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The TEFL profession
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roywebcafe



Joined: 13 Jan 2006
Posts: 259

PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 6:24 pm    Post subject: Re: The TEFL profession Reply with quote

You could go to the UK and do a PGCE in ESOL; its part of the Adult basic skills route. Its an FE qualification so you can teach adults in Further Education. The university of Wolverhampton do them and so do 5 other Universities in the UK You also get a bursary for this so no need to pay.

I know ESOL teachers and for that matter Literacy/Numeracy teachers get �19 an hour in the UK maybe more maybe less. Does anyone else know any more about this? You might want to leave your family behind for the 9 months duration or see about benefits for them?

BELS wrote:
It's nice to see that TEFL is respected as a profession. Will we ever see the time when this profession becomes a career? I honestly believe The UK is the core of influence in regards to TEFL. And this may well be the beginning, that is for our government to recognise that this profession is highly regarded in the UK, and from from what I've read from statistics is one of the highest regarded as a high import and internal revenue for the UK.

Now let's talk about the most important individual who represents this highly regarded profession, the teacher. Will this teacher suitably qualified be able to have a suitable and respectable income in the UK and maintain a home and family?

Will we have goverment support on this. Are we going to encouraage real professionals? To do do this they need to attract serious professional teachers with professional family sized incomes. The UK needs to be above this international marketing of backpackers who want to see the world for a few months with no respect of a permanent family professional income.

It's for this reason that I am unable to return to the UK with my family from Russia, because the income is crap, and in many cases the standards are high. I can't keep a family under such situations of what I have read. My wife has a linguistic degree in teaching Russian and English as a foreign language. It took her five years to complete, not three and she's fluent in both languages.

We can't find the right price in offers for income, what are we supposed to do.

Okay I accept that's our personal situation , but there must be many others around wondering how on earth they can live as a family decently with the profession they have lived with. Or do they simply give up and choose another profession. I think so, no disrespect to the TEFL profession, except that they don't pay enough, in fact much lower than general warehouse and factory workers for example who can have shift rates, night shift rates and overtinme rates and often much more benifits.

It's also disgusting that state school teachers get much more in benefits, benefits should be the same because we are no different, and as stated we do a valued profession feor the country. Plesae, let us be be appreciated, in money.
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BELS



Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Moscow

PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 7:16 pm    Post subject: Re: The TEFL profession Reply with quote

roywebcafe wrote:
You could go to the UK and do a PGCE in ESOL; its part of the Adult basic skills route. Its an FE qualification so you can teach adults in Further Education. The university of Wolverhampton do them and so do 5 other Universities in the UK You also get a bursary for this so no need to pay.

I know ESOL teachers and for that matter Literacy/Numeracy teachers get �19 an hour in the UK maybe more maybe less. Does anyone else know any more about this? You might want to leave your family behind for the 9 months duration or see about benefits for them?

Yes there is a lot of promotiion in the UK for the for PGCE. And all due respects for those who get through this course, because it appears to be tough, I have looked into this. There is a very good forum on this subject on timesonline where teachers give their views, and it's scary to say the least. There is also a government site promoting how to be a teacher, and it also covers the PGCE path, plenty of good advice.

There is also a lot of news in the Guardian, timesonline, and the BBC stating that for example new teachers and NQT's should get their experience teaching in the most undisciplined schools in the UK. As they are having greater problems with managing the classroom, rather than appreciating their methods of teaching. From my own personal experience this is the most difficult part of teaching, managing your classroom. You could be the most talented teacher in the world, but can you manage an unruly class who don't want to learn, and you have no school or parents support. Can you cope with this?

I'll find the links for you later, as I can't remember.

For me personally, I have gone for an early childhood degree from a London University, I'm allowed to study in Russia, as long as I am working and teaching children, and if I so choose, I can continue in the UK aslong as I continue working with children. A very flexible and relevent degree for me.

Sorry here's one here and the sent me a brochure to Russia, they are very good

www.tda.gov.uk

Now if you want to see any honest discussions from trainee or from experienced teachers I suggest you look up timesonline and search for education and teaching forum. I don't remember the exact address, but I do recommend it's worthwhile reading the experience of both the students and the qualified. The qualified appear to be disgusted in what some of the moral support that some of these students get from the shools they are working in.

I was interested in one report of one PGCE student who stated that he had enough of this PGCE, it was driving him crazy, he stated that he was too old for this, and he wanted to go back to his 9-5 job in computing, a qualified teacher advised him to stick it out, and when completed the course, he would have a very much respected qualification, whether he wished to continue in a career of teaching or not.

BELS wrote:
It's nice to see that TEFL is respected as a profession. Will we ever see the time when this profession becomes a career? I honestly believe The UK is the core of influence in regards to TEFL. And this may well be the beginning, that is for our government to recognise that this profession is highly regarded in the UK, and from from what I've read from statistics is one of the highest regarded as a high import and internal revenue for the UK.

Now let's talk about the most important individual who represents this highly regarded profession, the teacher. Will this teacher suitably qualified be able to have a suitable and respectable income in the UK and maintain a home and family?

Will we have goverment support on this. Are we going to encouraage real professionals? To do do this they need to attract serious professional teachers with professional family sized incomes. The UK needs to be above this international marketing of backpackers who want to see the world for a few months with no respect of a permanent family professional income.

It's for this reason that I am unable to return to the UK with my family from Russia, because the income is crap, and in many cases the standards are high. I can't keep a family under such situations of what I have read. My wife has a linguistic degree in teaching Russian and English as a foreign language. It took her five years to complete, not three and she's fluent in both languages.

We can't find the right price in offers for income, what are we supposed to do.

Okay I accept that's our personal situation , but there must be many others around wondering how on earth they can live as a family decently with the profession they have lived with. Or do they simply give up and choose another profession. I think so, no disrespect to the TEFL profession, except that they don't pay enough, in fact much lower than general warehouse and factory workers for example who can have shift rates, night shift rates and overtinme rates and often much more benifits.

It's also disgusting that state school teachers get much more in benefits, benefits should be the same because we are no different, and as stated we do a valued profession feor the country. Plesae, let us be be appreciated, in money.
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BELS



Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Moscow

PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SueH wrote:


I also did one private business student: 2 hour lessons at �25 an hour (outside London), and able to charge my travel costs against tax (40p a vehicle mile). .


I was hoping for much more in the UK for private business. My research states up to �15 an hour for each student in a group, and �80 an hour if they can afford the luxury of one to one. If the student can be subsidised by he government, of course the student will pay less, and the goverm=nment would pay the rest.

Currently I am charging a total of 2,000 roubles in Russia, per academic hour (per 45 minutes} That calculated into British terms is �40 for every 45 minutes you teach.

I am hoping to return with my Russian family within in a few years, get some teaching work along with my wife, and also develop some private teaching work by finding two classrooms to teach privately on the side.

But I'm not so sure now, I really need to study the market, and the competition a little bit more, especially if there are a lot of teachers charging only �25 per real hour, groups collectively or one to one.
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SueH



Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 1022
Location: Northern Italy

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

BELS wrote:
I was hoping for much more in the UK for private business. My research states up to �15 an hour for each student in a group, and �80 an hour if they can afford the luxury of one to one. If the student can be subsidised by he government, of course the student will pay less, and the goverm=nment would pay the rest.


Since I was your original source perhaps a comment is in order. If you are teaching groups you might get some direct company work and that should pay better I imagine. Often they would contact the local FE college to organise, and that FE college would pay _you_ around �25 an hour. If you can get that work direct so much the better and you'd get a better rate. It's a big IF though. You wouldn't benefit from government subsidy other than through an FE college or the like.

My business student was my first 1-2-1, and I reflected that in my price. But I still did better than my college hours since there was less prep and, as I said, I could offset my costs against tax, which wasn't the case for my journey to work for college, 2 of the days for only 2 hours work. I added books to my library which I also offset against tax.

I also quoted the same price for a Polish architect, and was turned down because of the cost.

If I went back to the UK now I'd try to charge more, but although there's big demand for language learning it's a question of finding someone (or enough people) willing to pay you. I can't comment for London and around, perhaps someone else can, but higher wages there mean much higher accommodation costs, particularly if with family you can't just find a room in a house share.

There's a wide diaspora of various EU nationalities throughout the UK now, but whether the local farmer/manufacturer is willing to pay much towards educating his low wage process workers is another matter.
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BELS



Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Moscow

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 4:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you SueH, you have provided me with good visual od what it might be like in the UK for teaching privately. I suppose having a small business in where I teach myself, I can't apply to the government to claim subsidies from students who have the right to have subsidies? I do realise that as a private EFL teacher you must be in an area where you have a large population, but not only that, an area which has a lot of legal immigrants who have a need to learn English. Even better, which area has legal immigrants who are rich or have immediately top paying professions in the UK, and have a need for their children to learn English. These are the markets, and for the moment I haven't found the statistics, even though I consider myself a great googler Smile

There is also the other market, inviting foreigners from all over the world, in my case perhaps Russians first, and with my Russian wife's experience as a Tour Operater, and her claims that she is capable of attracting Russians to the UK.

I'm sorry, but I'm encouraging brainstorming from those who might be interested in this business. To find the right statistics is very difficult. This may well not be the the interest of most EFL teachers as I see see them as depending on employers, and complaining about how they use you , in what is a highly profitable business, of which our government and the USA are strting to recognise.

Now it's time for those who do take this profession seriously on the long term, to get together as a business association and perhaps an association.

I find it unfortunate reading previous posts here, that the top teaching Unions do not accept TEFL teachers as members, so it's time to develop something of our own. You must get business orientated first, develop a non profitable business association to encourage teachers or tutors to develop teaching EFL either as one to one.

This TEFL business association should be capable on advising EFL teachers on how to run a small business on their own, or as a group of teachers, and the association should be capable to be able to encourage this. Hopefully this future association might also be able to provide statistics covering area such as how many immigrants are coming into our country each year. I already know this one, it's about 285,000 per year.Perhaps more than million 1.25 immigrants every four years.

But, we need to know how many who are wealthy and want their children perhaps to learn English, which are of the country are they going to. as those are the ones who are capble of paying the real fees of at least at least �50 per actual hour. Or those groups of for example 10 in a group capable of paying �5 per hour, not forgetting that each level of an EFL course take about 120 hours to complete.

I myself and my wife are looking at the South coast, Perhaps Southampton or Brighton, prices of property still high and popular, but nowhere near London, yet the flexibility of travelling quickly to to our rich London within 30 minutes if necessary.

Let's encourage this brainstorming please, which might result in a good business plan for all who are interest in a good private teaching business plan. Googling and good statistics would be most welcome.



SueH wrote:
BELS wrote:
I was hoping for much more in the UK for private business. My research states up to �15 an hour for each student in a group, and �80 an hour if they can afford the luxury of one to one. If the student can be subsidised by he government, of course the student will pay less, and the goverm=nment would pay the rest.


Since I was your original source perhaps a comment is in order. If you are teaching groups you might get some direct company work and that should pay better I imagine. Often they would contact the local FE college to organise, and that FE college would pay _you_ around �25 an hour. If you can get that work direct so much the better and you'd get a better rate. It's a big IF though. You wouldn't benefit from government subsidy other than through an FE college or the like.

My business student was my first 1-2-1, and I reflected that in my price. But I still did better than my college hours since there was less prep and, as I said, I could offset my costs against tax, which wasn't the case for my journey to work for college, 2 of the days for only 2 hours work. I added books to my library which I also offset against tax.

I also quoted the same price for a Polish architect, and was turned down because of the cost.

If I went back to the UK now I'd try to charge more, but although there's big demand for language learning it's a question of finding someone (or enough people) willing to pay you. I can't comment for London and around, perhaps someone else can, but higher wages there mean much higher accommodation costs, particularly if with family you can't just find a room in a house share.

There's a wide diaspora of various EU nationalities throughout the UK now, but whether the local farmer/manufacturer is willing to pay much towards educating his low wage process workers is another matter.
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BELS



Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Moscow

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The big question is!!!. Has the top teachers failed to recognise how big and powerful the TEFL profession in Britain, and the immense income it provides in export and import, probably the biggest income for the UK.

Is it not time for to the top teachers Unions to have a rethink, and allow TEFL teachers to be members. After all, we are very big, and increasing fast, so get your increased strength.

Our government have recognised this, and are now asking for advice from us, so why can't you?
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SueH



Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 1022
Location: Northern Italy

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 7:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BELS wrote:
I myself and my wife are looking at the South coast, Perhaps Southampton or Brighton, prices of property still high and popular, but nowhere near London, yet the flexibility of travelling quickly to to our rich London within 30 minutes if necessary.


That's where I have my house - on the coast between the two. Brighton prices are very high and you'd get better value in Southampton - a place I know well. Although there is a good rail service from both to London it's more than half an hour and fares are very expensive.

One of my EFL tutors from Portsmouth had Russian links, so that is a market worth looking into. You've also got IBM at Hursley and the marine/naval industries particular to the area.

I'm not well-off in terms of income but my property is paid for and I can live on not very much. With a family it'd be difficult but do-able with a bit of luck and a _lot_ of hard work, from both of you. At least the property narket is cooling down, so be like my niece and keep saving hard and in a year's time it might be a good time to buy.
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BELS



Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 402
Location: Moscow

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 8:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SueH wrote:
BELS wrote:
I myself and my wife are looking at the South coast, Perhaps Southampton or Brighton, prices of property still high and popular, but nowhere near London, yet the flexibility of travelling quickly to to our rich London within 30 minutes if necessary.


That's where I have my house - on the coast between the two. Brighton prices are very high and you'd get better value in Southampton - a place I know well. Although there is a good rail service from both to London it's more than half an hour and fares are very expensive.

One of my EFL tutors from Portsmouth had Russian links, so that is a market worth looking into. You've also got IBM at Hursley and the marine/naval industries particular to the area.

I'm not well-off in terms of income but my property is paid for and I can live on not very much. With a family it'd be difficult but do-able with a bit of luck and a _lot_ of hard work, from both of you. At least the property narket is cooling down, so be like my niece and keep saving hard and in a year's time it might be a good time to buy.


Thanks for the tips, and much appreciated, and my wife's favourite place is Southampton, we are building a house on a plot of land just outside Mscow in the western region, it is hoped within the next few years it will match the price of a decent family property in Southampton. She also has contacts in this area in regards to Russians , due to her previous profession as a tour operater specialising in London. And that's how I met her. Yes, Southampton is a lovly place, if we chose a cheaper place, we would not have the potential of contacts in our field of business.

Yes prices are going down in the UK. yet prices remain to rise in Moscow, and yet I hope we return to the UK ate the beginning of the next boom. It all has a lot to do with luck.
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