a big head start in my next professional teaching assignment.

Another big plus—in terms of employment—were photos and videos of me teaching a real class that I agreed to have posted online. I can show these to prospective employers and they can see me actually teaching. The fact that the practice teaching is done in a real nursing college will also be impressive to an interviewer. This will be far more persuasive than interviewing with an online earned certificate with which requires no real practical teaching experience to acquire.

I attained world-class teaching certification from an internationally recognized school. As a result of Vantages professional training, time-proven techniques, and expertise in job placement, I already had a full-time teaching job only days after finishing the course. I can’t imagine a more satisfying experience.

Vantage TEFL was both a challenging yet a highly rewarding experience.

I first learned how to create a lesson plan that I could resource materials for and then successfully deliver to a class. I received the right tools to effectively reach all age groups of students.

The observed teaching practice was extremely helpful and this is where I really developed the skills I needed to learn how to teach. I found myself improving every lesson—both through my self-evaluations and the excellent feedback provided by the course instructors.
In addition to critiquing my last performance, I was always given a new challenge to incorporate into my next teaching session.

I am confident that the knowledge I’ve learned and the skills I have formed in this course will stay with me throughout my teaching career.

Even before I left Texas, I was getting all the information from Vantage I needed to get me to Thailand and enrolled in the course effortlessly.

In the course, we learned about what teaching EFL involves and reviewed the basics of English. I liked the way we alternated between the two. Chris, the lead trainer, is incredibly versed in all the topics introduced. His whiteboard work offers shortcuts and mnemonic devices to remember things (like key grammar points). To top it off he has a good sense of humor so the class flows along nicely with a few laughs between and during unit teaching
That brings me to the heart of the course—the six observed teacher lessons. This was the heart of the course in my opinion. It started the second week of training so I had near instant classroom experience. In the end, you had the knowledge and the skill of what teaching EFL was all about. I would never have been able to get in front of a class without an experience like this.

Kevin is their Jobs Coach—the trainer for the resume writing and interview techniques portion of the course. This information and preparation were excellent as it is geared toward finding a teaching position in Thailand. He is a wealth of information about Thai job sources and the global EFL industry.

This course absolutely opened my eyes to everything about teaching.

The Vantage trainers are highly experienced both as teachers and in career coaching and job sourcing. The TEFL course itself is really well-structured and highly organized. I've learned a lot about teaching methodologies, teaching techniques, and classroom management.

I enjoyed the course toughly even though it was a little intense to finish up the 120 hours of study and 6 hours of teaching practice in just one month. Vantage always kept its classes engaging and even, for the most part, fun.

I’ve gained a ton of self-confident from this course. During my 6 hours of teaching practices, I saw myself getting better with each teaching lesson. I got a lot of great observations from Vantage’s trainers and advice on enhancing my teaching to the students.

I made some friends for life in this class. More importantly, I’m ready to teach in any classroom any time. If you want to become a professional teacher, I believe Vantage is your best TEFL option.

This is one of the most intersting and useful courses I’ve ever taken. The course book was very well structured and helps trainees approach new skills for teaching later. The materials also brought clear insights of how to prepare lesson plan as well as to manage class professionally.

My observed practice teaching sessions was where my knowledge was turned into skill. It started with a first day so full of anxiety and thinking I could never do this to my last session where I felt supremely confident. That was also a sad day in that my practicum was over and I wouldn’t be with my students anymore.

Vantage really stand out in their quality of their trainers. They are incredible in terms of knowledge, and teaching experience. He guided trainees with his heart and never said no when trainees asked for help. You couldn’t ask for anything more.

I will strongly recommend this course to my friends. I strongly believe that they will benefit from all the knowledge I gained during the course.

This review may be a little different. I was already TEFL certified and I’m an experienced teacher. My goal was to observe a top-notch TEFL training program in action so I could become a full-time TEFL trainer in a center in the Philippines.

I chose Vantage as it was recommended by TEFL international who certify some 30+ training centers around the world. Moreover, it’s the top-rated program in Thailand according to some of the major review sites like this one.

One of the first differences I noticed at Vantage was their workshop style of presentation—instead of the lecture approach I had when I did my TEFL. This promoted a lot of discussion with the students and it allowed the lead trainer to share his over two decades of experience on a topic basis. We ended up learning a lot more than just what was in the course book.

Vantage’s curriculum emphasizes the ESA teaching methodology (engage, study and activate), which is an evolutionary development out of the older PPP (presentation, practice, and production) technique. In the ESA methodology, the teacher tries to motivate the students and arouse their interest. Language is studied and practiced and then used freely without correcting comments. A key benefit is that students learn how to communicate successfully without fear of mistakes.
In the ESA method, there is more emphasis on student-led language discovery, eliciting the grammar and vocabulary from students rather than giving a detailed (and often boring) teacher-led presentations.

In the PPP method that I was taught, there is a lengthy introduction to the given topic where the students are given a model how to do/say something and then practice it almost mechanically in written/spoken exercises. It’s effective, but not as engaging, and it’s arguably harder to motivate students to continue their language studies over the long term.

The trainers at Vantage are world class. This is truly a great program and I hope to incorporate a lot of what I’ve experienced into my TEFL classes.