Job Discussion Forums

[pgchris]

I am 23 years old and I just graduated from University of Maryland with a bachelors in History. I really want to teach in Chile or somewhere similar in South America, but I have no teaching experience and no kind of certification. I would love to get this thing figured and be teaching in South America by this summer, but to be honest the research I've done so far has been a bit confusing and I'm kind of clueless at this point.

What I'm hearing from a lot of people is "just get TEFL certified and start just emailing schools, or just fly down there and start applying in person." While that may work well for some people I must admit I am a little wary of trusting myself to find a job in a country I know very little about and don't speak the language. Really what I am hoping to find is a program that is kind of all inclusive that would allow me to travel to South America for TEFL certification, as well as provide job placement assistance.

The closest thing to this that I have found is the TeachingChile.com program. They basically put you up in a hostel for a month with a bunch of other kids doing the same thing, then train you and assist you in finding housing and employment. Really the most attractive thing about this for me is the fact that you live and train other kids trying to become teachers. I really like the fact that I would be surrounded by people who are just as clueless as I am, and it would obviously be a great opportunity to meet friends and find possible roommates. This is something that I would REALLY REALLY REALLY love to get out of a program, but the downside to TeachingChile is that the do not provide TEFL certification, and actually TEFL certification might even be a requirement to get into the program. So I am not sure I want to pay for my TEFL certificate and then pay an addition $1300 for the TeachingChile services, even though it sounds like a great experience that could be very helpful.

So the long and short of this is if any of you guys know of programs that are kind of similar to TeachingChile, but also provide TEFL certification on location in South America please let me know.

Thanks if you took the time to read this!!!

-Chris

PS: I'm posting this in a couple places across the board, I hope that is ok

[Dia]

i replied more in detail in the other thread (suggested looking into CIEE, which is very similar to Teaching Chile, and World Teach, however I dont think they pay much- its more volunteer like)

in all of those programs you would have opportunity to get to know the others in the program

Unfortunately, unless you do one of these programs, the best way really might be to just get here and look around, as big of a jump as it seems. its not very common to find a job before getting here.

i just wanted to point out that some of the programs allow for online TEFL certificatinos, which are fairly cheap to get.