Job Discussion Forums

[sandrina85]

yes, I meant lived.
Here in Cambodia there aren't CELTA courses.

So I t hought to get it in Muscat, but I simply can't efford to pay 1000 Omr for the course + the flight ticket + the living expenses for the first 2 months. It's too much.

Nomad, correct what you wrote, but I still have teaching experience and I'm currently working as a teacher, so I'm still gonna give a try. There must be a way. I'm not looking tto teach to Universities, but to kindergarten and preschoolers!

[nomad soul]

[balqis]

1. You can do CELTA at the British Council in Oman.
http://www.britishcouncil.om/en
I knew teachers who were teaching with me at a uni in Oman and doing CELTA in Muscat at the same time.
I think it is quite not that uncommon in KSA too, and if I remember rightly, KSU in KSA employs teachers without CELTA and make them do CELTA as part of the employment deal. Some potential employers may view it as plus point, especially that in Oman BC has very high reputation.

In your CV and Cover Letter indicate clearly that this would be your intention for working in Oman, which is doing the CELTA course.

For now forget about doing any on-line course if you really mean to work in the GULF countries.

Prepare your CV the great clear-cut and full of edges Armani style, and then send it out to schools and language institutes in Oman. And see if you get any responses.

As your long-term goal, you may think of moving up from early education/language institutes to high school or even college/uni later on. This is not impossible in the longer run, i.e. with experience at the right places and intelligent moves on your side job-wise.

You may/should also think of taking an IELTS course and conclude with the IELTS exam with BC. This should improve your selling points. Better than IELTS would be CAE or CPE exams.

Perhaps it will be easier for you to anchor yourself in Oman if you combine doing CELTA with teaching English. As I said some employers may be sensitive to such path.

Hope for contributions from other teachers on this forum when the weekend finishes i.e. from Sunday onwards.

balqis

[sandrina85]

AH! ok, I could do that for sure! and yes! I'm all ears if someone else want to suggest me something else/some specific primary school!

Otherwise I can alternatively do a bartender course and work in a luxury hotel in Muscat ah ah ah (just kidding)

[sandrina85]

What's KSU? And KSA?

[balqis]

KSA - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
KSU - King Saud University, its biggest and oldest university in Riyadh

This forum is not often frequented by primary school teachers, though you never know. And besides, it is still out of season' time of the year so not many of the regulars who visit this forum quite often seem to be in Oman, judging by lack of their presence here.


Try to locate the thread on the KSA/Saudi forum here opened by another Italian young woman a while ago and try to revive the thread. Perhaps she is still around and will pick up your call for revival, and you also may get contributions of other teachers there and their PoV on your circumstances.

balqis

[sandrina85]

[sandrina85]

[veiledsentiments]

[madrileno]

[nomad soul]

Keep in mind, the OP is a non-native speaker whose only interest is in teaching at the kindy/primary school level as opposed to higher ed or language schools. That requires different qualifications.

[sandrina85]

Yes nomad and all. I'm aware I'm not skilled enough- don't have appropriare qualifications, that's the reason I'm aiming to work in a primary school (just for now!)

I'm re-doing my cv and cover letter right now and will send it all over the places in Oman and I'll keep you posted about what happens. The worse scenario is that I will have wasted my time.

[balqis]

To round off my main remarks again and for the last time, first and foremost consider yourself very young, which means future is for your open and you may make a lot of wise [ and unwise] career moves. You are not yet a closed entity. You are only starting your steep climb. Turn a blind eye and develop a deaf ear to most what you hear and will hear from people around you in the so-called ESL milieu. Consider ESL a very shoddy profession, to which the famous ''walking shadow, full of ado, signifying nothing'' applies aptly. This summary I am giving after a life-long ESL career - I am about to part with the profession and retire early. The Gulf allowed me to make some decent money and live amongst the Arabs and their culture, experience that compares to nothing else in my life, in scale and depth to nothing else indeed.

Besides, non-native speakers, even with unrelated M.A. degrees are not that uncommon in the Gulf, I would say from my own experience. Nations I have met in the Gulf teaching ESL - and I always worked in unis and colleges, the so called ''jet set'', some unis numero uno in the whole Gulf - would make a long paragraph on its own. And if you are so focused on developing your ESL career, you can try and join some PhD in ESL programme, and suddenly, like devil from the snuff-box, you may jump out as a - so called and as it were - ESL ''specialist'' [ I don't myself believe in ESL, and so called ESL specialists are to me vacuous bizarre creatures, that is why I use inverted commas here]. So, unless you really like it, do not even think that your ultimate level is only kindergartens and primary schools in the Gulf. It is just your thinking, which should be re-tracked. A number of KSA jobs require just any degree, any nationality as long as it is EU, Celta and IELTS score at least level 7.5. if I remember rightly [ review KSA jobs here and on tefl.com].
Alternative path for you would be doing DELTA after CELTA, but not everyone is able to swallow that amount of ESL .... [ I meant: raspberry juice] DELTA demands. And not every employer gives a damn about DELTA, so may be a blind alley.

If you improve your qualification and encounter some luck on your way, you may become a marketable entity in the Gulf, and besides again, your Italian origin may be your trading asset - Arabs are in love with Europe, Italian fashion designers, Mediterranean beaches and tourism and Italian food [ nothing offensive about Italy here, simply Arabs are consumers of the European culture, they don't give a damn about Fra Angelico or Leopardi, as they have their own very sophisticated culture].

Good luck then!
wishes you
balqis

[veiledsentiments]

Balquis... your posts are sometimes obscure. Are you using a translator? They often lead us wrong or are confusing. You have done well in the Gulf over the years being a non-native speaker as have many others.

For instance:

[nomad soul]