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In the heat of the moment · Joined: 22 May 2015 Posts: 393 Location: Italy

Hello all,

I have an unrelated bachelor's and CELTA, plus over a decade of experience in TEFL. I'd like to look towards working in better schools and universities or possibly international schools, and doing a post-grad qualification will be necessary.

I'm from the UK but would like not to return to study there, even if it was for only a year. The problems are I'm just not really happy when I visit the UK and I'd have to pay foreign student fees. I'd gladly look at unis in Europe or further afield as long as the course is taught in English. I don't want to study online as many countries don't accept it.

If you're a native English teacher but studied overseas I'd like to hear how it went, how much it cost, and how employers reacted after you graduated. I've added a poll to see if this actually is a thing or I'm chasing rainbows. Thanks in advance.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

In the heat of the moment · Joined: 22 May 2015 Posts: 393 Location: Italy

yurii · Joined: 12 Jan 2017 Posts: 106

What subject can you teach? Ok you might not be interested in the UK but they do offer extremely generous tax free bursaries for shortage subjects such as MFL, Science, Maths... which can go up to 25,000 pounds (then you deduct 9,000 GBP for the PGCE fees) which basically amounts to a salary. Is UK really that bad to suck it up for 10 months?

It's kinda impossible to do a PGCE in non-UK Europe unless of course you speak the local lingo. This is pretty obvious given that teaching licenses are for local teachers teaching local students (I work in a French middle school and wouldn't have gotten my job without decent French). On top of that in countries like Spain/France the PGCE is vastly different to the UK whereby you basically prepare for an exam and depending on your grade/your competitors' grades you're put into a selection and could be sent anywhere in the region (or even country) and placed in a school (you don't really have a choice). It is a bit of a weird scheme where you could be from the north of France and be sent to the south for a school (in theory anyway). Also, in France for example, the starting salary for a recently qualified teacher is ridiculously low and you could be put in an awful awful school, have to suck it up before being able to move (you need to build 'points').

yurii · Joined: 12 Jan 2017 Posts: 106

For the record, if you want into good international schools you will more than likely need to do it in the international school's home country. Naturally this is because they want teachers who've studied and know their national curriculum. If you look at the majority of international schools worldwide I'd say the top three are most probably American, British and French (if I'm wrong somebody please correct me!).

Anyway, regarding the TESOL I did mine in the UK but do remember before enrolling that The University of Groningen, in the Netherlands offer it in English.