Hi Julie,

TEFL is Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This means teaching English to people who live in a country where they don't speak English on a day to day basis. It is pretty similar to TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) which is for non-native English speakers living in an English speaking country.

TESOL is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages which - effectively - means the same thing.

(Confusingly TESOL is also the acronym of a teaching organization.)

In practical terms, TEFL, TESL and TESOL Certificates are seen as the same.

As for accreditation, there is NO internationally recognized accreditation organization for online courses. In fact, you should be very careful about any certificate provider who shows accreditation as some accrediting groups are bogus, others have been set up by the school themselves to look genuine and others are pay-per-student accreditation agencies who are there to make money and accredit anyone with cash.

ICAL have spent years building our reputation as the net's biggest provider of online TEFL courses and although we've approached (or been approached by) every accrediting agency out there we have yet to find one that is truly independent, international and genuine.

Having said this, you will find that our certificate is recognized in Indonesia as we currently have several graduates (and students) working there.

But whichever course you take (whether it is an ICAL course or from another provider), be careful about which provider you use. There are definitely some ripoff merchants out there who don't offer genuine courses as well as a few genuine schools who do actually offer something - we'd put ourselves in the second category of course!

Good luck!