Job Discussion Forums

[seyz]

Hello everyone,

Forgive me if this comes off as a silly question but I have been thinking a bit lately and was hoping to visit this forum and potentially receive some advice.

I am currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in a humanities field and am nearly finished. I had intended to enter the "academic" job market but my personal motivations have changed since then and rather than continue to pursue a career as an academic in the humanities/social sciences I would like to give a go at teaching English and being a true ESL teacher. I've had experiences teaching languages before, particularly I served as an ESL and modern language teacher/teaching assistant for a total of four years with two different institutions. These experiences have been much more gratifying than serving in the same positions for a humanities/social science department and I seriously want to make an effort at being an ESL teacher after I finish.

Ideally, I would not want to give up being able to conduct research, as that is what my utmost passion is, but I would also like to make a move from conducting humanities research to more educationally-oriented/ESL research. I am quite frankly too far into the game right now for an entire disciplinary change and don't think it would be worth it to do so either. I was wondering if anyone might have any advice for a person that might be trying to make such a transition, or maybe recommend any books or materials that may help, or simply tell me if this a ridiculous idea (if it so is). I have been reading up on ESL teaching methods in my own free time and I am educated enough in linguistics to have a decent handle on the discipline and its relation to pedagogy but simply browsing for books aimlessly yields very hit or miss results. Plus as someone who wants to eventually make a transition that incorporates researching ESL as well, I am further at a loss.

Thank you all for your time and look forward to your responses.

[esl_prof]

What type of ESL teaching are you thinking about doing and where? Your country of residence (presumably the U.K., U.S., Canada or other major anglophone country)? Overseas? Private for-profit language schools? Community education programs? University level IEPs?

Obviously, with your current qualifications you could do entry-level work in a variety of venues so long as you're willing to leave your prospective academic career behind (which, I realize, in this market may not be that great anyway). If, however, you're looking at doing anything serious in higher education, consulting, or administration, you're probably looking at doing a second masters (post-Phd?) in TESL or applied linguistics.

Your answers to the above questions will help us give you more specific advice.

[seyz]

Esl_prof, thanks for your reply.

To answer your questions as best as I can: Primarily I'd like to work overseas. I am based in the U.S. now and plan to spend the next five years or so in East Asia. After that I am not entirely sure. Ideally I would like to be employed with a university. As I do intend to continue engaging in my personal research as well (basically a spin off project from my dissertation), I think it would be best to be affiliated with a university of some sort. I am not worried about my ability to juggle tasks as that I primarily what completing a Ph.D. has prepared me to do best.

In contemplating this, I hoped that I might be able to use my Ph.D., background in language and culture, and extensive research and administrative duties to get into this area of work and then once grounded establish a foundation off of that base. I am also aware that now a lot of universities have ESL programs that are also attached to language, literature, education, or some other departments, so a sort of ideal situation would be to join one of these departments.

I hope this helped clear some things up.

[esl_prof]

Yes, this is helpful. I'd start by posting an inquiry to the General Asia Forum as well as any country-specific forums you're interested in and see what advice the Asia folks have for you. As for using your humanities background to do educational research, that's most likely doable in some form or another. For more information, I'd try posting an inquiry to the forums over at the Chronicle of Higher Education. You might also try checking out some of the numerous Blogs and Twitter feeds devoted to "alt-ac" careers. As you're most likely aware, there are a lot of folks like yourself--either PhDs or ABDs--who have opted out of the traditional career trajectory on the tenure track. Given that the job market for higher education jobs in the U.S. is basically a lost cause, I think you're smart to consider your options for living and working overseas.

Good luck, and please keep us posted on how things go!

[MdSmith]

Hello, just a few thoughts. EAP seems to be a growing field and having a decent academic background can only help, especially for academic writing. It might to look at what kinds of jobs are available that you might qualify for after 3-5 years experience (i.e. after doing tefl at a uni in east asia).

I too have postgrad humanities quals and am considering going in this direction at some point. From the research I've done I think I would need to do an MA TESOL to get the better positions, perhaps after a couple of years of getting some more tefl teaching experience.

Hope that helps, good luck!

[MdSmith]

... also just to mention I've seen jobs for social science lecturers in unis in places like China advertised, and also positions that combine this with eap... good luck