Job Discussion Forums

[Gawain]

Poll: What are your thoughts? Unable to find a good job in USA, I�ve been thinking about returning to EFL globetrotting. But at age 42, I conclude this would be a foolish mistake, for reasons best explained by this blistering indictment against the EFL Career:

http://education.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2004/01/17/teftefl17.xml

http://www.englishdroid.com/guestarticles/cresswellturner.html

After reading above links, please answer poll, and PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE RANGE�it makes a difference! (20�s, 30�s, 40�s, 50�s, 60�s)

Strongly agree. EFL is not a career, just a way college grads can fund global backpacking. Anyone who mistakes EFL for a career is a fool. This poll will be skewed, since most teachers quit EFL but won�t answer this poll because they no longer read Dave�s Forum!

Agree. Karl Marx is right. Marx warned in DAS KAPITAL that owners always take maximum profit. Owners charge students $30 per hour, keep $20, and toss off $10 as teacher�s wage, or even less. As Marx said, the value of the product has nothing to do with the labor wage. Oversupply of EFL backpackers allows owners to pay slave wages, or less, regardless of the fortune they charge students. The market is getting saturated.

EFL can be a career, but like any career, it must be carefully cultivated. Too many use EFL to escape McJob misery in their homeland, then wonder why they get stuck with EFL McJobs overseas. There is no escape: Developing any career takes effort.

Disagree. There is huge variation in EFL jobs and it is absurd to dismiss the whole industry just because one job is bad.

Strongly disagree. EFL career has been very good to me. Back in my homeland I never would have enjoyed the freedom and high quality of life that my EFL career brings me overseas. EFL is a great career!

[Justin Trullinger]

Well, doesn't the Karl Marx objection apply to most fields? Owners take advantage EVERYWHERE, not just in EFL.

One suggestion would be to get out of the for profit, privately owned side of TEFL. There are NGOs, non profits, public universities, and many other places one can teach, especially if one gets properly qualified.
I am in my 30s and am enjoying myself immensely, as well as having a job that I feel good about doing.
Disagree. (And by the way, the "owner keeps 70%-90%" is possible in some markets, but not in others.)

Regards,
Justin

[ls650]

Strongly disagree. Late 30s.
I don't understand the hand-wringing some people do over this. It's a job like any other. You can do well in EFL or you can become a disaster - it's no different from any other form of work.

[Cardinal Synn]

I disagree too!
People who get stuck in sheeiiite jobs time and time again (or more than once) should have a good long look in the mirror.

[Gordon]

Disagree. You have to make a career work for you and get the proper qualifications if you want to have a satisfying job in this industry. If someone can't find a decent job, they need to take the necessary steps to change, either change their attitude or get some more education.

My age? mid 30s

[denise]

I disagree, for many of the reasons already stated. People who take themselves and their jobs seriously can do just fine. People who enter the field expecting it to suck might find that it does indeed suck because they have the wrong attitude. Oh, and of course getting trained and qualified makes a difference.

My age? Late 20s.

d

[moonraven]

Disagree. If you really an educator, you will find decent opportunities in the field.

If you used to sell shoes in a strip mall, and think the world owes you a better job because you speak English, lots of luck.

I am 60.

[Gawain]

Yo Moonraven, I�ll have you know I aint sold no shoes in months no how. I be sure aint no type ta git a Master�s Degree in Linguistics. I gots a Bachelors in Humanities but I gots ta git out of USA to avoid paying federal tax that funds WWIII, at least until Noam Chomsky wins the White House in 2008....


Well this poll of course is skewed, because teachers who quit EFL in disgust, such as myself, wouldn�t bother reading Dave�s Forum.... I mean

�... Any man desperate enough to sell himself into bondage in the first place had pretty well shot his wad in the old country.... Drifting became a habit; with dead roots in the Old World and none in the New... Bondage too became a habit, but it was only the temporary kind. They were not pioneers, but sleazy rearguard camp followers of the original westward movement. By the time the Linkhorns arrived anywhere the land was already taken�so they worked for a while and moved on. Their world was a violent, boozing limbo between the pits of despair and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. They kept drifting west, chasing jobs, rumors, homestead grabs or the luck of some front-running kin.... It was a day-to-day existence, and there was always more land to the west.... Texas is a living monument to the breed. So is Southern California. Algren called them �fierce craving boys� with �a feeling of having been cheated.� They kept moving until one day in the late 1930�s they stood on the spine of a scrub-oak California hill and looked down on the Pacific Ocean�the end of the road....�

Hunter Thompson on origins of outlaw biker gangs, HELL�S ANGELS

[distiller]

It's been said before, even by me several times, but I guess it bears repeating that you can make TEFL a joke or you can make it a well paying career.

A lot of people seem to think they can cruise into TEFL with no qualifications or experience and live the high life. You may be able to get a job but not much of one.

You want this to be a serious career? Then get serious! Get a first degree related to education or English, get a certificate/diploma in TEFL or a masters while gaining experience, teach in your home country and then go abroad. You will be a commodity capable of getting ridiculously well paid international school jobs and the dream of living abroad and having fistfuls of cash will come true. How many times do we need to see these "I have no degree, no experience, no money and am not able to count past ten. Can I get paid to hang out at the beach as an English teacher� posts?. One would not think that one could have an unrelated degree or no experience and training and get a good job in any other field so why do people think it is so in ESL? Because you speak English? Don't let your western hubris blind you to the fact that the best jobs, and there are a lot, go to the best-qualified and experienced teachers. I don�t have a problem with people wanting to piss around seeing the world on a shoestring using TEFL as a means, I did it for a while, but I have no sympathy for those who bemoan the lack of progress in their TEFL careers when they have done nothing to improve themselves as teachers or their marketability.

[Gordon]

Amen distiller. You hit the nail on the head. I

t is like a revolving door on this forum where people complain about their lousy job, yet they have no qualifications other than being a native English speaker and possibly a degree in an area like sociology. A degree does not mean you can teach, but that you can think and stick through something for 4 years.

[Gawain]

I have a Bachelor's Degree, Teachers License certified to teach public school k-12 in California, taught public school 5 years, then taught in Taipei Taiwan 3 years, in 3 big bushibans and the best public school in Taipei, armed with a TEFL from New World Teachers. And I am here to warn newbies EFL career is a ripoff and dead-end.

American public school teaching is also a ripoff and deadend. Constant disrespect from urban yuf for lousy $28,000/year, plus all your "free" time is spent in continuing education courses to keep license valid and qualify you for a raise to $29,000. Hell with that. America love it or leave it. So I left it.

My $1,500 TEFL cert now worthless since New World Teachers College disappeared without a trace.

My public school gig in Taipei was great, $25/hour, until the currency devalued and $25 overnight became $17. And they refused to give me a work permit, claiming it was illegal. I was put in detention and almost thrown in jail renewing my visitor visa. "We know you making money here! Where is work permit? Who you work for?" Ha! I work for your own $#^&$%& government school which refuses to give me your #&^%$ permit!

My big bushiban schools gave me the work permit. Then they started forcing me to come in for Saturday kids and early morning "businessman breakfast" and late night "Businessman 1on1," meaning I was working from 7am to 10PM 6 days a week but only paid 15 hours a week. "You do what we say because we sign your work permit!" I told them go to hell and tore up the permit.

I don't see how anyone can call it a career when you are paid 15 hours but obligated on call for 50 hours.

Many agree with me. In the Brazil forum, one dismissed a newbie saying, "Teaching is for fools. I hated it. I know a dozen expats in Rio and they all work for corporations and they all say they would never teach again."

In a Newbie forum post Deconstructor warned:
"For the life of me I don't understand why you want to become an EFLer. It seems that you already have a nice career. I suppose then that you really hate your career and are in search of something new. If this is the case, teaching English is a great adventure (by the way, I'm not 23 and am almost your age) but you can�t take it seriously because it is not a stepping stone. It leads nowhere...."

And the infamous English Teacher X, of englishteacherx.com, has spent years shouting that EFL is a joke job strictly for drunkards with a taste for foreign prostitutes. Good ol' ETX is an EFL lifer teaching in Russia, and his thoughts on this joke job have been banned several times from Dave Forums. When I posted his quote last week, I got immediately deleted and warned by Mista Kaluguchi. But I agree with ETX more than anyone else in this forum. His view explains why I went to Taipei expecting a lifelong career yet wound up back in SFO 3 years later angry and broke with nothing but the clothes on my back.

EnglishDrone, the link in the OP, agrees with me and ETX: It cannot be a career if you are running all over town working hour here hour there, at the mercy and whim of amoral capitalist bushiban owners, who you are forced to work for to meet your visa requirements.

There may be thousands who agree with me, tore up their TEFL, and vowed to never teach again, but they will never visit Dave forums. When I was an American public school teacher, we were taught that 50% of all new teachers drop out within 5 years. I can only imagine the percentage is much higher for EFL teachers who pack in and fly back home.

It would be a good career if we lived in a free world with no visa requirements. Imagine how wonderful it would be if we could sell the full price of our labor and actually make a decent living without border police threatening to jail us. "Imagine no visas, I wonder if you can, no owners no slaves, above us only sky...."

You trust fund kids globetrot but have parents and funds to pull you out of any disaster. How did you pay for those Masters Degrees? I tried several times and didn�t even come close to the savings required for Masters tuition. Perhaps you are Europeans enjoying subsidized graduate tuition. Must be nice to live in a meritocracy instead of a plutocracy. As for me, I�ve got only enough money to pay for a few textbooks. Tuition? No way. Uninsured in USA, my last emergency room visit cleaned out my bank account, all $300. Masters Degree? You kiddin?

For me EFL was pure escapism, a chance to break my chains of American wage slavery and live in a righteous nation. It worked for a few years, then failed like the Columbia Space Shuttle on re-entry. I think that�s what happens to the majority of EFL expats, but they don�t post on this forum.

I meant:

English Teaching "is not a profession or trade. It�s a cheap catch-all for %$#%# and misfits, a filthy #$#^&% little hole, nailed off by the building inspector, too small for a man to actually live in, but just big enough for a bum to curl up from the sidewalk, and %#$%@#$%&@#."

--Hunter Thompson

[denise]

Trust fund kids?!?!? How did we pay for our degrees?!?!? Loans, loans, loans. Mommy and daddy did not help fund my travel/teaching escapades. I am in debt up to my eyeballs now, but it was worth it because TEFL is my career.

I sincerely hope that people who think that TEFL is a joke do not stick around long enough to drag down those of us who take it seriously. Do your two-year stint, see the world, have your adventures, date the locals, gripe about your host country, and then go home and get an office job. Those of us who care about teaching will keep on going. I might never be rich, might constantly have to explain to the folks back home that what I do is, in fact, a "real job," etc., etc., but hey, I have chosen this field for myself for a reason and no amount of other teachers' complaints will make me doubt my decision. Some of us do this because WE ENJOY IT.

d

[Cardinal Synn]

Don't rise to the bait guys!!
Don't you see the irony of what's his name's comments ( the one who thinks Hunter S Thompson is a great prophet or Jesus or something) on this forum? Most of us are EFL/ESL teachers, so are clearly not likely to agree with someone who comes along and tries to troll the sh1t out us with the same old pile of smeg about EFL being a non-career.

[Gordon]

Yes, I agree with Cardinal about the BS post. Some of it true, but a Master's degree is hardly elitist. Of course many cannot afford them, but there are more economical choices, you can work in more lucrative countries, study distance mode, save up and then it may be affordable.

Do I think teachers in NA get treated like crap, yes I do, but it doesn't mean it is like that everywhere.

[Mouse]

Gawain, I think you may have missed the point of doing a poll. Posting a series of questions and then 'ranting' that the results are skewed because people who agree with you don't post on this forum seems rather... pointless? There are people who think as you do, even on this forum, but there are also people who disagree with you. Take a moment to read all the posters that have taken the time to carefully reply, consider what they're saying, and try not to dilute your arguments with more flaming (what on earth has the question of European plutocracy and American meritocracy, a highly debatable notion at best, got to do with your arguments?!)

As a vast over-simplification, people love to complain and to hear complaints (like the writer of the 'Slavery' article who felt the world owed him a living because of his Oxbridge English and French degree). Articles which malign a profession are more attractive to editors and audiences than ones which don't, and honestly, I don't care if they're posted. A fewer dissatisfied and less qualified teachers out there may benefit the job propects of the others (and may not)...

In answer to your inital question, I'm a law graduate in my late twenties and I've made English teaching my career. I've worked in good places and bad places, but my current lifestyle is very comfortable and I've managed to save for everything I have off the back of English teaching (parents are manual workers in the UK): for example, I had a house with a swimming pool in my last job and I'm just starting flying lessons in my current one. I don't think that all, perhaps even the majority, of TEFL jobs are good ones, but good ones do exist, you just need the qualifications and experience to get them.