Job Discussion Forums

[Makkah]

[In the heat of the moment]

It may be quite common to go directly from a BA to MA to PhD, but with no experience teaching overseas I foresee a significant waste of time and resources if you go that route, then find the expat life is not for you. That happens, a lot; teachers go overseas and after a year (or less) find it's not their bag and return home for good.

That's good advice from nomad soul, I'd go further and say aim for Korea. You only need an online TEFL certificate to work there, and (provided you go to a good school, not a burn-out inducing hagwon) that should give you some good experiences in a classroom. If after a year you still want to progress to an MA (not necessarily necessary in Saudi) you can either get another year in Korea under your belt, or do a CELTA and then you have more choices of country, or do the MA then.

The more experience you have, the better you'll be prepared for Saudi. It isn't like Mecca in the rest of the country, the students will be unlike anything you've experienced unless you've known Saudi expats well, and you can't be online or IRL saying negative things about the government, Royals, religion or Saudi in general when you're here either. BTW I don't hate any of them, what they do with their lives is nothing to do with me.

Ultimately you need to gain a lot of maturity before stepping foot in the Magic Kingdom, nothing against you personally but older and more experienced faculty are usually more comfortable with the restrictive life here. The choice of BA/MA is secondary to that, I've worked with teachers with an MA in photography, applied linguistics, an MBA, teaching certification, and others. What you learn on a teaching or linguistics course and what you actually do in a Saudi classroom can be very different. The experience in teaching you gain before you arrive will hold you in good stead, the certificate is more a visa and salary issue.

[sicklyman]

[sicklyman]

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[mashkif]