Yes, the TESOL mills are part of the problem. Mine didn't cover important topics like testing or culture. Another thing mine didn't mention is what teaching is like in the myriad Asian countries. Third, of course, they charged too much for a program that became in the end useless 'filler'. And finally, none try to weed out undesirables.

During my month-long stay at my mill (TEFL International), I never once heard anyone discuss testing and/or the fact that one day we'd have to give tests to our students. They also 'forgot' to tell us about Thailand's cheating epidemic and the reality that students never fail here, giving those students no reason to work in or out of the classroom. And being as students in Thailand have no reason to work, all the methodology taught at TI is useless here.

My class at TI didn't have any misfits, save for a few annoying drunks, but misfits seem to be somewhat common in TEFL. TI, and other mills as well, can eliminate these fine examples of what a teacher should not be by simply interviewing their teacher-candidates on the first day of their programs. Misfits would kindly be asked to hit the road. But the mills won't stop milking the cash cow that is the misfit, so the misfits are allowed to complete their programs and be unleashed on schools everywhere.

Considering how little of TI's methods I actually used in my Thailand classrooms during my first year, I know now I should have gone to eBay and picked up a fake cert instead of spending big money on a real one at TI. I would have saved probably 1500 bucks and wouldn't be furious with myself for dropping that good money to learn how to teach kids who don't want to learn in the first place.