Job Discussion Forums

[CarolinaTHeels]

Ok, So i am about to leave to go teach in South Korea for a year.

After that I plan on moving to Colombia to teach for 6-12 months before I return to Korea for another 1yr stint. Then I will prob return to Colombia for one last time to teach.

btw, I have a degree. Not an edu. degree obviously..

So my question is, should I get the CELTA considering ill only be teaching in Colombia for about 2 years with experience teaching in Korea?

I am looking to find a job at a colegio or university. I dont wanna work at a language institute doing split shifts ect.

I will have local connections in a few cities that might be able to help me in the search.

I will be fluent in Spanish by the end of the year so that wont be a problem.

Im just trying to decide if getting a CELTA will be worth it as they are expensive and take a month to obtain.

Thanks, guys. Any advice much appreciated!

[JonnyBravo]

I'm going to say It's not necessary, but might be helpful to you, mostly in the area of increasing your knowledge and skill.

If you have a degree and a year of work experience teaching english (or will have at that time) I don't think landing a Colegio job will be particularly difficult. Having contacts is seriously the way to get a job. I have been gone for several months now and regularly get contacted about private classes and potential jobs at schools that somebody knows about.

The CELTA is no doubt a very good program and will help you understand what you are doing and help you to be a better teacher. If you are working in Korea, the cost wont seem as significant because the money is good there. For people only working in Colombia, particularly if they plan to only work for maybe 6 months, the CELTA is really, really expensive.

If you are searching because you want to know if it will be a specific requirement for you to get a job, I'm going to say no, your year exp. + Uni degree will suffice. If you want to know if I think its worth it, particularly since you are dedicating 2 years of your life to english teaching, I say yes.

[windowlicker]

It will be difficult to find a job teaching legally without some kind of certification. Look through the Colombia forum more...I think this question has been discussed in detail in other threads.

[G22]

Just remember that a CELTA will set you back at least $1500 US and takes a month to complete. You have to kind of evaluate it yourself as to whether or not it would be useful to you or not. If you don't plan on doing TEFL very long then skip it imo.

[CarolinaTHeels]

I know all about the cost and benefits of the CELTA.

And I know I can easily get a job at a Language Institute w/out a CELTA.

Im just unsure on how difficult it will be to get a job at a colegio without one considering ill have a 4 yr degree and 1 yr ESL experience in Korea.

[spanglish]

Colegio work is pretty tough and CELTA isn't very good prep for it. A CELTA would probably help you get a colegio job, but it'd be more helpful in terms of getting uni work. With some luck you might be able to land a job at a uni, but it might take another year or 2 of experience and contacts to get that.

[AGoodStory]

[CarolinaTHeels]

[JonnyBravo]

[windowlicker]

[CarolinaTHeels]

Thanks for the responses guys!

Im thinking the best way to land a colegio job is to hit the ground and go to EVERY colegio in the city and talk to the school director & handout my CV.

Try to find one that will get me a work visa.

Then after landing a colegio job and a work visa, go to every University in the city and see if you can get a second job.

Then I guess If I simply cant find ANY colegio or University job after searching NUMEROUS cities than go ahead and get Language Institute job.

BTW how much should I expect to make working at a colegio?

I know that Language Institutes usually pay by the hour

[spanglish]

Not a bad plan...colegios and unis will depend a bit more on timing than institutes, and you'll probably be working 45-60 hours/week at a colegio job, (plus a fair bit of stress) so forget getting a second job. I would recommend IH before a uni job for your plan. They're not the best, but they'll pay you enough to get by and leave you with plenty of free time to dig around for other jobs. They'll also get you a work visa.

Colegio pay....2-4 million, depending on experience and luck.

[JonnyBravo]

I'll second Spanglish's Colegio Salary assessment. I knew one guy making less than 2 million at a colegio in Bogota and it was universally agreed he was getting ripped off. I'd say 2.5 is normal. And yeah I think Uni jobs are a dead end chase for most people, most of the time.

The big difference in getting Colegio jobs is that they typically start only once a year and are year-long contracts. With a language school there are a couple of down months, but you can often arrive and begin anytime and you work month to month.

So it partially depends on when you arrive. Somebody correct me if i'm wrong on this, but I think most Colombian schools start in September and end around June, similar to American/Canadian schools (again, I'm referring to Colegios.) I also think I've heard of some schools down out of the mountains (and possibly on the pacific side) which start in January. Fuzzy on the details here.

[CarolinaTHeels]

Darn, I wont be finishing up work in Korea till the end of August.

[CarolinaTHeels]

Guys.

Im leaving Korea a lot sooner than expected and moving to south florida before I head to Colombia.

Do colegios start in september or august?

Im thinking the best time to go and start the job search would be in june or july.