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bograt
Joined: 12 Nov 2014
Posts: 331
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 Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 3:24 am Post subject: |
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| suphanburi wrote: |
| fluffyhamster wrote: |
| You can hardly blame people for not wanting to begin let alone stay at the "entry" level for long given the insufficient wages there (certainly in the West). |
Sure...
but rather than spend $2k + 30 days of our time and get a CELTA then try it for a while to see if we are even interested for more than a couple years....
lets go out and spend $15-40k + 2 years and do an MA... then see if we like to actually teach EFL.
IF you have a couple of years of experience and decide that this is a field that you want to make a career out of..... then get the PGCE, MA/M.Ed/MAT.
You know which area you want to focus your energy on....
My issue is that far too many people want, after a short time, go to mainstream. They do an MA and realized that it still doesn't get them into those mainstream jobs. They needed a professional teaching program that leads to licensure.
There are only those few who actually want to go into research, tertiary work and further academia. For them the MA leading eventually to a PhD does make sense.
I guess what I am really saying is to look at the end goal and choose your qualification path based on that rather than "get some qualifications and hope it might lead where I think I might like to go".
If at the end of the day, the almighty dollar is the goal, then teaching (whether EFL or mainstream) is not a good choice. There are no rich EFL teachers (well... maybe a couple in HK or China) but largely, teaching is firmly rooted in the middle class (economically). |
Yes I'd agree with this. When people ask for advice on making TEFL a career or not I always tell them the earlier you definitely decide you want to make TEFL a career and then what area you want to specialise in, the better. The rich people in TEFL are usually in that situation because they're good at business not TEFL. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| There was a poll a year or two ago in which the majority had obtained a cert before starting teaching, so it's probable that most of those who go on to complete an MA have a cert already anyway. Those who didn't doubtless looked at the entry-level conditions that just their vanilla BAs had got them and realized a cert wouldn't make much difference to that, so they scraped and saved two or three times what the cert costs and put it towards that MA instead (as they can be done in a year FT in the UK for one). Sure, openings may still be small even with the MA, but at least it keeps you busier for longer, and holds out higher hopes. I'd also wager that even the more generic of them help things gel better intellectually than any cert. As for PGCEs, mainstream teaching has been made so spectacularly unattractive that people are bailing before even getting full QTS, and those who do ones like the ESOL don't seem to view it as much of a qualification ultimately (even compared to the supposedly low standards of ELT). Anyway, it isn't your money so why worry either way? At least it's helping keep MA tutors in work! |
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