Job Discussion Forums

[cnthaiksarok]

[desertfox]

cnthaiksarok - you have made some valid points. Every piece of language acquisition helps when Teflers are seeking jobs.

You are right - if one has spent a substantial amount of time in the same part of the world, then one's cv should include or reflect that some effort has been made to learn the language, or aspects of it.

We do after all put ourselves forward as language teachers, notwithstanding the fact that many teflers often fall into this type of career rather than seek it out.

Good luck with the MA by the way. You are doing the right thing.

[cnthaiksarok]

Cheers desert fox...or may I call you "Blanford" ?
Awfully nice of you to say.

And yepper - it's the right thing,..never too late to learn - never too late to up the quals, either.

[siologen]

[Lord T]

All this talk of 'culling' is starting to make me nervous.

I suppose we have to ask what it is we can bring to the job that
someone on a lower salary can't.

[cnthaiksarok]

[Balzac]

[Balzac]

[desertfox]

All the posters who have emphasized the importance of upgrading qualifications are absolutely right to do so.
It is vital, especially in the current economic climate, falling oil prices etc.

However, there is one qualification to the argument that needs to be made. The job market in Saudi Arabia (I can't speak for the other Middle Eastern countries, but I dare say it is similar), is highly dysfunctional.

I work alongside a chap who is armed to the teeth qualifications wise. Everything and more that one would need for a teaching job, up to a DOS. When he applies for jobs he gets bags of interviews and bags of interest. He also gets bags of promises, very few of which come to pass. He gets very few concrete offers, that is the reality. He therefore continues to earn, for example, the same as I do. I am somewhat less qualified than he.

And I think this is where the problem lies. The OP's friend who has the BA in Anthropology, in my view has probably "got away with it" for years. Namely, that he got lucky once when the job market was a lot easier in Saudi and found a decent paying position. My guess is that through buttering up those who were supervising him, he saw absolutely no need to upgrade any qualifications that he had. He probably viewed it as a waste of time because he felt relatively secure and comfortable in the position he was in.

Now that the economy is contracting, chickens are coming home to roost. He can't complain. Like others in the world of tefl, he has had a "good run.'
But time to go.

[siologen]

[nomad soul]

[scot47]

But a degree in English Literature is ? Personally I would give preference to the graduate in Anthropology !

I would have more faith in someone who has read Evans-Pritchard on the Azande and less faith in someone who had spent three years reading Sylvia Plath !

[siologen]

[siologen]

[plumpy nut]