Job Discussion Forums

[Alcazars]

I am curious about teaching French in either Korea or China. I speak fluent English (8 years and 2 university degrees from the US) but since my passport is French I am not able to get a visa in Korea to teach English. I have done lots of internet searches but it is always only ESL that comes up. Supposedly Korea has the second highest number of people learning French (after Vietnam) so there must be opportunities, right???
Or how possible is it for a non-native speaker (with native speaker ability and accent) to get an ESL job?
Any help on this would be greatly helpfull...
cheers

...I don't have a French as a Foreign Language Degree (the TEFL equivalent which seems to be not necessary in Korea or China anyway...)

and I apologize to the ESL purists that seem to haunt this board for posting a question regarding the teaching of French

[dmb]

Is there a French equivalent of TEFL and TESL?

TFFL and TFSL? It's more difficult to pronounce. Maybe that is why English is the international language

[dyak]

Hmm... this raises some important issues:

1. Why are Koreans learning French?

2. Should they be allowed to massacre such a beautiful language?

3. I've heard a Korean speaking Italian, is it worse?

[XXX]

Why don't you try Dave's FSL Cafe? If there is a second language that the Koreans are willing to pay to learn it is Japanese, followed by Chinese.
Why would the Koreans want to learn a dead language?

[Roger]

Tout a fait possible ici en Chine!

The Zhongshan uni in Canton/Guangzhou is cooperating with the Goethe Institut of Germany and the Alliance francaise in France; I happen to know a French professeur de francais who taught there; those European partners top up the meagre salary paid by the Chinese, and thus, they make quite decent salaries here.
However, the management is as bad as in any other regular Chinese school.

Another place would be the Alliance francaise de Canton; check out their website and find more locations in China.

Your Chinese French students will be studying French as their second foreign language; in general this means their English is pretty good! I can corroborate this as I have had a few dealings with speakers of French, Italian and German.

[nolefan]

it's very possible.

With this being the year of France in China, the language is enjoying a sort of rebirth here. I came across a few adds for universities in ANHUI province looking for 2 native French speakers just last month.

check the archives at
www.thatsbeijing.com

[ContemporaryDog]

[quote="dmb"]Is there a French equivalent of TEFL and TESL?

TFFL and TFSL? It's more difficult to pronounce. Maybe that is why English is the international language [/quote]

Wouldn't the French one be called Enseignant la Francaise a les Gens de Langues Etrangeres, or EFGLE?

[Roger]

No, ContemporaryDG< SUCH THINGS AS TEFL or TESL certs don't exist in French; you are either an academically educated and trained professeur de la langue francaise, or you aren't.
"Enseignant" is a kind of generic term; not everybody is a "professeur", but at lycee level you have to be professeur to be allowed to teach a language. And that title comes from an university.

[Alcazars]

[No, ContemporaryDG< SUCH THINGS AS TEFL or TESL certs don't exist in French; you are either an academically educated and trained professeur de la langue francaise, or you aren't.
"Enseignant" is a kind of generic term; not everybody is a "professeur", but at lycee level you have to be professeur to be allowed to teach a language. And that title comes from an university.]

Actually, there is a certification to teach French as a Foreign Language: the FLE (Francais LAngue Etrangere). You can have either a simple degree (diplome d'universite) which is two years, in which case you are not a professeur. You can also have a license or master. You add these to your studies of french, and most people take the teachers' exams so that they are both certified teachers (professeurs) et certified to teach french as a foreign language. The problem (in my case) is that I don't have this certification and that all official french jobs (with alliance francaise and the like) require it.

Thanks to all who have replied with suggestions and links. That's more info that I have found anywhere!

[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

Why do you have a FRENCH passport, instead of a EU passport?

My suggestion is for you to contact the Universities directly in Korea and see if any of them might want to contact you for possible positions. You can easily freelance English lessons also on the side and make good money.

There is a need for French teachers in China. I know of French people who do this. There is a University here called the Zhejiang University of Science and Technologies that teach various foreign languages like French and German. I have also seen good paying company (non ESL) jobs that require basically a speaker of English and French.

Senor

[ContemporaryDog]

Yes, my brother in law's university has an English teacher, a French teacher and a Japanese teacher! I've heard more and more frequently lately of people teaching languages other than English.

[nolefan]

[nolefan]

[MW from thatsbeijing]

[Deconstructor]

I just googled this. If you're interested in teaching French in Japan, check it out.

Bon chance!



http://www.jobsinjapan.com/jobs/teaching.html