Boring thread about TEFL courses.

TEFL can be extremely interesting if there is some pedagogy covered in the course. A lot of research looks into the similarities between first language acquisition, when we're babies, and second language acquisition later in life. (i.e. how do we teach English so that we are tapping into the 'natural' language learning process).

But why do you want to take a TEFL course? Do you want to go abroad and teach English? You definitely don't need any training to do that.

Granted, there aren't a lot of full-time positions available, but the bitterness expressed by the former teacher above seems a little harsh. Why the bitterness?

ESL and TEFL are different.
TEFL is teaching a foreign language - like if you decided to study French or Chinese.

xpost - No, it's Teaching English as a Foreign language.

My experience is in Asia only, where English teaching jobs are plentiful and don't require any prior training. I don't know about Europe, and it's possible that competition for jobs is more fierce.

If you have the time and money, go for it. I would advise doing some research to make sure the program is worthwhile.

I think the business of TEFL often leads to bitterness. A lot of these language schools are more interested in making a buck than providing high-quality language education. They hire untrained, inexperienced young teachers from abroad and treat them poorly. These teachers are completely disposable, because there is a constant supply of young people from English-speaking countries who want to go abroad, and the schools don't really care if the person is a good teacher or not.

So that's where the burger flipping comment comes from, I would assume.

The majority of TEFL schools are unscrupulous quick-buck operations. The jobs are poorly paid and unfulfilling, and yet they somehow suck people in, and two years later you realise you're still there, still drinking at the same expat bar bitching and moaning to other TEFL teachers... Still if you just want to do it for six months to finance a bit of travelling, fine, just make sure you don't just drift into it through lack of knowing what you really want to do.

But all you have to do is see those people once and know that either it's time to choose a new career or get some real, professional training in a graduate program. I went the latter route and I'm pretty happy.

I guess it seems pretty obvious to me that online certification programs are scams. Beyond that, I'm not sure if there are any quick routes to EFL/ESL qualifications.

If you're looking for a rewarding job that might lead somewhere, then the certification could help. If you just want to support living abroad through TEFL, then the certification is probably unnecessary.

Also, if you want to teach for more than just 'six months travelling' you'll need to get some TEFL qualifications. No school will give you a proper contract without them, and you'll be doomed to earn peanuts in terrible conditions for ever more (which is where the burger flipping comparison is valid). There *are* 'proper' career paths out there for this line of work: ESOL (kind of the same thing, but more teaching refugees or people who have settled permanently in this country, rather than businessman or spoilt teenagers who come over to London for two weeks to brush up their English) offers steady employment working in the state sector.

http://www.daveseslcafe.com/

Ironically its down right now for maintenance.

So completely OTM. I wish more people realized this. "Huge difference" doesn't begin to describe the chasm between knowing a language and knowing how to teach a language.

It depends if the question 'do I need to do a TEFL course to become a TEFL teacher?' means 'do I need it in order to get a job?' or 'do I need it in order to become a good teacher?'. If it's the former, then you don't need one, but it's useful. If it's the latter, then it's essential (in fact, once you've got a few years experience you'll have to do a lot of further study and get further qualifications if you want to progress beyond earning ten pounds an hour on a three-month contract).

In Europe, I'm sure it can help you to get a job with a half-decent school as opposed to a cowboy outfit that may exploit you.

The only problem with TEFL courses is that the decent ones are monstrously expensive.

http://www.bell-centres.com/courses/teachers/cambridgeesol/celta.html

Also, although it is expensive, it is no more expensive than it was 15 years ago or so, when I did it at a worse school (opposite Jerry the Nipper's beachside pad).

http://www.shipbrook.com/karen/blog/images/brian_blessed_photo.jpg

revive

so er ok i graduated with a humanities degree in 2007 and have done two years of go-nowhere retail and entry-level office work. i don't really know what i want to do. i applied for a CELTA course this year and got accepted the day before i was made redundant from my last job. i'm now thinking i might have to take out a loan (not a big one) to cover course costs

reasons i want to do this:
i) even if it's a dead end (see above), it's a more interesting dead end than my current one
ii) i want to find out if i like teaching full stop: it's something i need to know before i write off trying to head back into academia at some point, for instance, and qualifying as just a plain teacher was another thing i thought about doing. - and working in east asia for a year or two and travelling back seems like - even if afterwards i think 'okay, this teaching thing is not for me' - a better way to find out than, say, spending two years in an english department at a british state school.
iii) family in east asia i won't see for another year or two otherwise
iv) do, quite deeply, want to spend time in a country that is not england/anglophone/er 'predicated on similar set of cultural assumptions' <- it's 3am, if that seems orientalist in the morning i'm'a take it back

any current ilxors done this much/at all? / doing it right now? in a position to recommend schools, or even just websites to read up on schools? (it seems a field that really, really could do with a 'rate-your-employer' website)

also - since i seem to have met HUNDREDS of people who take these qualifications - does anyone know people who have one of these qualifications and who has FAILED to get a job? because that, i think, would be the ultimate worst-case scenario for me to be in. duh. i have this perception that korea and china are basically going to always want english teachers, or for the next few years at least: if i'm way off, plz enlighten me

ok thx

Just did this for the past year and am going back to do it for one more.

xpost

i'm maybe a few months ahead of you, and about a month into looking for jobs -- i got my TESL certification (120h) v recently. i'm lucky in that im willing to consider a lot of diff countries, so ive been looking mostly at bangkok, but casually tossing out resumes to all sorts of different places, cuz now's not the greatest time of the year to be looking in the former. haven't applied to anything in korea or china. so far, ive had maybe 1/3rd of the places write back asking for an interview. so, pretty good.

for bangkok, if you're interested: ajarn.com & http://www.isat.or.th/
dave's esl cafe, linked upthread
teachabroad.com
lots of others, even if you just look at the links on ones like those

Thomp, I too graduated with a humanities field degree in '08. Let me try to answer your questions in the order they come up:

-It's not a dead-end if you plan on teaching English for the rest of your life in Asia!
-If you plan on going back into academia (I am also thinking about this as well) then your best bet would be to try and get a job with university level students. Teaching English to secondary/primary school students is a whole different animal, obviously. I taught an after-school class at a primary school and it was awful compared to the work I did at my university.

Programs: Depends on where you're at - JET in Japan is obviously the big one if you want to go to Japan. If you're from the US (but judging from your post I don't think so, but I'll put this info up anyway on the chance someone from the US is looking to do this also) look into the Fulbr1ght ETA (English Teaching Assistantship) program which places people into positions in S. Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and various SE Asia countries. The level of teaching depends on the country - for example the S. Korea program is mainly primary/secondary school, IIRC, while the HK program, which I did, places you into a university. The application process is also much easier than a normal Fulbright.

If you want to teach in HK, look into the government NET program. Once you get your CELTA you should be able to qualify for primary school teaching. You make bank too - something like 30-40000 HKD a month, with barely any taxes, and the cost of living is so, so, so much cheaper.

If you browse on Dave's ESL cafe (mentioned upthread) and others I'm sure you'll find some horror case stories of people with qualifications not getting jobs, but on the whole I really think, and this is a cop-out answers, it depends on what kind of positions you're applying for - there's probably some sort of inverse relationship between level of respectability and chances of getting a job, i.e. you might get edged out in consideration for JET or a HK NET position cause so many qualified people apply for those, whereas it'd probably be really easy to get a job from a cram school, but the conditions might not be so legitimate/downright sleazy.

I've also heard S. Korea is not so great a place to be in right now cause the won is tanking.

Re: teaching in China, I think one of the best gigs around is landing a job at some college or university in rural/smalltown China. Pay is not great - around 4000 RMB a month - but usually you get a lot of freedom, your students are usually super eager/impressed that they have a real live native English teacher and as a consequence will be some of the best students you've ever taught, and the cost of living is dirt, dirt, dirt cheap.

my internet connection has been down since i revived this ):

thanks dyao and rent

rent how is your looking going? (i'm not too interested in bangkok because er that's where the aforementioned family are, and i'd like to be somewhere i can visit them but not THAT close)

dyao i am not american, sadly. the hk NET program looks interesting. my first wish was to go to south korea, but i'm having second and third thoughts about it lately.

yo am thinking of doing a tefl course soon in london. basically i want something to pad out my wallet for the inevitable downtime between journalism jobs which is a factor of my career. as i understand it from friends etc it's not as doom and gloom as people make out upthread at all.

can't you just do a tefl course in a few days and then (i hear) there is loads of work around london for tefl teachers?

am i wrong?

or am i better off shelling out 1k for a proper four week course and taking things from there??

A CELTA course would give you more options. It might be worth looking at the IH blended learning course if you're working at the moment.

http://www.ihlondon.com/online-teacher-training-42/blended-celta/

would prob rather do a shorter more intense course, so i don't have to pay my rent for 3 months without a job i guess!

am i wrong?

I think so. From an employability point of view, you'd be better of getting a 'proper' TEFL qualification (i.e. the CELTA or the Cert.TESOL - they're more or less the same, the former is a Cambrdige qualification and the latter is Trinity). I've encountered people who have done online TEFL courses (which are obviously cheaper and more convenient), but then failed to get any work because the course is just theory and lacks the practical element (i.e. actually teaching English to classes of foreign students), and ended up having to do the CELTA *as well*. They've just introduced a new version of the CELTA where the input is all done online, but you still have to got to your centre and teach actual people for the practical element (this might be the blended course which is linked to above).

i did the full course over the internet for 600 euros over the summer. took me a couple of months

yeah having looked at it more, doing it in a weekend seems unrealistic. but a 4 week course of 40 hours a week would seem to give you a pretty good qualification...i think? i've asked a few mates who told me friends of theirs got loads of work doing this here in london, now waiting to hear back...

Thinking about doing one of these next year...anyone had any particularly BAD experiences with it? Is the CELTA qualification worth looking in to?

Yes, CELTA is worth it if you want to have a good range of options. When I am back in the office I can probably recommend some training providers.

If you fancy working in Russia once you are qualified, let me know. I might be able to hook you up.

Woah, seriously? Any additional information at all would be hugely appreciated. I can be reached at blankcassettes at gmail dot com

Thanks again!

Ok, i've e-mailed you. Let me know if it doesn't come through.

actually i wouldn't mind the training provider info as well plz if you don't want post it here

want...to

In London, St George International has a very good reputation for the Trinity CertTEFL. I know a couple of people who have gone through their courses.

For CELTA (which is more or less the same in terms of quality), International House is generally a good bet. They are a relatively high-volume provider, and some people think that they're a little less personal as a result, but the feedback is generally good.

thanks!

http://www.tesoltraining.co.uk/sites/default/files/page-Trinity-Diploma.png

st george are showing me this guy so that's them ruled out

kinda amazing how they managed to distil every latent misgiving about tefl into a single human form

I completed the one month CELTA in July earlier this year and it was one of the most intense months of my life, rarely felt exhaustion like it. I was always intending to stick around till Christmas before heading off anywhere but I've reached the point now where I just want to go, going back to my office job having done something that I found legit interesting and challenging has been such a drag.

Problem is that I don't have the foggiest where I want to go and a lot of the jobs I'm seeing advertised specify that they're looking for teachers with a bit of experience so I'm not sure what my next move is. Ideally I'd like to find something in Europe to start after Xmas but I'm not making much progress as yet.

There was a guy who wore a waistcoat when I did my course actually, also saw him one day wearing a bottle-green polo-neck and blazer combo. Outrageous conduct.

It makes me sad to think that there are programs that believe one month (however intense) is sufficient to train someone to be a teacher.

Oh I'm under no misapprehensions about how qualified I actually am and I'd certainly never make any claims towards being a teacher. I'd just like to spend a few years living in different places around the world and I have no money, so this seemed like a plausible avenue.

The extent to which the people running these programmes think that graduates of a one month course are qualified as teachers is a slightly different matter, but tbh I think most of the people involved are aware of precisely what it is that you can get out of these courses.

All of that leaves me feeling depressed about the way my profession is perceived by most people (and employers), unfortunately. Carry on, good luck, but don't forget that you ARE (or will be) someone's teacher, ready or not :)

St Giles College is another good central London one (not for the CELTA, but for the Trinity equivalent).

Windsor - this isn't a great time of year to be looking as a lot of places abroad will be based on an academic year from September to June/July so they'll have already recruited the people they need. I'm not saying it will be impossible, just much more difficult than it would have been three months ago. It *is* a problem to get TEFL work without experience - again, it's not impossible (obviously everyone has to start somewhere), but generally only the worst jobs will be open to you initially (i.e. unglamorous locations, low pay, awkward hours, etc.). The more experience you build up, the more employable you become and the more you get to choose to go where you want to go and do what you want to do. I normally tell people the best thing to do is try to get some work in this country (Britain) first as all the language schools (in London, Brighton, Oxford, etc) take on extra staff on short contracts in the summer months as their student numbers rocket then.

Thanks very much for that advice NBS, that all seems to be broadly in line with my suspicions / fears about the current state of play.

Kicking myself now for not having made a move a few months ago but that's just pointless negativity at this stage as it was never really on the cards for all sorts of reasons.

As I said, I've had enough of my current job now so I'll definitely look into finding some short-term work in the UK I think, if my scouting of jobs round Europe doesn't turn up anything, people aren't interested at this stage, w/e. Depending on what's out there it may be that I'll try and find a volunteer post or something, I'm not too concerned provided it builds my experience and confidence up a bit.

NBS is right but it is worth keeping an eye out for opportunities. Some markets have an ongoing demand for qualified native-speaker EFL teachers.

If it was me I'd be thinking about Russia, second-tier cities in China, Korea and Brazil, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and maybe Iraqi Kurdistan. None of the EFL markets in Europe are really booming at the moment but Italy is always worth looking at.

As mentioned above, it might not be glamour locations and amazing pay at first but the experience would be important.
It's common sense advice but if someone is willing to hire you without experience ask yourself why.

It might be because demand outstrips supply in the region where native speakers are involved. It might be because they want to grab you early with a view to getting you to stay and refine your skills for a while (teachers who put in a few months and decide they want to bugger off to Thailand are the bane of many school owners). Or it might be that they are crooks nobody wants to work for. Do as much research as possible.

Just came looking for this thread and realised I never thanked you for your advice SV, so I'll do it now - thank you. Useful advice as it turns out. I generally found that there was significantly more interest / response from Italy when I began looking and I've ended up accepting a 6 month post in Naples.

And of course I am now absolutely fricking terrified. Especially as it's now been six months since I did my CELTA course. Very much feeling La Lechera's sentiment upthread, I decidedly do not feel like a teacher. Still, everyone has to start somewhere and I wanted this, so would be churlish to complain now, I'm sure it'll all be fine.

I'm going to be working for the Inlingua franchise, which I've read mixed things about on the internet. I think that's kinda inevitable for a big franchise though, different bosses at different schools with their own way of doing things etc.

One thing that they really had in their favour was that they seemed very supportive of the fact that I don't have any teaching experience to speak of. One of the recurring comments I've found on the net is that this may well be because they like to train their teachers to do things according to their own methods and hence find first-timers slightly easier to break in.

Well w/e, I'm completely buzzing at the thought of living in Italy for half a year and there's only so much that can go wrong with this teaching job. Scared but excited!

Timely revive. I've been really interested in the JET program since hearing about it last year from my roommate and other people who have done it. Unfortunately, just found out today that I didn't make the cut. Since I'm into Japanese culture and especially the language I kind of foolishly put my eggs in one basket and didn't look into any other TEFL programs, even though I'd be interested in teaching in countries other than Japan - now feeling dumb that I didn't. Guess I'll start looking!

Congrats Windsor, that seems like it will be really fun!

Good luck WD!

Naples will be a hell of an experience. A couple of colleagues went there to teach when they were straight out of university and never moved back.

The South of Italy is a massive, massive ELT market because of all the EU funding for learners.

I might be heading over there to visit some clients this year. If I do, we should go for a Strega or two.

Good luck, Windsor. I taught in Italy for 3 years so if you want any advice about TEFL / living in Italy feel free to drop a question in this thread.

Bump.
I had an interview with JET a couple of weeks back and I don't think I've got the gig so I'm looking at other TEFL stuff.
Been looking at East/Southeast Asia, don't have any strong preferences about which country I'd like to go to yet but I'm ideally after a programme where i'd be arriving with other English speakers in the same position, sort of a support network. What are my options? I know there are a few 6 month internship type things that cost $$$, anyone had any experience with those? What about the ones where you do a course in the UK and then they fix you up with a school somewhere?