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Do I have enough qualifications to find work? Advice?
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senseitabu



Joined: 03 Oct 2016
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nomad soul wrote:
senseitabu wrote:
A couple of people have put their eyes on the programs and told me that at least one of them looks legit. I'd be happy to PM you the information if you'd like a look.

Sure, send me a PM. Or you can post the links to the programs here.


Sent via PM.
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In addition to volunteering (see my first post), don't overlook joining WAESOL, the Washington state affiliate of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (http://waesol.org/) for scheduled events as well as networking opportunities with seasoned Washington ESL teachers. In fact, they can guide you in terms of TESOL trends specific to your area.
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mitsui



Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1562
Location: Kawasaki

PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SIT is good but expensive.
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kona



Joined: 17 Sep 2011
Posts: 188
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Do I have enough qualifications to find work? Advice? Reply with quote

senseitabu wrote:
Part of why I ask is that one certification school is telling me that my non-language-related M.Ed. combined with 4-week TESOL certification should make me highly competitive for a teaching job at a private language school, or even at a community college. I have been scouring job listings and am skeptical about that school's advice, starting to think it was part of a "sell job" to get me to enroll. (And to clarify, I do not yet have any experience teaching EFL.)


This isn't true, especially this year. I've touched on this in a previous thread, but in 2011 (after the Arab Spring), the Saudi government released a huge amount of money in the form of scholarships for its citizens to study English overseas. When I took my Masters course at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, more than half of the student body in the IEP were Saudi, but low oil prices has caused the Saudi government to restrict these scholarships to only the top 50 universities in the US (or world, can't remember) earlier this year, and that has effectively cut the vast majority of these scholarships. Every language center and community college I've talked to has confirmed this, and there's plenty of articles about it online as well.

Seattle hasn't been hit as hard as the more rural universities have been (i.e. haven't lost over half their students), but in practical terms, it means the field is flooded with people with a lot of experience scrambling to fill their schedules. That means it's hard to get your foot in the door if you're new to the field...

On the positive end, though, this has not effected the refugee population at all, or the non-profits and community colleges that serve them, but it has caused those working at private language centers and university IEPs to try and vie for those positions.

In sum, it's a difficult market, and you are most likely going to be piecing very small amounts of adjunct or language center work together, which, considering the absurdity of the housing market at the moment, makes it barely sustainable at best. If you have other ways of making money, I'd say you're going to need to tap into that. After almost a year of applying, I finally got some afternoon substitute shifts at a local language center, but I still need to supplement this with another unrelated job. ymmv, but I'd say it's a tough job market overall.
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