I received this ask on my personal tumblr but thought I should answer it over here for anyone interested in teaching abroad.
Before coming to Korea I completed a 100 hour online TEFL course with ITTT (100 hour TEFL without tutor support - $190). I definitely recommend getting your TEFL/TESOL/CELTA/Whatever certificate if you are teaching with EPIK because it bumps you up to the next pay level, and you might learn a couple of useful tricks along the way. I have to admit I wasn’t extremely serious about learning much from my TEFL course. I was in it for the pay raise and most of what the course covered was discussed at orientation, but the test did introduce me to lesson planning whic I had no experience with before coming to Korea.
If you are interested in getting some real preparation out of a TEFL course there are a lot of schools and companies that offer in-class courses in the states as well as abroad, giving you the chance to work some training hours in a language school. If I was a little more gung-ho about long term teaching abroad, something like would sound fantastic.
