Job Discussion Forums

[tw]

OK, I know International House recognizes CELTA and CELTA only (or is it Trinity). I am going to register for Oxford Seminar's 60-hour TEFL course next week just to give myself a little bit of competitive edge, and maybe I can learn something that I don't know yet. So the question to all of you who is TEFL/TESL certified: which course do you recommend, or it doesn't really make any difference in China (yet), i.e. do most employers recognize any and all TEFL certificates? I wouldn't take an online TEFL course even if the Chinese employers would recognizethem (did consider them until reading some warnings). But that's just the thing, I don't want to shell out about $500 USD on a 60-hour TEFL course and then being told that it's not good enough in China. I would take a longer course but money is extremely tight and so is time.

Thanks everyone!

[burnsie]

I have been teaching for about a year with no previous experience and will just about wrap up my contract. I have asked the management about TEFL and they will provide it to me because I have taught over 500 hours at the school. It doesn't cost you anything. I don't think all schools do this.

I have been lead to believe that it helps but really you don't need it if you have already a degree of some sort.

[tw]

Remember my post regarding FEC application? OK I will come straight out and tell everyone what happened 2 days ago. I was told by my FORMER next employer that my application for FEC was rejected -- even though both parties had signed the official SAFEA contract and I had passed my medical exam. The reason: no bachelor's degree, even though I was said to be a very good teacher at my last school. Nope, no exceptions -- even though this was only a different university in the same city. So OK, rules have changed and regulations have tightened. I can't just walk around screaming and yelling that hey I am experienced so I should be allowed to teach. I will bite the bullet and shell out the money if it means having a much better chance at getting a job. Hell, don't forget the fact that I have a yellow face so it's tough enough already.

[lowes13]

I�ve asked the same sort of question on this forum in the past, http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=25172&highlight=, and at that time I was unable to gain any input so I hope you fair much better.

My thoughts remain the same should you care to read them, good luck.

[tw]

[randerso]

Ok, I'm not really sure what tw's situation is. Are you trying to make up for the lack of a Bachelor's with a TEFL certificate? It seems to me that China is last in line for turning away people based on thier certification - but the trend is catching on. If you look at countries that have had a longer standing ESL market (like Korea or Japan) you'll find that the immigration agencies require Uni degrees (to do things the legal way, anyway). So these countries have started deciding between applicants by certification. On that note, it seems to be ANY certificate that is regarded with prestige. CELTA is, in my opinion, the best training you can get; but it is still reletively new in Asian markets. It's also really expensive and time intensive. If you are planning on staying in Asia (and out of Europe) I'd stick with a TEFL.

I am still confused as to how having a TEFL will help overcome having no Bachelors degree. I don't think that the gov't has changed the law requiring foreign teachers to have a Bachelors, but it may be a growing trend in the cut throat business that is ESL. As for International House - I'm not sure why you're interested in them. As far as I'm aware, there is only one IH is Asia right now. When I worked for IH last year in Europe, I did so with only an online TESOL course and 4 years in the classroom. It seems that just like anywhere else, schools will take what they think they can get. If you try to compete in Beijing or Shanghai, you may have a problem. But go into the boondocks, and you should be fine with or without TEFL.

And I hope I'm not overstepping my boundries here, but this sudden switch of policy from that school may also be a reaction to the 'yellow-skin' you spoke of. It's happened to several of my Asian-American friends that they meet all the written requirements for a school only to be told that they need something more when there is a face-to-face meet. If they don't have that other thing (degree, certificate, experience, etc) a different, white, foreigner is then hired who does not have that extra documentation that was demanded of the Asian-American. Sucks, yes, wrong, yes, but true and rampant in Asain countries.

[tw]

As you said, it's a cutthroat business. A few years ago (especially before it was known that Beijing would host the 2008 summer Olympics) it would've been fairly easy to get a teaching job in most parts of China. Consider the fact that in the West, one would have to have a Master's to be able to teach in a college, and PhD to teach in a university, China was quite easy to get a teaching job (Chinese university teachers need only a Bachelor's). But now, in part thanks to Olympics 2008, China is full of foreigners all claiming to be qualified ESL teachers. It's like any John and Jane Doe with a degree in anything can be classified as a Foreign Expert -- even if they'd just graduated from university 2 weeks ago and had never worked a day in their life. Of course, no EFL certificate can be seen as a make up for university degree. No, far from it. But having a EFL certificate at least will show that I have been trained and not some hack.

The problem here is that people in China keep thinking that anyone with a university degree can teach EFL. Not too many of them would go through a proper interview. OK, so you have a university degree? Good enough, welcome aboard. They don't consider maturity, relative experience, and English proficiency. I am not saying all this as a way to make myself look good. But you know something? Whereas we have been reading about all these bad schools and lousy FAO's, why don't we ask the Chinese to come in here and tell us about the bad FT's they've had? I am very sure they will have a field day. We are talking about the p*sstanks, the pedophiles, and the God-wannabes. During my 2 years in China (especially my first year), I watched and observed the FT's and there'd been times when I asked myself, "How did they ever get a teaching job working in China in the first place???" I would never have hired them myself if I had been an employer.

[tofuman]

tw,

What is your problem? Don't you understand that a bachelor's degree is the minimum educational qualification to legally teach in China? Why are you so intent on doing anything but what is required?

I have been offered several jobs here and am just finishing up my second year. No one ever asked me about a TEFL, CELTA, TESOL qualification.

It rarely pays to cut corners when getting an education. My academic qualifications are quite modest. You may get a job without a degree or an advanced degree, but you will not be respected. It will be just another reason for your employers to mistreat and abuse you.
[edit]
If you don't want to meet the minimum expectation, i.e., a bachelor's degree, get another line of work.

[tw]

Tofuman, I am doing what other people are also doing. In a recent corresponce with a DOS that individual revealed that he/she doesn't have a degree either but has a TEFL certificate. On a government recruiting web site, there were many FT's listed as being college graduate instead of university graduate. Heck, I still see ads from colleges and universities stating that a highschool diploma and TEFL is enough.

So, saying that I am not playing by the rules is just plain silly.

[tofuman]

Tw, You apparently miss the MAIN point of my agenda. You are striving to attain mediocrity. MOD EDIT So a DOS admitted that he/she is not degreed. Are they proud of it? How secure is their job? When someone with a master's in applied linguistics comes along, are they going to do the right thing and offer their position to the better qualified person, or plan how to get rid of them to secure their own livelihood?

[Edit]
If you really want to do China some good, get qualified in a field that will enable you to earn a respectable living before coming here.

[dajiang]

Hmm, lots of hostility there Tofuman.
I don't think there's any need for name calling in this discussion.

Anyway, we know that a bachelor's degree is the minimum requirement at state schools. Some of these don't really care about that and will will hire you anyway, but these schools are usually somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
At private schools you don't need a degree, so that's where TW should go and apply.

I was in a similar situation a few years ago, when I didn't have a Bachelor's degree. Since I'm a non-native speaker I also need a bit more 'competitive edge', and I decided at the time to get TEFL certified at the Boland school. It was a good course, very useful and I feel it really helped me professionally. With the TEFL and my experience at a small private language college I got a job at a private uni in Beijing.

At that point, I felt I got to the limit of what I could reach without a degree. If I would have had a degree, I could have had so many more possibilities. My nationality wasn't that much of a problem most of the time, the lack of a degree was. Now I understand and agree with this completely. I also think that one can be a very good and professional teacher without a degree, but you have to accept the limits to what you can do, if you don't have one.

So, last year I went back to Holland to get a degree in teaching. With all the experience gained I'm cruising right through this course and I'm already halfway (The stuff I learned at the Boland school really helped me here too btw). One more year to go and then I'll be qualified to teach anywhere I want. Also in the first world.

Anyway, TW:
If you do get TEFL certified this will help you in some ways, but it won't really make as much difference as you'd like. The colour of your skin doesn't matter much either. Not having a degree does matter.
The only things that you can bank on are that you're a native speaker, you will have a TEFL, and you've got teaching experience. This will get you into private schools no sweat, but in the long run you won't have much prospects to look forward to. So I'd say get a degree somewhere, while you're still young.


Dajiang

[tw]

[kingofdalian]

There are a couple of TEFL programs going on right now in China. I know of one called The Boland School that is pretty good. They have two locations in Suzhou and Dalian. I went to the Suzhou course last year and found it really helpful not only in preparing me to teach but getting me a job. I still keep in touch with my graduates and they are all doing well. It is a little expensive though so I do not know if many people teaching now in China can afford it. Anyway check it out... www.boland-china.com

[dajiang]

[kazuo62]

It's an interesting concern. I've been teaching in Korea since last August. I agree with tw regarding unqualified foreign teachers. I studied English during my time at university; many of the foreign teachers I've met in Korea clearly have not studied the language that they endeavor to teach; they are post-college backpackers. It's truly amazing. I've met people who still, at age twenty-five or thirty-five, don't know the difference between "they," "their" and "they're."

There are people who bought overnight degrees from the internet or forged other documents to procure employment. Others are, indeed, pedophiles, sexual predators with the Asian Fetish, free-spirits who could not care less about teaching, and, from time to time, teachers who are caught dealing drugs to their teenage students.

Forget that, though. Consider the text books in Korea and, probably, those throughout Asia. They are absolutely horrible. Students in Korea are not taught proper English by any standard (kiwi, Aussie, limey, yankee, hockey player, etc.). They are being given strange colloquial phrases and the most obscure and impractical dregs of our various English-language lexicon pools for memorization rather than being told about the rules of our very disorganized and difficult language.

It is all done in preparation for the college entrance exam that kids anticipate as eagerly as a man would anticipate entrance into the prison at Guantanamo Bay. A large number of young people commit suicide each year around the date of the test.


The Korean English teachers have terrible English comprehension because the textbooks from their own years of education were poorly written by other Koreans who were given authority to write textbooks because of a few years spent studying English in the U.S.A. English textbooks in Korea are still written by Koreans (without imput from native speakers). It is perplexing.

tw, ESL in Asia is a HUGE business. If you look good, have a passport from one of the English-speaking countries that are composed primarily of white people, and present documents that look somewhat like a diploma and two letters of recommendation, you'll get a job. It's heart-breaking, but the free market, while enabling more flexible social class mobility than ever before, is far from perfect.