There is currently NO independent board of accreditation or assessment for Certificates. This means that each institute, school, or organization recognizes their own Certificate and accreditation comes from good practice, professional standards and reputation.

At the top of the list is probably the CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults; it was also known as an RSA and you can sometimes still see this reference). A number of different schools around the world offer the CELTA and these schools need to get annual check ups and approval from Cambridge who run the course.

Next in line comes Trinity, issued by Trinity College. This doesn't have the level of assessment that CELTA has, but is still fairly well regarded in the teaching community.

However, these courses don't come cheap. They are not given online and are fairly intensive in terms of finance, workload and commitment.

There are, however, other options and certificates; some are good and some are, quite frankly, a waste of time and money and paper. There are many traditional courses in language schools and there's always the option of an online course. Online courses are usually the cheapest option and ICAL is the leading provider of online courses having been in business since 1998 and with literally thousands of students taking the course since then.

But the key question is what kind of Job can you get with each kind of Certificate?

As a very approximate guide for Certificate holders without any experience (prices are approximate and in US Dollars):

CELTA (cost $1,400 - $2,500); work in any school, anywhere; universities in non-English speaking countries

Trinity (cost $1,300 - $2,000); work in almost any school in any country

100 hr/ 4 week full time course (cost $900 - $1,700); a job in many countries if there are no CELTA or Trinity graduates available

ICAL (cost: $265); entry level job in many countries but harder to find work in the US or UK.

However, this list is highly approximate and there are many exceptions. The bottom line is that it is the employer who chooses, so if you are at all uncertain about the course to take, check out the requirements and, if need be, contact your agent or prospective employer and ask them what they are looking for.