Category Archives: Reviews

American TESOL Institute (ATI) Review – Overall

8 Replies
The primary reason I wanted to write this series on the American TESOL Institute is to provide a detailed account of my experience through the entire course, as well as many other 3rd party accounts as I can find. Essentially, I want to provide the kind of information I wish I had before I enrolled in the ATI course.

The gate to the office of ATI in Bangkok.

I should begin by saying; they are real and not a scam, what seems to be the primary concern of most people looking for this same info. Outside of their official site(s), it can be difficult to find valid information about ATI. This is for 2 reasons. First, they are relatively new compared to most TEFL/CELTA/TESOL programs. The other is that they spam search engines with many official sites and dozens of other places they stick their name and info.

If you have any specific questions not covered in these, please ask. I’d be happy to answer.

American TESOL Institute Series

The Good

The American TESOL Institute is what they promise in their advertisements; and they will train you and place you into a Thailand (or whatever country course you take) school.

  • The price.  Most TEFL/TESOL/CELTA programs are around $2000.  ATI is around $1000.
  • It’s in Thailand (or a different country).  Most TEFL/CELTA/TESOL classes aren’t, and you just take them near home.  And the course’s accommodation is nice.
  • The course will educate you on how to create and implement lesson plans from scratch.
  • The course provides a buffer of some experience and cultural education before being thrown directly into the Thailand educational system.
  • The TESOL certificate is a valid addition to a CV after you finish your placement.  And it can help you get jobs later.
  • The network of friends you meet while doing the course will continue to be there after the course has ended.  All will be in the same situation as you and are likely completely new to the country and ESL teaching as well.
  • School visits.  While we didn’t do it in my course because of a flood, the course generally does provide its students sample-teaching experience in a Thai classroom, something that would be extremely useful.
  • There is assistance in finding a place to live after you are placed in the job.

 

The Bad

The beginning is by far the most difficult part you will have with the American TESOL Institute experience, and not in the sense of “a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.”  It is difficult because ATI makes it difficult.

  • ATI spams search engines with over 10 official websites (with inconsistent data) for the same program.  This makes it difficult to come up with any legitimate 3rd party reviews or information.
  • They create numerous one-shot blogs on WordPress and Blogger posting the same repetitive information with a link to one of their 10 pages.
  • ATI’s communication through email is not concise and often seems intentionally misleading, such as when I was told should wait to get a Non-Immigrant Visa, when I would only ever get a tourist visa.
  • They lied/bluffed in some communication, such as giving me (and others in my course) the ultimatum of paying immediately or losing the spot to someone who was waiting behind me (who did not exist).
  • ATI fabricates testimonials on their websites.  This is according to 2 coworker ATI graduates and a review by Katy of Merhaba!
  • ATI omits telling you many of the final details upfront, such as additional costs (additional visas, visa runs) you will be required to pay, even if your school pays them to normal employees.
  • ATI omits telling you that you do not actually get your TESOL certificate upon completion of the course, a fact that they directly advertise.
  • DO NOT allow ATI to make you pay through CCAvenue.com.
  • When our class was delayed because of the 2011 flood, ATI was very silent during the whole matter.  Some of the people enrolled tried to withdraw, not wanting to come into a disaster zone.  ATI denied them this option.

*See Pre-Course Post for detailed accounts of these.

As for a few less serious complaints:

  • In the online course, there is a noticeable amount of typos in the readings.
  • Some people get placements in locales they don’t like.
  • The course lesson plan assignments are very in-depth and detailed, but prepare you for classes in which you would have no other resources.
  • No follow-up communication after the placement, and we had to prompt them as to when the TESOL certificates could be picked up.
  • As Sarah pointed out, one of the ATI Special Thai Project adverts on their websites said breakfast would be provided at the JL Bangkok.  It wasn’t.

My Final Thoughts

Even after months of my own research prior to even applying, and then 3-4 months of emails back and forth with 4 representative of the American TESOL Institute, I (and others from my course) still had very little clue what we would be showing up to.  Why the beginning phases and communication are so frustrating and headache-inducing is something I still haven’t figured out.  Maybe it’s just their way of weeding out who can and can’ t take it?  My best theory.

Once there, it all begins to sort out though, and 30 minutes with the Innovative Solutions placement agent was more informative than 3 months of ATI emails.

The course has its pros and cons in practical usefulness (discussed in depth in the previous three posts), but for the cost, what it ultimately provides is worth it.  A buffer before going out into Thailand living on your own, people that you can continue to talk to, a TESOL certificate, and a job placement.  It’s only 4-5 months if you don’t like it, at which time you will certainly know enough to go find something on your own.  If you do like it, you can always re-sign where you are.  Basically (once you get past the Pre-Course stage, it’s full service (with a few bumps) to relocate to Thailand or any of ATI’s any other countries.

I would recommend it for people who, like me at the time, are completely new to staying abroad long-term.  The services will get you integrated and started into wherever you go.  Of course, some of it will be on you as well.  It’s a nice way to get this taken care of without worrying too much about every detail.

For people who have some experience in foreign teaching, or just long-term travel abroad, ATI may help you.  But, you would probably be able to do just as much on your own with just a little added effort.  And the likelihood is that you could find a job that pays more than the 30,000 baht that ATI grads start with.

Links to others’ experiences with American TESOL Institute:

Reviews of the  American TESOL Institute (ATI)
American TESOL Institute Review | From Here to There
American TESOL Institute Review (by a graduate of the program) | Merhaba!
The Training Program | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
What Did I Do? | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
American TESOL Institute | XploreU Student Travel Blog
Clusterfuck to Bangkok, or My Experience with the American TESOL Institute | la vie bohémienne
ATI: Special Thai Project | All Thai’d Up
Step 3:  To TEFL or Not to TEFL? Vagabond Vo
“Special Thai Project” (ATI) Review | Monkey Abroad

Experiences in the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
Learning to Teach with ATI | ELThomas
I’m a teacher!??! Awesome! ATI training in Phuket | GypsyJourneys
Teaching Practice Week with “Teacher A” in the House | Travel on My Face
Teaching HIV + Orphans and Monks; Just another day on the Job in Chiang Mai | One Night in Bangkok
The Orphanage and the Juvenile Detention Center | Jaiyen
Work visa/JL Bangkok/First days of teaching | Ty Tripping
Teacher Morgan: Lesson #1 | EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.
Teacher Training Week | The Adventures of Rain Dance Megan
Chaos in the Classroom | Exotic Winds and Spicy Freedom
Practice Teaching | To Ma-Thailand and Beyond

Posts while attending the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
First week here | Erika’s life in Thailand :)
Phuket aka: pooket | doubleu’s Great Adventure
Jet Lag Continues, Fish Pedicure, Training Day One | All Thai’d Up
Big girls don’t cry | back pages
The Weekend and My First Day in School | Julies Jaunts
Back in Bangkok | The Ramblings of Sarah Metz
I’m Alive! | I’m So Thai.

 

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American TESOL Institute (ATI) Review – Post-Course Experience

3 Replies
The primary reason I wanted to write this series on the American TESOL Institute is to provide a detailed account of my experience through the entire course, as well as many other 3rd party accounts as I can find. Essentially, I want to provide the kind of information I wish I had before I enrolled in the ATI course.

The gate to the office of ATI in Bangkok.

I should begin by saying; they are real and not a scam, what seems to be the primary concern of most people looking for this same info. Outside of their official site(s), it can be difficult to find valid information about ATI. This is for 2 reasons. First, they are relatively new compared to most TEFL/CELTA/TESOL programs. The other is that they spam search engines with many official sites and dozens of other places they stick their name and info.

If you have any specific questions not covered in these, please ask. I’d be happy to answer.

American TESOL Institute Series

Placement

One added advantage of the American TESOL Institute’s Special Thai Project (and most of their certification programs in other countries, I gather) is that they place their graduates into a school in the country where they are trained.  They do this using a 3rd party placement agency, which in our case was Pat from Innovative Solutions.

Part of the campus where their Ramkhamhaeng school was.

Toward the end of the course is when most of us began to find out about our various placements.  Sarah and Christy had been told almost from the start that they would be at a school near the JL Bangkok in the Ramkhamhaeng district, one that Whittney (the ATI instructor) backed up as a very nice school.

A little past midway through, I was told I would be placed into a school along with Megan and Morgan.  We had no other details about the location or what exactly we might be teaching, just that we had already been found a school.

Around the same time, Craig was brought by Pat’s assistant Pak to a school, near Sukhumvit to see his future placement and meet with the faculty and administration.  David later found out he was going to Ayutthaya.  Bobby had still not heard anything well into the end of the final week of the course.

While others were anxious or excited or sometimes even worried about their placement, I enjoyed just taking the news as it came; things had worked out just fine so far and I had been given no reason to think that they wouldn’t continue to.

One scenario that most of us were told to expect was that, because of the 2 months of school cancelled by the flood, schools would be open on Saturdays as well this upcoming semester.  It was something that disappointed most of the course members, as it would stifle any weekend plans or trips.  I didn’t mind the prospect so much, as my goal was to save up more to travel long-term, not short little vacations.   I did, however want to make sure we would be compensated for the extra days, rather than just working more for the usual salary.  We couldn’t seem to get an answer on that one way or the other though.

How ATI/Innovative Solutions’ Placement Works

The job placement that ATI offers is a helpful service for newcomers to the whole situation.  Although their 10 or more official sites (see Pre-Course post) have some contradicting information, what most advertise is that you will complete the course, receive your TESOL certificate, and receive a job in Thailand for 4-5 months making the equivalent of (approx.) US$1000 per month, which translates to a pay of 30,000 Thai baht.

The way that the placement in schools actually works is that Pat and Innovative Solutions (ATI is essentially done at this point) has a network of contact schools, mostly near Bangkok, which the ATI graduates will be placed in.

All of these schools will offer a base pay of greater than 30,000 baht for new employees.  For example, my school hires at a monthly salary of ฿35,000 for a 6-month contract and ฿42,500 for a year contract.  The school where Sarah and Christy were placed also starts new teachers in the ฿40,000’s.

In a deal for both the school and Innovative Solutions the ATI grad is hired in at a slightly lower salary than other new applicants would be, saving the school money.  And because the ATI grads were promised $1000/฿30,000, Innovative Solutions then takes the difference between the lowered salary and the ฿30,000 (per month worked) as their commission.

When questioned later on by Sarah and Christy, upset over circumstances of their situation, Pat was very forthcoming and honest about how the whole process worked.  This included the fact that most of the schools ATI grads are placed in are around Bangkok simply because that area has higher-paying jobs in general, meaning Innovative Solutions gets a bigger cut.  Again, very straightforwardly, Pat told us this wasn’t her trying to gyp us, but just how her company makes its living.

Quality of the Schools

I cannot say what factors other than the salary figure into how Innovative Solutions finds and networks with their schools.  Though, from all the accounts I’ve heard or read, I’ve never come across someone who felt they had an absolutely abysmal school.

That said, it seems to be a luck of the draw on how good it is.  Though I would have rather been in the center city, I was extremely happy with my school placement’s quality, as were the 3 others I came with.  David seemed quite happy with his in Ayutthaya as well.

Sarah and Christy maintained that they had a nice school: the campus, the faculty, and the students.  However, they had many issues almost from the moment they were placed.  For instance, Christy was assigned 18 contact hours with classes.  Of those, about 14 were completely different classes which each required its own materials, lessons plans, and exams prepared for it.  And one of these classes had only 1 student in it.

Many recurring issues with the school’s administration arose, particularly in regard to organization and their visas.   In one instance, Christy was sent to Cambodia on a visa run.  The school sent her with no documents of employment, only a note handwritten in Thai, which she was later told said, “Please give her a visa.”  By the end of their employment, neither had been issued their Non-Immigrant, as they should have been through the school.

Craig, who had gone with Pak during the course to see his school, was less than enthused about his placement.  It was an all-boys school that would have required him to work nearly 60 hours per week in the upcoming semester.  At this point, none of us knew if any compensation for extra time like that would have been provided.

Because of these and a few other issues, he chose to pass on that school.  Afterward, Pat kept in vague contact with him for a short while, but he was essentially on his own after that.

Other accounts I’ve read are from people who wanted to be placed in remote Thai towns but were instead placed in schools in Bangkok.  Another that I worked with briefly would have liked to stay nearer the city, but was instead placed in Lopburi. Aside from a few instances where they had come as a couple and placed together, the ATI grads don’t have much input on the kind of position.

Basically, the American TESOL Institute sells itself on guaranteeing you a job in Thailand.  This does mean that you will indeed be offered a job in Thailand, but you don’t get to pick and choose every detail of the work you want.

Housing

Most schools in Thailand provide housing on some level for their employees.  Some actually have employee housing or apartments that they provide for their faculty free of charge.  Others, like the one I was placed in, provide a housing stipend which use can be used toward any housing you choose (after providing a rent receipt).

Some of the neighborhood after the flood.

Because our school provided a stipend rather than direct housing, Innovative Solutions sent us with Pak to an area near our school to look for apartments.  This was extremely helpful in the long run, much more so than us looking for apartments in a completely foreign Bangkok suburb on our own.  However, the day we were doing it, frustrations began to run among high among the others in the arbitrary way we were looking for rooms.

Bangkok is full of cheap places to stay, and I wasn’t terribly concerned with the situation.  And I’ve stayed in some lousy places before.  My main criteria were that there be a bed and that I could get Internet.  And if things didn’t work out, I had no qualm about just walking away and finding somewhere else.

When we got out of Pak’s car after an hour or so drive, none of us had any idea where in relation to the city we actually were, just that we were on a major highway with about 12-16 lanes total and had passed a large mall with a rooftop water park.   Pak led us into the town, making a few calls in Thai along the way.

In towns like this one, there are very few solely residential-apartment buildings.  Usually the first floor is either a garage or a business and the upstairs is living space.  But, we were looking for a building or complex for all of us to stay in, preferably with our own units.  As we approached a series of apartment buildings that, even to me, looked a little less than desirable, Pak turned us around saying we were at the wrong spot.

We went down the highway a little ways to a different village and began walking through.  Here was very visible damage from the flood, even though the water had receded.  Water lines a meter high stained building walls and debris and garbage were piled up in the streets waiting to be hauled away.

It was odd seeing it like this, since, as Bobby commented while we were walking through, it did appear to otherwise be an almost upper-middle class neighborhood.  After a couple blocks in this neighborhood, we came to one large apartment building, which Megan immediately began having breathing problems in, likely due to the remnant mold growing from the floodwaters.

We returned to a complex nearer the highway and Pak began asking around.  Finally we came to a building that currently had 1 one-bedroom free, another that would be opening within a week, and a two-bedroom the following week.  With the help of Pak and the English-speaking building manager, Bobby and I signed the lease contracts of what would be our flats for the next while.

The surrounding neighborhood in contrast to the building I moved into.

An odd thought for me at the time, considering I hadn’t really ‘lived’ anywhere in over 2 years.  And the only lease I had ever signed was a semester sublease back in college.

Getting the Certificate

Despite the American TESOL Institute’s advertisements of ‘complete the course, get a TESOL certificate, and get a 4-5 month job placement’ that order is actually a bit off.  Rather than getting the TESOL certificate after the completion of your certification course, it is actually contingent on you completing a semester at your job placement.  Or you can pay US$500 to take the certificate and go find your own job.

To their credit, this certainly is practical from their business point of view, especially considering how ATI/Innovative Solutions run.  They get more income from the placements than they do from the students paying for the course.

Interior of the ATI Bangkok office.

However, this does, if nothing else, provoke an upsetting reaction from those of us who are finding it out for the first time.  Between the quality of the placement I received, my foreknowledge of that fact, and my general lack of any expectations for this whole experience, this didn’t upset me too much. However, a few others from my course did not have such a smooth experience.

Since being placed in my school in December, I had not heard anything from American TESOL Institute or Innovative Solutions, less a small encounter with Pat outside my apartment building when she was helping a new ATI graduate find housing.  This included no communication about when we would receive the physical certificate.

In mid-February, Christy finally emailed ATI to find out when she would be able to get the certificate, since she and Sarah’s “4-5 month” advertised placement would be ending in 2 weeks, after only 2.5 months.  The next day, we all received an email about our ‘Certification Day’, telling us the office location and asking to specify when we would come to pick up the certificate and how we would like our name printed.

Getting the ATI certificate.

The ATI Bangkok office is on Soi 71 Sukhumvit, very near where the Valentine’s Day bombing was.  Sarah and Christy were not in Bangkok when the 4 of us went to pick up the certificate.  Both Whittney and Aoh were in the office, which, according to the sign, they also shared with Innovative Solutions.

We were asked to sign a roster sheet on arrival, which Whittney and Aoh double-checked before receiving our certificates.  In doing so, it seemed like they didn’t quite remember who we were.  So, rather than getting chatty, we grabbed the documents and were out the door fairly quickly.

Christy, David, and Sarah had a bit harder time getting a hold of theirs.  Times and schedules never seemed to line up, or in Sarah’s case, they wanted $50 to ship it to her address in the U.S.

Because Craig had refused his placement through Innovative Solutions and had opted not to pay the $500, he had forfeited the certificate.

Links to others’ experiences with American TESOL Institute:

Reviews of the  American TESOL Institute (ATI)
American TESOL Institute Review | From Here to There
American TESOL Institute Review (by a graduate of the program) | Merhaba!
The Training Program | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
What Did I Do? | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
American TESOL Institute | XploreU Student Travel Blog
Clusterfuck to Bangkok, or My Experience with the American TESOL Institute | la vie bohémienne
ATI: Special Thai Project | All Thai’d Up
Step 3:  To TEFL or Not to TEFL? | Vagabond Vo
“Special Thai Project” (ATI) Review | Monkey Abroad

Experiences in the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
Learning to Teach with ATI | ELThomas
I’m a teacher!??! Awesome! ATI training in Phuket | GypsyJourneys
Teaching Practice Week with “Teacher A” in the House | Travel on My Face
Teaching HIV + Orphans and Monks; Just another day on the Job in Chiang Mai | One Night in Bangkok
The Orphanage and the Juvenile Detention Center | Jaiyen
Work visa/JL Bangkok/First days of teaching | Ty Tripping
Teacher Morgan: Lesson #1 | EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.
Teacher Training Week | The Adventures of Rain Dance Megan
Chaos in the Classroom | Exotic Winds and Spicy Freedom
Practice Teaching | To Ma-Thailand and Beyond

Posts while attending the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
First week here | Erika’s life in Thailand :)
Phuket aka: pooket | doubleu’s Great Adventure
Jet Lag Continues, Fish Pedicure, Training Day One | All Thai’d Up
Big girls don’t cry | back pages
The Weekend and My First Day in School | Julies Jaunts
Back in Bangkok | The Ramblings of Sarah Metz
I’m Alive! | I’m So Thai.

 

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American TESOL Institute (ATI) Review – In-Course Experience

4 Replies
The primary reason I wanted to write this series on the American TESOL Institute is to provide a detailed account of my experience through the entire course, as well as many other 3rd party accounts as I can find.  Essentially, I want to provide the kind of information I wish I had before I enrolled in the ATI course.

The gate to the office of ATI in Bangkok.

I should begin by saying; they are real and not a scam, what seems to be the primary concern of most people looking for this same info.  Outside of their official site(s), it can be difficult to find valid information about ATI.  This is for 2 reasons.  First, they are relatively new compared to most TEFL/CELTA/TESOL programs.  The other is that they spam search engines with many official sites and dozens of other places they stick their name and info.

If you have any specific questions not covered in these, please ask. I’d be happy to answer.

American TESOL Institute Series


In-Course American TESOL Institute

By the morning after I arrived at JL Bangkok, I had met 4 of the 9 total students we would have in the course.  From future and past graduates of the ATI course I have spoken with or read the accounts of, this was an oddly small class for one of the Special Thai Projects of the American TESOL Institute.  Understandable, I suppose, considering we were convening at the tail end of one of Thailand’s largest natural disasters in the last century.

We started with 4 women; Megan (Wisconsin), Morgan (New York), Sarah (Pennsylvania), Christy, (California) and 5 men; Craig (Indiana), David (Michigan), Bobby (New Jersey), Arthit, (Thailand) and me.  After a few days, it was down to 8 as Arthit had left.

Speaking to the others when I first started to meet them, most had come here under the same uncertainty that I had.  Many were still frustrated about the vagueness of delay and how it affected their flights (not me so much, as I enjoyed travelling that time).  But mostly, months of emails with Jess, Suzy, and Nina of the American TESOL Institute had left everyone with more questions than answers, and all of us had come not entirely knowing what we would be showing up to or what, if anything, to expect.

Luckily that was all cleared up once the course actually began.

Class in session.

The first day of class began with us meeting Whittney and Aoh, who were to be our instructors.  Beyond the first couple days, though, Aoh was scarce, and only came by to take pictures of the class every now and then.

Right off the bat, the first lesson began with Aoh going to the front of the room and implementing a lesson plan completely in Thai.  This went on between 5 to 10 minutes before Whittney took over.  She then explained that the confusion we just went through in trying to figure out what Aoh (who knows English as well) was saying is exactly how our students would feel as we began teaching them.

The second day of class, we were introduced to Supatcha, or Pat, the woman who runs Innovative Solutions, the placement agency that the American TESOL Institute uses to find jobs for the majority of its graduates in Thailand.  A half hour of listening to Pat and things were clearer than 3 months of emails with ATI.  She went over visas and work permits, jobs and placement processes, and various Thai cultural items that were important for us to know.

And at one point, we did actually ask Whittney if Jess, Suzy, and Nina were all the same person, as everyone else seemed to mildly suspect as well.  She replied that they weren’t and that she had actually met them.

Course Assignments

“Teachers should be heavy duty, like a washing machine.”
- Pat, Innovative Solutions

Much of the course revolved around the tactics and methods of writing lesson plans.  This included various grades and types of plans, the many parts that we might be expected to write, and then their implementation using the ATI class as guinea pigs.

Our assignment binder, workbook, and Thailand survival guide.

For the lesson plans, we were given a topic, an age level. Without getting overly detailed, for each assignment, we had to create a warm-up activity, define a context for the material, teach the new vocab or content, and then provide an activity to reinforce the material.

Sample lesson plan page.

The plan’s steps in more detail.

Each section required a certain amount of time, which we had to plan for.  We also had to outline learning objectives and step-by-step what both the teacher and students would be doing during this activity.  For each step of the lesson plan, we would also have to come up with possible “anticipated problems” without using any form of the students not comprehending.

Any materials that we wanted to use for the lesson would have to be made from scratch.  And they would have to be made for every participating “student”.  I ended up making use of the internet café a street over for a lot of last-minute printing, as I’m a horrible artist and prefer doing things on my computer anyway.  Others would draw an identical copy of whatever they were using for each of the 7 of us.

Final grade sheet for the course.

We would then implement these lesson plans with the class, each lasting an average of 45-50 minutes, a normal class period.  Playing the role of whatever age group the teacher was assigned, we would then participate in his or her activities.  Each lesson plan was then followed up by a peer evaluation from each course member to provide feedback.  My most common ones were that I spoke too quickly and was  too wordy in instructions.

I’d be curious to see how this works in larger American TESOL Institute course.  As ours was only 8, it was easy to incorporate everyone into a single activity.  Others I’ve met have been in courses of more than 30.

School Visit

One part of the course that is usually done is a visit to a local school for the teachers to implement their lesson plans to actual students, and at the same time, get the feel of actually being in a Thai classroom.

While it was trying to be planned out the whole time that we were in class, we ultimately didn’t get to do it.  Because of the flood, every school anywhere near an affected had essentially been shut down to some extent.  And due to its locality in Bangkok, all were still closed as we were wrapping up the in-class portion.

Instead, we forwent the classroom visit and did another, much more in-depth activity in class instead.

 

Coursemates

7 of our 8 on a island cruise near Phuket. Photo courtesy of Robert Wood.

Probably one of the best part of the American TESOL Institute course is that it gives you the opportunity to meet and get to know people that are in exactly the same situation as you.  Yet, they are from all over, and not always from the U.S.  During the course, you have to work closely with everyone in the course, and the more open you are to ridiculousness, the more fun you will have participating in everyone’s lesson plans.

Dinner in the neighborhood.

As much as many of us had in common in odd jobs and travel desires or experiences, it was interesting to hear the different motives everyone had for coming and what they wanted out of it.  I was there because I had no desire to return to the US anytime soon and was excited to try out a new trade that could also help me travel further.  Sarah was there as a new way to spend the winter before she returned to her job in the U.S. as a park ranger.  Christy, who was an Asian history and teaching major, was looking for an exotic experience to add to her resume.  Some weren’t even quite sure what they wanted, just that they wanted to get away or try something new.

By the end, the eight of had gotten to know each other fairly well.  We had gone out to various different parts of the city, including the Royal Palace chaos for the King’s birthday and to the infamous Cabbages and Condoms and Soi Cowboy.  Seven had gone together to Phuket for an extended weekend.  Four would be working together at the same school and two at another.  Three had gone out to a DJ rave party an outlying district of Bangkok.  Two were kind of dating.  And one had gotten herself packed into another’s suitcase.

Location

The JL Bangkok was a decently nice hotel.  Unlike most places in Thailand, it has a heated shower in every room as well as wifi and cable TV, including a few English channels.  The beds are comfortable and room service also cleans the room daily.  The hotel is located on a quiet side street (soi) off of the loud and traffic packed Ramkhamhaeng, a major road through the city.

JL Bangkok’s sidestreet/soi.

The neighborhood is highly urban and residential with 2 movie theaters, a bowling alley, 3 shopping centers, and about 4 McDonalds all within a 5-minute walk.  At night the sidewalks become overrun by vendor stands on any available square centimeter, making it nearly impossible to walk.  While the majority of these seem to be oriented towards women’s clothing, there are plenty of electronics, movies, food, and various other things available.  There is also the nearby Ramkhamhaeng Hospital a couple kilometers north, a nice one that Christy and I both used.

Though it is on a few bus lines, Ramkhamhaeng is a good distance from the center of the city and the areas with the most sites and tourists.  It was nice, however, to get a glimpse into how a fairly regular Bangkok neighborhood lives.  Still, for being a residential area AND a university district, there were plenty of restaurants, but very little in the way of social hangouts.

Review

Once we were all on site and at the course things became immensely easier in regards to all of the confusion we had with ATI’s Special Thai Project up until that point.  Whittney clearly had experience in the field doing this sort of work and was able to guide us along nearly every step of the way.  On top of that, Whittney was able to answer any of the general questions we had about what our experience would be like and, as I said, a half hour with Pat was more informative than 3 months of emails with the American TESOL Institute.

The course assignments do an excellent job in preparing you for lesson planning and for standing in front of and directing a group.  However, many of them are done as if you would have absolutely no resources other than materials you make at your disposal, including some form of textbook.  While this may very well be the case in some very isolated or impoverished schools, it will rarely be the case overall.

Between the place, the activities, and the people, the American TESOL Institute course was two weeks of an overall good experience.  It was certainly different being in a class again, though it’s comforting to know that everyone else in it is in the same situation as you.  The course can be intense and usually fun, but not everything I learned there have been applicable to the job I was placed in.  This is partially because my school provides most of the materials that I need, including some lesson plans.

Links to others’ experiences with American TESOL Institute:

Reviews of the  American TESOL Institute (ATI)
American TESOL Institute Review | From Here to There
American TESOL Institute Review (by a graduate of the program) | Merhaba!
The Training Program | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
What Did I Do? | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
American TESOL Institute | XploreU Student Travel Blog
Clusterfuck to Bangkok, or My Experience with the American TESOL Institute | la vie bohémienne
ATI: Special Thai Project | All Thai’d Up
Step 3:  To TEFL or Not to TEFL? | Vagabond Vo
“Special Thai Project” (ATI) Review | Monkey Abroad

Experiences in the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
Learning to Teach with ATI | ELThomas
I’m a teacher!??! Awesome! ATI training in Phuket | GypsyJourneys
Teaching Practice Week with “Teacher A” in the House | Travel on My Face
Teaching HIV + Orphans and Monks; Just another day on the Job in Chiang Mai | One Night in Bangkok
The Orphanage and the Juvenile Detention Center | Jaiyen
Work visa/JL Bangkok/First days of teaching | Ty Tripping
Teacher Morgan: Lesson #1 | EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.
Teacher Training Week | The Adventures of Rain Dance Megan
Chaos in the Classroom | Exotic Winds and Spicy Freedom
Practice Teaching | To Ma-Thailand and Beyond

Posts while attending the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
First week here | Erika’s life in Thailand :)
Phuket aka: pooket | doubleu’s Great Adventure
Jet Lag Continues, Fish Pedicure, Training Day One | All Thai’d Up
Big girls don’t cry | back pages
The Weekend and My First Day in School | Julies Jaunts
Back in Bangkok | The Ramblings of Sarah Metz
I’m Alive! | I’m So Thai.

 

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American TESOL Institute (ATI) Review – Pre-Course Experience

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The primary reason I wanted to write this series on the American TESOL Institute is to provide a detailed account of my experience through the entire course, as well as many other 3rd party accounts as I can find.  Essentially, I want to provide the kind of information I wish I had before I enrolled in the ATI course.

The gate to the office of ATI in Bangkok.

I should begin by saying; they are real and not a scam, what seems to be the primary concern of most people looking for this same info.  Outside of their official site(s), it can be difficult to find valid information about ATI.  This is for 2 reasons.  First, they are relatively new compared to most TEFL/CELTA/TESOL programs.  The other is that they spam search engines with many official sites and dozens of other places they stick their name and info.

If you have any specific questions not covered in these, please ask. I’d be happy to answer.
American TESOL Institute Series

Pre-Course American TESOL Institute

Pre-course was easily the most difficult phase that I had with the American TESOL Institute (ATI) regarding my enrollment in their ‘Special Thai Project’.  They are a profoundly hard organization to find information on due to their own process of flooding the web with inconsistent data and the lack of concise communication they provide their potential applicants.

My pre-course experience can be divided into:

  • Research into ATI
  • Enrollment and ATI Communication
  • Pre-departure Communication
  • Online-Hybrid Course

 

Research into ATI

I first came across the American TESOL Institute ‘Special Thai Project’ about 2 years ago from their listing on GoAbroad.com.

This step can prove to be one of the hardest with the company, as there are so few independent reviews or accounts of ATI.  And ATI’s spamming of the search engines with their own material floods what few there are out.

Here is a sample Google.com search for ATI reviews.  2 Reviews now make it to the first page, a welcome change from the 0 that did back when I was first researching it.

The American TESOL Institute has no less than ten official websites.  Many of these provide contradictory information to one another as well.

http://www.americantesol.biz/
http://www.certificatetefl.com/
http://www.justtefl.com/
http://www.tesolcoursethailand.com/
http://www.americantesol.com/
http://www.americantesolinstitute.com/
http://www.teflcoursethailand.com/
http://www.tesol-thailand.com/
http://www.teflblogs.com/?p=14
http://www.teflprojects.com/

Most every other result that comes up regarding ATI is a site which provides a basic spammed profile that ATI posts everywhere they possible can, followed by a link to one of their differing official sites.  This includes dozens of one-shot blog pages they make on sites like WordPress and Blogger.

They also possess a YouTube channel with videos of their courses and testimonials, though ones picked and chosen (and possibly scripted) by ATI should be approached with some skepticism.

As stated, some of the information on the official websites of the American TESOL Institute provides contradictory information.  This can be information on the dates, costs, or other details of the courses.

Many of these sites provide testimonials of former graduates of the ATI courses.  However, several third-party accounts as well as 2 coworkers of mine in Thailand claim these testimonials are made up by ATI and are not their own words.  On top of that some of them do seem to be poorly written as an example of one under my coworker, Liz’s, name demonstrates:

Elizabeth Bacon Ireland
Great experience can’t believe how much I love teaching and how exalted I am about meeting my classes and student and watching they blossom through the semester. This could definitely be something that I could see myself doing long time

A screenshot of another coworker’s testimonial on ATI’s site he says he didn’t write.

While they are extremely hard to find, due to American TESOL Institute’s spamming, real third party sources about them do exist.  The most helpful of these I came across were blogs similar to this one that not only detailed the experiences of people who had taken the course firsthand, but also provided a line of communication to ask them specific questions, which most were more than happy to answer.

Here is a copy of one of the most specific and helpful emails I received from another blogger and ATI graduate.

One aspect of the course that all official American TESOL Institute (ATI) sources leave out is that you will not be given your TESOL Certificate upon completion of the course and relevant work, which they advertise.  Instead, your receipt of the certification is dependent on your completion of a term at whichever school they place you in.  Or they also give you the option of paying an additional US$500 and taking your certificate and going your own way.

Enrollment and American TESOL Institute (ATI) Communication

While ATI’s spamming practices may be inhibiting and annoying, their communication gets to be downright frustrating.  But before you begin communicating with them on a regular basis, they require your official application.  This consists of your résumé or CV and a recent picture.

For me, this is followed up by several emails and Gmail chats until we scheduled a phone interview.  Unfortunately for me, while I was doing all this in August 2011, I was living and working on Mackinac Island, where the only place I could get wifi or a phone signal was at work.

So pacing the quiet dock after an unlisted number had called my phone, I was answering questions to a man with a noticeable Indian accent regarding my education and my former job experience. One topic that was really strongly questioned was my desire to go to another country.  Whether or not I would be comfortable or not in another country, and very specifically what my experiences travelling and with other cultures had already been.

A short while after the interview, I received an email telling me specifically that there was one spot left and that it was between me and another person.  They wanted me because of my education and experience.  However, to secure my spot I needed to make the initial $500 deposit through PayPal almost immediately.

This was a lie. A bluff.  Whatever.

I later found out from people in my course, who had enrolled after me, that they had been placed into the same ultimatum.

I told them to give me about 24 hours to get the funds into my PayPal account, which they agreed to.  While I did actually need to do this, as my Mackinac Island bank wasn’t connected to PayPal, it also gave me a little extra time to weigh the legitimacy of it.

I made the payment the next day, deciding $500 wasn’t too bad a gamble considering what it could possibly lead to.  Almost immediately after, my Gmail was filled with about 5 new emails:

  • Acceptance letter
  • Login for the online course
  • Thai survival guide
  • Guide to the original documents you must being along
  • Information on the Thai culture certificate that some schools require
  • Teacher information from Innovative Solutions, ATI’s partner placement agency
  • A guide to common expenses we would find when we arrived in Thailand

It was also at this point I was introduced to 3 people I would be communicating with very unsuccessfully for the next 3 months:  Jess, Suzy, and Nina.  Each on had a different domain-registered email address and none could ever seem to provide a concrete answer about any question or situation.  At many points you just wonder if it’s the same person behind each name just messing with you.

Pre-Departure Communication

From this point, ATI needed me to send them additional materials, including scanned copies of my passport, my college diploma, and a criminal record report.  This last part proved the most difficult, as no agency in Michigan will provide that information to the public, even if it is your own.

The complete list of original documents I was to bring was:

  • Degree certificate
  • University transcript
  • Degree verification letter from Universities registrars’ office
  • Reference letters
  • Passport [valid for more than 6 months]
  • Police Criminal Record
  • Marriage certificate [if you have any]
  • Affidavit [if you have any]

A week or so after the acceptance letter, I received an email with their terms and conditions, which I was to sign, scan and return.

Visas

One of the most confusing situations that they seem to purposely mislead you on is the visa.  You are told from the start that you need a Non-immigrant B visa for a teaching position in Thailand.  What they leave out is that you cannot actually secure that visa until you have a working position, which you will not get until you are midway to done with the ATI Special Thai Project course.

Using time-delaying lines such as “We will let you know,” ATI asks you to hold on getting any sort of visa until they tell you otherwise, which will inevitably at the last minute be a tourist visa.

Most Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, etc, in other words the vast majority of those who would be teaching English abroad, can enter Thailand by airplane and stay for 30 days.  A tourist visa allows for a 60-day stay with the option for an extension for a fee.  It is also technically illegal to work on this visa.

Another thing that the American TESOL Institute leaves out in their emails is that this tends to be how it is done in Thailand by everyone: individual teachers and schools alike.  This is something I didn’t find out until much later, when coworkers and people I met in Thailand from varying other schools told me the same.  You enter the country on a tourist visa, which is then converted into a Non-Immigrant B Visa once you have secured a job.

Why ATI strings you along into thinking you may be getting a Non-Immigrant B Visa before arriving instead of just telling you to get the tourist visa right away is something I cannot figure out.

Once they send you to the consulate for the tourist visa, they also tell you “not to mention the American TESOL Institute” during your application.  This may leave you with a somewhat uneasy feeling as you are applying at an international consulate.

Final Payment

I had an immensely inconvenient and nearly costly experience once the American TESOL Institute required my second/final payment of US$600.  Along with the request for payment, ATI informed me that the regular PayPal system through one of their (many) websites was not working correctly.

Instead I was given a link to a company called CCAvenue,com and told to make the payment through them instead.

I’ve had my share of issues with PayPal in the past, but at least I had a slight idea of the company and a history with them.  I had never heard of CCAvenue.com and was extremely hesitant to link any data of my bank account to it simply on ATI’s misfortunate whims.

CCAvenue, I gathered through some quick searches, seemed to essentially be an Indian equivalent to PayPal.  I found some bad things to be said about them, but mostly neutral or satisfactory experiences.

Then came my experience.

I made the payment with them, as requested by the American TESOL Institute, only to receive an email very soon after that my payment had been held for suspicion of an international bankcard fraud.

Dear Sir/Madam,
Your order number CART********has been classified as a 
HIGH RISK transaction by the CCAvenue Risk Management
Team due to incomplete/invalid/incorrect data submitted 
by your customer. "Manual Authorization" is required 
for this order.
As per your standing instructions to the CCAvenue 
Risk Management Team, we request you to ask your 
customer to scan and email or fax you the below 
mentioned documents for verification of this particular 
order. On receipt, please forward the same to us, so 
that we are satisfied that this transaction is being 
done by a genuine credit cardholder, to prevent any 
subsequent charge back/loss of money /product/services 
and/or shipping charges. The documents required are 
as follows: -
(A) The customer's credit card statement, which clearly
shows the card number and the billing address of the 
card. The statement should be a recent one and should be 
of the same credit card used for the transaction. We only 
require a scan/fax of the header section of your customer's 
credit card statement, which contains this information.
(B) A photo ID of the credit card holder whose credit 
card has been used for this transaction. This may be any 
one of the following: -
  • Driver's License or,
  • Social Security Card or,
  • Passport or National Identity Card or,
  • PAN Card / Voters Card.

This was a checking account that had been in my name for 9 years, so there is absolutely no reason that this should have been happening on my end.  I contacted ATI, my bank, and CCAVENUE.COM all in a vain attempt to figure out what was happening while I had $600 pending, though no longer in my account.

On top of that, ATI was now demanding a scanned copy of bank or card statement as well before they would move ahead with the payment.

And considering how badly this had already gone, I gladly followed my bank’s advice and would not give CCAvenue or ATI a copy of my statement, more information and certainly not another payment when this situation was because of their fallacies.

Finally I convinced the American TESOL Institute to cancel the payment on their end, at which point the $600 was returned to my account.  Then, they told me, their PayPal payment system was suddenly working again, so I was able to make a payment through their regular site again.

The Flood

One completely unforeseen circumstance that arose in October was the Thailand floods.  The worst in over 50 years, they sent many parts of Thailand into a state of emergency.  When I arrived in early November, it was at the tail end of the major flooding incidents, but they were still going strong throughout some parts of the country.  This is what prompted me to go north and into Isan prior to the ATI course, far from the central plains and river ways.  Likewise, Sarah, another girl in my course, went into the islands, also away from any of the disaster zones.

A small display of the after-effects of the flood near Bangkok.

Of course there was absolutely nothing that the American TESOL Institute could have done regarding this situation.  However, as most of us were coming into this completely blindly, we were depending on ATI for information as to the status of both the flood and our course, both of which they were very silent on.

To give an idea of the time frame of their communication on this:

  • 7th November – The date our course was scheduled to start
  • 6th November – I arrive in Bangkok
  • 27th October – ATI sends an email saying the course will be delayed until 28th Nov because of the flood
  • 28th October - ATI sends an email saying the course may not be delayed; they would keep us informed and tell us their decision on 2 Nov.
  • 2nd November – ATI sends confirmation that the course is delayed for 3 weeks, 48 hours before I am supposed to fly out.
  • 3rd November – I emailed ATI to see if we could contact other course members to see if they would be in Thailand during that time
  • 3rd November – ATI responds saying they cannot give out contact information, which I understand.  David, another course member, later tells me that ATI allowed him to contact Sarah.
  • 18th November – After over 2 weeks of no communication, ATI emails asking when we will be arriving for the course.
  • 28th November –  The American TESOL Institute Special Thai Project Course of 7th November 2011 begins.

Online-Hybrid Course

In the first batch of emails from American TESOL Institute after my deposit payment, I received a login to access .PDF downloads for the online portion of the hybrid course.

For the Special Thai Project, the American TESOL Institute offers both a 3-week in-person class and a hybrid class with reading and assignments online, and then 2 weeks in-person.  I ended up in the hybrid course just by the circumstance of when I decided to enroll.

The online portion of the Special Thai Project course consisted of 5 readings, 2 around 15 pages and 3 around 30 pages.  Each also had an accompanying assignment.

For the most part, the readings were fairly informative.  Usually revolving around light theories of linguistics or methods of teaching and language teaching in particular, they all seemed to be broad-sweeping, with very little about Thailand in particular, which I didn’t mind overall.

There were some problems with the readings.  A few of them could have used a look over by an editor just to correct the many typos to be found.  They were also noticeably written by different authors, most specifically noticeable by the changes in voice from third person to first person in some of them.

The assignments were usually brief, usually 3 or 4 questions interpreting or regarding something in the reading.  Some would be analyzing things discussed in the reading.  Others would be giving specific examples of how you might implement a method of teaching you just read about.

Once you submitted the assignment attached to an email to ATI, they would respond saying they received it.  Sometimes there might be a sentence or two of feedback for specific questions  After this the next reading would become available for you to download.

Links to others’ experiences with American TESOL Institute:

Reviews of the  American TESOL Institute (ATI)
American TESOL Institute Review | From Here to There
American TESOL Institute Review (by a graduate of the program) | Merhaba!
The Training Program | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
What Did I Do? | Smiles, Spice, & Everything Rice
American TESOL Institute | XploreU Student Travel Blog
Clusterfuck to Bangkok, or My Experience with the American TESOL Institute | la vie bohémienne
ATI: Special Thai Project | All Thai’d Up
Step 3:  To TEFL or Not to TEFL? | Vagabond Vo
“Special Thai Project” (ATI) Review | Monkey Abroad

Experiences in the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
Learning to Teach with ATI | ELThomas
I’m a teacher!??! Awesome! ATI training in Phuket | GypsyJourneys
Teaching Practice Week with “Teacher A” in the House | Travel on My Face
Teaching HIV + Orphans and Monks; Just another day on the Job in Chiang Mai | One Night in Bangkok
The Orphanage and the Juvenile Detention Center | Jaiyen
Work visa/JL Bangkok/First days of teaching | Ty Tripping
Teacher Morgan: Lesson #1 | EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.
Teacher Training Week | The Adventures of Rain Dance Megan
Chaos in the Classroom | Exotic Winds and Spicy Freedom
Practice Teaching | To Ma-Thailand and Beyond

Posts while attending the American TESOL Institute (ATI) Course
First week here | Erika’s life in Thailand :)
Phuket aka: pooket | doubleu’s Great Adventure
Jet Lag Continues, Fish Pedicure, Training Day One | All Thai’d Up
Big girls don’t cry | back pages
The Weekend and My First Day in School | Julies Jaunts
Back in Bangkok | The Ramblings of Sarah Metz
I’m Alive! | I’m So Thai.

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