The young Kelowna, B.C. couple's adventure began two years ago with a classified ad in a local newspaper. It took them to central China for a year and continues today with brighter career prospects in their Okanagan home town.

The springboard to their satisfying, horizon-expanding experiences: A privately owned, Edmonton-based school - Global TESOL College - that equips people with the basic skills to teach English in foreign countries.

David and Tanya Wells say that upon completion of their five-day Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) course, they flew to Wuhan where - TESOL certificates in hand - they taught at an adult conversational English school.

"We really wanted to travel," says Tanya, 27, a high school grad and electrician's receptionist who plans to begin studies at the Vancouver-based University of British Columbia's new Kelowna campus this fall for a bachelor of arts in international relations.

"We wanted to experience new things."

The Wells' Chinese students weren't the only ones who did the learning. Tanya returned home six months ago with her husband with a broad enough command of Mandarin to be able to navigate the streets of any Chinese metropolis on her own.

While in China, the Wells pulled in a total of $24,000 Cdn per year between the two of them plus free rent, food and utilities - a large enough income to permit them to take side trips to other parts of China.

David, 29, says privately owned schools like Global TESOL "offer convenience in learning. The hours that they offer their classes allow anybody to come, whether you're a college student or you work at a job."

Global TESOL is one of a rising number of for-profit schools across Canada that over the past 15 years have been teaching laymen how to teach English to non-English-speaking children and adults - a field previously served only by bastions of higher learning.

The schools hold their classes online, by correspondence or in classrooms on evenings and weekends. Tuition can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the calibre of the school and the depth and quality of the courses.

These schools do not pretend to turn their recruits into scholars.

A typical basic course, supplemented by specialty courses, teaches practical hands-on skills as well as theory. "You have the credentials," Global TESOL project co-ordinator Sarah Kostelyk says. "You're just mentally prepared for it."

And tens of thousands of Canadians of all ages and backgrounds who have completed these courses as a passport to fun and adventure in a foreign land have been snapped up by foreign employers.

The students see conversational English as their ticket to a better job or a promotion. Notes United TESOL owner Kelly Anne Smith of Toronto: "English is the universal language for global communication."

While these schools have won the hearts of many graduates, most have failed to win the respect of Canadian professional associations that represent persons who teach English to non-English-speaking people.

Most such associations have few or no such companies on their membership lists (one notable exception being Benns Educational Services in Toronto, a member of TESL Ontario) because their educational standards are too high.

(This educational field contains a constellation of acronyms - for example, TESOL and TESL, which stands for Teaching English as a Second Language).

In fact, associations consider such schools to be little more than certificate mills. Schools that offer courses to students lacking a credible post'-secondary school degree need not apply.

"We are trying to professionalize the teacher-training programs in Canada," says Carol May of the Burnaby, B.C.-based TESL Canada, a federation of TESL teachers, students and student advocates. "We do not endorse in any way these weekend programs and six-hour programs," May said.

"We do have standards."

Adds Leslie Sheffer of Toronto, TESL Ontario's certification co-ordinator: "TESL Ontario is a professional association of instructors and teachers ... Some of the courses are very short so they would not be recognized."

However, most such schools do not claim to provide credentials that would qualify their graduates for employment as professional teachers in Canada.

In fact, most cheerfully accept high school grads looking for travel and adventure, as well as older people looking for a career change or semi-retired professionals and business owners looking for one last fling at a challenging, rewarding career.

"There's a common fallacy that people need a university degree to teach overseas," says United TESOL's Kelly Anne Smith.

Adds Kostelyk, whose school was founded in 1994 by University of Alberta international development economics grad Loren Yaremchuk: "We just like to keep our program open to people of all educational levels and backgrounds."

The TESOL business has not been without controversy. Some schools, including Global TESOL College and United TESOL, feel confident enough about their graduates' job prospects to offer money-back job guarantees.

However, reliance on such guarantees can be risky.

One Ontario-based school appears to have abandoned its market in the wake of complaints about the company not following through with jobs or refunds. The company's phone numbers are no longer in operation, Business Edge learned last month.

The school continues to advertise on its website that it is a member of Better Business Bureaus in Ottawa and in North Carolina. However, both bureaus report the company has an unsatisfactory rating due to unanswered complaints or advertising issues, and is not a member of either.

"They were just jumping on the bandwagon," says Kostelyk. "We're here for the long haul."

The Wells continue to sing the praises of their TESOL experience.

Tanya credits her Chinese sojourn and newly acquired Mandarin for her quick success in landing the receptionist job upon her return home.

And David, who has a bachelor of business administration degree and worked prior to his TESOL training as a freelance website designer, now teaches English as a second language full-time at a Kelowna private school.

(Brock Ketcham is an Edmonton-based writer who specializes in consumer and public policy issues. He can be reached at brock@businessedge.ca)