There's a line from the movie, Cool Hand Luke: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

I've been watching this thread for a few days now, and it--like many others--has taken on a life of its own. It seems different posters from different parts of the world are using different definitions for similar words. Academia tries to reduce that problem by requiring defintion of terms in academic papers. Now, this is an internet forum, not academic writing, but some definition seems required to help ease understanding.

In America, "diploma" is the sheet of paper that is hung on the wall in a frame that reflects the degree a person has studied for and earned in a university.

In America and Canada there are "community colleges" which offer college (university) credit courses at a reduced tuition rate (generally half the rate of local universities) which are transferable to universities. There is a two year "Associate degree" awarded after a specific program of study that requires certain courses and a minimum number of credits to be obtained; this generally takes about two years of full time study. The term "associate degree" was given to this for lack of a better term (terms of certificate and diploma are used in other ways). There are also vocational programs of study at community colleges that award "certificates of completion", ie, auto mechanics, landscape design, culinary, etc. These programs take anywhere from a few months to two years to complete. Community colleges are looked at as a second chance for many people; possibly they did not do well enough in high school to get scholarship money, or did not gain entrance into their choice of university. Community colleges offer classes in the day and evening, and often on weekends, to meet working adults busy schedules. Sometimes there is the negative stigma attached to community colleges because they don't offer bachelor degrees so they are not as good as "real" colleges, but there is no shame in the hard work these students put themselves through to get the education they desire.

A bachelor degree can be completed by study at a community college and then transfer to a university, or by four years of study at a university. There are usually two routes to a degree, science or arts, which is the same at the Master degree level. Almost all four year universities offer at least a few master degrees, but only the largest offer PhD programs, and even fewer yet have law schools and medical schools and MD training. There are also post-graduate certification programs, education and TESOL being examples.

There is another way to get a degree, and that is online education. This is still evolving and I personally am not sold on this form of education. It is not peer reviewed, has very limited access to instructors, no classroom discussion time, and no way to either quantify or qualify information that has been learned by students. Possibly there are legitimate online degrees awarded, but the phony degree mills cast a dark shadow on all of it.

The thread seems to be coming back to qualifications of an ESL teacher. So what are they? There still is no international organization that advocates for a particular base minimum of qualifications of teaching ESL. Often we think the base level of a professional is the bachelor degree, so that degree could be thought of as entry level requirement. But we all know teachers that have tremendous experience and are very talented at teaching ESL and do not have a BA or BS. Also, should a degree in English be the entry level standard? ESL teachers teach English, so they need a thorough understanding of that language, but that doesn't mean they can teach. Do they need a degree in education also? Is a person that holds a degree in education and is not a native English speaker qualified to teach English as a Second language? Students answer that by generally wanting native speakers as teachers because they want to learn the language as it is used by native users. The idea that a two degree (English and education) holder is standard for being an ESL teacher seems preposterous, because why should a person that has put in the effort and the money to gain two degrees work for peanuts? Or a person with a MA in TESOL?

So basically, just because a person is a native English speaker does not mean they are qualified to be an ESL teacher. Just because a person has an English degree is also not qualification, nor is a degree in education. A person could very well have all three and still not be a good teacher. And a person with minimal qualifications--or none at all--could be the best teacher in town. At this point in time, there is no solution to this issue that comes up on a regular basis in ESL discussions everywhere. Maybe eventually universities will devise a four year ESL teacher degree program, or a community college will devise a two year program that teaches ESL teaching strategies to people that already hold bachelor degrees. There are plenty of TESOL/TEFL programs available both online and in classrooms, but they just don't seem to fill the need; many are haphazardly arranged, too brief, or just lack any kind of useful training by experienced trainers. Until the concerned people involved in ESL stand up and make the changes necessary the industry standards will remain the same.

Really, it seems counter-productive to beat each other over the head trying to win a convincing argument over this issue.