One of the biggest debates in TEFL is whether you need a TEFL Certificate or not. Those who have done a TEFL Certificate are going to tell you just how much you need one and you can’t even think of working without one. Others who entered the profession just by teaching will tell you that you don’t need one and you can just wing it. Instead of taking a position either way, here are 7 Reasons Why You Need a TEFL Certificate, and you can judge accordingly for yourself.

1. You Need It for a Visa

Many countries require a TEFL certificate before they will issue a visa or process paperwork. This is a hard requirement. No TEFL Certificate means no visa. Sure, you could work under the table and without a proper visa, but increasingly that has dangers of its own. Not only are there criminal penalties that you might run into, but there is also the lack of worker protections. The real biggie is what happens when you do a visa run and the guy at the border says, sorry dude, we aren’t letting you in. That’s always in the back of your mind when dealing with visa runs.

The TEFL certificate is meant to tick a box when teaching at lower-end schools. They need a foreign teacher in front of the students and they need them to be legal. Sometimes they will even show it off to parents who need reassurance that their kids are being taught by someone at least somewhat qualified.

The good news is that when it’s a visa requirement, there is often a very broad definition of what a TEFL Certificate is. The generally accepted definition is 120 hours, and if there is a classroom teaching component, then that’s a bonus. Lots of options exist online to help you meet the requirement. Some are cheap, some just fulfill a paper requirement, and some like the CELTA are widely accepted and considered the Gold Standard. I just suggest looking at a few countries and what’s needed for a TEFL Certificate to qualify for a visa.

2. You’ve Never Taught Before

If you’ve never been in front of a class teaching before, then a good TEFL Certificate can give you a few skills and a little confidence before you make the jump. Walking into a classroom where the greedy institute owner has only told you to teach conversations because that’s what he promised the student or their parents. Good luck with that.

Years ago when I first started out teaching, I visited with Scott in Mexico City. He promised me that he could help me find a top peso job. And then I told him that I had never actually taught before. He told me exactly what I needed to do to get some training because, as he said, I can get you a great paying job but without teaching skills, you’ll lose that job. True and great advice that I took earnestly. I trusted him and I’m glad I did. It wasn’t but a few years later that I realized just how golden that advice was.

Honestly, it took me about 10 years before I really felt I had become a good teacher, so no, a 120-hour TEFL Certificate is not going to make you a great teacher. It’s going to give you some tools when you face your first class and be training wheels as you learn the craft. It’s a lot better than nothing and a lot more than what a lot of us veteran TEFL teachers had when we first stepped foot into a classroom.

3. Your School Requires It

Many TEFL schools want you to have a TEFL Certificate, and there is a good reason for that. Language institute owners want to be able to show parents that their teacher has some sort of educational qualification, and the TEFL Certificate indicates at least something. It shows that you know something about teaching and that you can conduct a class. Good schools don’t really want to ruin their reputation on a teacher who can’t teach. A TEFL Certificate doesn’t guarantee that someone can teach, but it’s a step in that direction.

Schools will many times look to see if it is a quality certificate or not because they want to know that the certificate actually means something. A cheap $50 course that checks the box to get a visa might not mean much of anything to the head teacher who needs to justify your hiring to parents spending their hard-earned money. A CELTA or equivalent is usually what schools are looking for.

A school will often overlook this requirement if a teacher has years of teaching experience, but not always. Again, they use it to weed out applicants and ensure they have at least a basic quality level.

4. Customers Want to See Qualifications

Customers love to see that the person they are paying for lessons with is qualified. Paperwork means a lot more than actual skills in many instances. It makes customers comfortable with your skill level and gives them some assurance, even if misplaced, that you are a teacher.

I remember a teacher in Thailand who attended a weekend education seminar at Harvard just to get a certificate to show others that he was Harvard educated. You might laugh about that, but the truth is that it was effective and probably worth what he spent in the long run. Parents loved bragging that their child was being taught by a Harvard-educated teacher. Never mind the real usefulness of that certificate or even how it would be perceived in the US. It was a certificate that had the words Education and Harvard on it with the name of the teacher.

One area where a TEFL Certificate can’t be underestimated is its use in freelance TEFL teaching. If you are trying to make your own English teaching business, you need to show that your teaching is worth it to customers.

5. Better Pay and Opportunities

Honestly, there are doors that just aren’t open to those who don’t have a TEFL Certificate. A TEFL Certificate like the CELTA puts you higher in the hierarchy, and a certificate like the DELTA can help define you as a professional TEFL teacher who can deliver high-quality lessons and keep students coming back for more. A good teacher with a high-quality TEFL certificate can find positions even where positions are not available. Good schools know the TEFL certificates and know what quality can give them.

6. You Need to Learn the Grammar

Honestly, no matter how good your grammar is, you probably suck at explaining grammar to students who are learning English. TEFL Certificates usually give you worthwhile grammar practice but also help you learn how to explain grammar concepts and ideas to students.

I can still remember trying to teach grammar for the first time as a native speaker. I tried to do sentence diagramming? What the heck was that? I didn’t know what was wanted or what was expected. I didn’t have a textbook or anything else. I was just thrust into a class and told to teach. Really sad, and I might have really benefited from training in teaching. Unfortunately, back then there weren’t really many options. There were no online TEFL Certificates, and spending a few thousand once I was abroad wasn’t really an option.

7. You Want to Up Your Teaching Game

If you’ve already been teaching for years, it can sometimes feel like you just don’t need a TEFL course. You’ve already done it all and you know what you are doing. You’ve been in the same job for a few years and you are going to stay on. You know the TEFL game. Why spend money on something that doesn’t really help you out that much?

You might benefit even more than you suppose by taking a course. It doesn’t even have to be a high-tier one. There is something to learn and new tricks to try in your class. You find out ways to deliver a lesson better or find ways to teach students in difficult situations. You can put your teaching game at a much higher level that brings much better dividends.

And guess what? Things change and that secure job might not be as secure as you think it is. There is nothing truly secure when it comes to the TEFL industry.