Job Discussion Forums

oreochicken · Joined: 28 Jan 2004 Posts: 8

I am an experienced ESL teacher with a MATESL degree who has been teaching academic ESL full time at a large university IEP in the US for a few years. Because of my current family situation, I am not able to move abroad for an entire academic year, but I would love to teach in Qatar for a single semester or summer term. Does anyone know if such placements are available? At what schools? I have had difficulty finding any such thing on my own. And yes, I am specifically interested in Qatar and possibly the UAE. (This message is cross-posted in the UAE forum.)

Thank you in advance for your help.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Because of employment laws and visa rules, I suspect that there are very few of these jobs available. Normally summer school positions are snatched up by people who are already there in order to get the extra pay. They would certainly not pay to 'import' someone for that short of a period, nor would they pay you benefits like housing, and once you factor in the cost of the flight over and living, it would probably be a cash negative situation for you. I am assuming that you were not expecting to pay for this experience.

VS

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

QAC used to do 3,6,9 and 12 month contracts. This info was true a year and a bit ago. don't know about now though.

oreochicken · Joined: 28 Jan 2004 Posts: 8

Thanks for your perspectives. Please keep them coming.

One follow-up question: The reason I hesitate to take on a full year contract is that I feel like I would have higher than average chances of having to break it due to continuing obligations at home. Having never seen one of these contracts, can any of you give me an idea of what I might be facing if I did sign a year contract and ended up having to break it at the end of a term that was not the actual end of my contract? Would I owe folks money? Can they do anything really serious to me? I realize that it may depend widely, but I was wondering if there were any general trends.

Thanks again.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Normally I would say that there is really nothing to stop you from taking a taxi to the airport and flying home. But, it would certainly be burning your bridges. Cool

Most of my contracts required quite a long notice... normally one semester or six months.

Hey dmb, I'm not sure if our OP is male or female, but does QAC hire women? Would any sane woman even want to work there? Seems to me that they don't have a very grand reputation anyway. Or have I confused them with someone else...

VS

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

QAC does hire women. The kids there seem to respect women more than the guys.

If you didnt complete a contract you'd lose your end of contract bonus and flight money. More importantly, as vs stated, you'd be burning bridges. Qatar is a small place.

Boy Wonder · Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 453 Location: Clacton on sea

The British Council in Al-Sadd street runs summer schools from June to mid August.
They have sometimes hired teachers for the summer semester only.
Why not try there next year.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

But wouldn't they be local hires? Would they fly people in and pay for housing? I don't think you could earn enough from a summer session to break even could you? Depending on where the OP lives in the US, the ticket alone could be a couple thousand dollars...

BTW... OP... something just occurred to me. If you do this teaching short term, the pay is 100% taxable in the US. So, a summer teaching session would cost you about as much as taking a nice vacation somewhere and lazing on a beach drinking cool ones... (and you could not deduct the price of the ticket, nor housing costs) Also summers in the Gulf are brutal... think Phoenix, but very humid...

VS