It gets one star because it really does do a great job scaffolding and helping you to create a very well made and valuable profile. However, the time spent waiting for them to process things is entirely unprofessional. After you spend all that time doing the work, and the many hours creating your profile, in a "work at your own pace" course, you are lead to believe that you will then receive your certificate - but no. It takes 4-6 weeks for your profile to be mentor reviewed, and an additional 4-6 weeks to receive your ASU TESOL certificate. This is up to 12 weeks of pure waiting! This is not "work at your own pace." This is "wait up to 3 months to receive the certificates that you and your employer likely need now." They need to be more upfront at the very beginning that there will be such a long wait at the very end. It is highly unprofessional and, in my opinion, unacceptable if they wish to receive a 5-star rating.

It's very disappointing that the instructors have ZERO interaction with you as a student until the very end, when they grade your portfolio. Then it takes them 6-7 weeks, which is outrageous and would not fly at any real college or university. In effect, it just makes you pay for another month of the course, while you are learning nothing. Then, to get a simple piece of paper with your certificate costs the equivalent of another month of the course. I feel like this is a rip off which effectively quadrupled what i was led to believe the course would cost, at exactly zero added value. I will not use coursera again because of this experience.

Takes too long for the experts to review the portfolio and send grade, commnets, certificate.

It was a wonderful experience. I have no words to express how delighted I am to finally get this certificate after completing the two parts of the specialization. It is more than a certificate for me. I am from Pakistan and our country does not offer such opportunities. The British Council here doesn't even offer CELTA or DELTA for Pakistan. I went all the way to Malaysia for this. However, my experience there was bitter. So imagine how elated I was when I saw ASU offering a language related course online. It was my biggest desire in 2012 and after waiting so many years I came across this course on coursera and had an opportunity to learn teaching, lesson planning, designing and much more. I thought TEACHER TALK was rubbish and waste of time. This specialization has changed me as a teacher. It has evolved me as a teacher. Thanks, Dr. Shane, Dr. Justin and Ms. Jessica for all of it.

Regards,

Sassi

Teach English Now! Capstone Project 2 is an excellent learning experience. I am using much of the information I am learning as a substitute teacher for Middle School and High School learners in the Red Clay School District in Wilmington, Delaware. The work in the Capstone Project 2 is intense although you have previously completed the required work for the project. Assembling the Teaching Portfolio was exciting, yet exhausting because I wanted my work to be correct. Thank you for helping me to complete this portion of the program.

Dr. Zenobia Antoinette James

Thank you so much for everything! The courses are very well thought of in terms of how they could be delivered full of entertainment and content. Perhaps a few typographical errors but in total, each course brings you something new and refreshes your knowledge. It's a fun specialization to take. I was ready to wait 6 weeks for my Capstone 2 to be graded but I was in shock after submitting my portfolio 4 days ago that I already have a grade!! 46/50 is incredibly humbling to receive. We have great instructors in this course. When you take it, focus on what you will learn and the methodologies and materials you can get. Not just on receiving your ASU TESOL Certificate-that's just the bonus!! Happy to have met some friends here as well who always floods the discussion boards just like me :) My advice is to Get Involved! If you want to see your grades early, grade more peers and share your link. Goodluck everyone!

I took this course to complete the TESOL Specialization of ASU. This final Capstone Project helped me to practice updating, adapting, and writing various Lesson Plans. I effectively incorporated the lessons’ information about teaching techniques in my Lesson Videos. By letting me write Lesson Plans and afterwards make Micro Teaching Videos, I've acquired in a practical way the techniques and knowledge that this course aimed to teach me.

I loved that this course was presented in a clearly and well written format with cheery and informative videos by the brilliant Instructors! It helped make the information sticky and easily understandable. I retained what I learned in a permanent manner. Thank you Dr. Shane Dixon, Mrs. Jessica Cinco, and Dr. Justin Shewell for putting so much effort into creating a wonderful course and Specialization in whole!

Fantastic! Very good content, clear, objective and professional. you will really be a very good professional taking this course. I recommend it!

The course is a helpful final step that incorporates all previous courses and puts them to use. However, it would be better to assign one micro lesson as homework per week, and make only those who have studied previous courses eligible to the capstone. In this case, week 4 would be less loaded. One more thing I would like to mention refers to mentors' review of the work. I would hope mentors can put in some helpful remarks at a prior stage. This is likely to give guidance to learners so that the final teaching portfolio can be better modified based on such feedback. It has been a wonderful learning journey. Thank you!

I'm desperate. The course has a peer review policy. One of my works has not been checked for more than two months. I posted a link twice with a request to check on the forum. I checked more than a dozen other works and in the review I left a link to my work with a request to check in response. I wrote to support. And nothing happened. At the moment, I don't have a single grade for this work, while three are needed to complete the course.

I deliberately completed all the course assignments by the beginning of August in order to be able to attach a certificate to my CV and look for a job by the beginning of the academic year. But I haven't been able to get a certificate for two months now, and I've missed all the opportunities. It's awful! After all, I paid the money!

Dear teachers!

This course was an amazing experience for me! Dr. Shane Dixon and Jessica Cinco's teaching videos helped me to learn such important things with fun and smile. You, guys, showed me, that a teacher can make any lesson attractive to students of any ages. I'll really miss your fancy videos. When I've watched the last one I felt a bit sad as if I'm done with my favorite TV series. Thanks a lot! You did really great job to share your experience with us! I am really happy to be a part of this fairytale called "Teach English Now with ASU". That was awesome!

I really enjoyed working on that course. İt really helped me test my skills and improve them as a teacher. I'd love to thank ASU for this course and personal thanks to Rachel Dallmann who reviewed all of my lessons, my philosophy and teaching tips. She gave me detailed review for my benefit and of course it felt personal as she really has deeply checked everything. She gave me advices to improve according what she saw is suitable for my teaching style. Have never enjoyed a course before as I enjoyed this one.

i am delighted to say that this course enlightened and broaden our vision of teaching . thanks to all the instructors

I am excited to have earned my TESOL Certificates I and II ! This course was exactly what I needed to get started as a volunteer tutor for adults in my community who wish to learn or improve their ability to communicate in English. My students are primarily from Latin America and are very motivated to learn and to be an active part of our central Wisconsin community . I have learned a lot from this course, things like how to make a lesson plan and how to get through to students with various learning challenges. I have studied several approaches to teaching and have formulated my own philosophy of teaching. I have been given a lot of tools and specific advice on teaching that incorporates listening, speaking, pronunciation, reading and writing. I am a much more confident tutor now. Thanks so much Shane and Jessica!!

The content was good, but my experience leads me to say that we needed more assistance with the technical issues of how to upload our files. I found I needed to learn how to use Google docs and Google Drive.

Instructors unreachable

Dear my teachers Shane, Jessica, Joseph and others

I am your student. To be honest, I have never studied online courses. But Pandemic period gave all the teachers to study a Teach English Now courses which gifted a brilliant chance to refresh and get a right knowledge of English. Personally, today I have received a positive response from you. It is unbelievable, believe me. I got the highest mark. Now I am a step away from my dream, to get my final certificate of ASU. Again, how about the all courses, they are brilliant and varied. I liked all the courses. The courses contain all skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening activities that are directly related to each other. And the courses’ modules helped me to choose right topics for my lessons and to apply right strategies so that my lessons would be MUD, and interesting and motivating for my students. Also, peer reviewed assignments have been very helpful in improving my teaching techniques and knowledge of English at all.

All in all, I am very happy with you that I lived and breathed with you from the beginning to the end of all the courses I took. And also, to be the part of your team. Besides, I would like to say a special thanks to the peers who graded me, gave vital feedbacks and supported me during the past 8 courses. Special thanks for the technical supporters of Coursera, Teach English Now project. Many, many thanks to the responsible persons who made their contributions to create the project “TEACH ENGLISH NOW”. In a word, the project is the perfect project I have ever tried to study. I NEVER FORGET.

Best regards, your student, Adkhamjon (Adam)

I was so impressed by the quality of the entire Teach English Now curriculum. It is a true testament to how online learning can be superior to in person learning, if it is done right. The videos were entertaining and made me laugh out loud, which helped me remember the lesson they were trying to teach. They truly seemed to have fun, which made the learning experience so positive. I hope that I can bring this kind of energy and playfulness to my teaching. I hope other online instructors will see this as an example of how the possibilities are endless with online teaching. It was definitely a lot of work, but I learned so much through the process. And now I have a well-organized, high-quality portfolio to showcase my teaching abilities to future employers.

Certainly an excellent Specialization Course (Captstone 2) as a concluding segment to TESOL. The capping of the course with realistic Planning, Preparing, and finally Presenting is good. Provides the necessary basics, tools and practice opportunities to get us started. I am certain with time and experience we will get better and know where the tweaks are needed. I feel the entire TESOL course to be a very enriching experience.

Wish the Staff and Participants success.

As someone new to teaching, I thought the Foundations section was very helpful and the assignments were thought provoking. I appreciated the opportunity to observe the ASU teachers as well as the other students' videos. The billing and feedback are very fair and I came away with ideas and inspiration to take the next step. I would highly recommend the course.

I have learnt many skills in this capstone. I learnt how to write my portfolio which included teaching philosophy, lesson plans, and teaching by recording a video.

Thank soooooooooooooo much dear instructors !

Excellent and very instructive learning environment. Very dynamic and interactive platform for peer learning. Instructors were very enthusiastic and very knowledgeable of the subject.

Words cannot describe how grateful I am for taking this course, the professors were incredible and the classes very funny. Loved every minute, Thanks a lot ASU!

Complete, useful and professional. I've learnt a lot on how to work on my portfolio. I also learnt a lot from my peers thanks to the peer-review task.

The best course I have ever taken. Thanks Dr Dixon, Dr Shewell, and Ms Cinco, you are an amazing team!