Job Discussion Forums

[moonraven]

Socrates was clearly much better educated than any one of us on this board. Education does not have to be formal--but if you don't learn anything from your informal or formal education, you will not be able to educate anyone else.

You know, that allshould have been obvious.

[Chris_Crossley]

I have met many a cynical TEFLer, whether or not they were working at the school I was then working at (I'm at my third school here in Wuhan), who just laughed derisively at the idea that TEFL is a "profession". However, their cynicism was more to do with their perception of a lack of "proper" professional development (they don't count a put-together-at-the-last-minute weekly seminar on how to teach young kids the alphabet - just because the school principal demands it - as "professional" enough for their liking) rather than with either the clientele or else their formal or informal qualifications and background.

Some posters have said that, just because one has a master's degree, one cannot reasonably expect to get higher pay. I have an MBA and I am presently teaching at a school where a number of my colleagues have doctorates. However, in a way, this is as "high" as we can get in terms of TEFL in China, as we all are engaged in preparing graduates, (some) final-year undergraduates and pre-undergraduates for undergraduate and graduate study at British and Australian universities.

However, this job is not for the underqualified or inexperienced: entry requirements are quite stringent - a master's degree and at least two years of teaching adults EFL are expected. I plan to take an MA in Education (or MEd - I can choose the title) with the Open University from February 2006 and I may remain here for at least one year after I finish. If I do, though, I do not expect to receive extra pay because of the master's degree (though it would be good if I were to, obviously!) as the only higher position here other than lecturer is being centre principal (CP), though all staff are encouraged to apply for CP posts every year.

I can count myself extremely lucky indeed to have landed this job, having worked for EF for two years and (at a lower salary) for a public-sector primary school for one year. I had decided, even before working for EF, that I would make TEFL my career, even if I am also qualified to teach in state schools in England with a BEd degree. Hence, I consider myself very much a teaching "professional" as teaching is my career.

However, not everyone will be fortunate enough to be in a position where their qualifications and experience are recognised for what they are, especially if one is dealing with a TEFL "mill" where what is more important to the local management is a foreign face and a native English-speaker, but good jobs are out there in this field, even if they are very few and far between. It can also be a question of proverbially putting your foot in the door at the right time - which can also result in a stroke of luck.

[shmooj]

[fluffyhamster]

[lumber Jack]

People wish to believe ESL is a hoity-toity profession so that they can tell themselves that they must necessarily be better than younger teachers and act with according pomp. That isn't true, so try to live without that crutch.

ESL is an amazing opportunity to travel, deeply experience other cultures and open some doors though. That should be enough.

[Gregor]

Yeah, this IS a good thread. Respectful posts! No one screaming at anyone yet! And in THREE PAGES???
Impressive.
I'm not going to change anyone's mind, but I have to come down on the side of "alternative" education, also often known as street education, the School of Hard Knocks and so on. That counts as education. So do repeated trips to libraries over the years. There is no reason that you can't educate yourself, even to the doctorate level.
I wouldn't give someone the license to perform bypass heart surgery with a self-education, but I WOULD hire a teacher who could demonstrate that they can teach me what I want to learn, and I would, given the authority (and in a sense, I am, and I do this), issue teaching licenses to people who could demonstrate the appropriate level of education and could convince me that they were dedicated, decent and responsible teachers.
When I say that, in a sense, I have that authority, I mean that I am a DOS at an English school, and in my previous position, I and my boss had contacts sufficiently high up in local immigration that we could get legal working papers for anyone I chose to get papers for. And it is with this experience - with real, live teachers, no hypotheses at all, real, honest-to-God experience - that I have formed strong opinions about what qualifications are the most appropriate for entry-level teachers.
In order of appropriateness:

1a) Good, face to face TEFL (Trinity London does the best, to my surprise - I'd have expected CELTA) and a degree
1b) TEFL and no degree - I have never been able to see a difference between these two catagories of teacher. None at all.
2) Degree, no TEFL, but some experience
3) No degree but some experience
4) Degree, no experience
5) MA in TESOL, and classroom experience, and you can safely bet the farm that I will be checking those references
6) MA in TESOL, no experience yet

The first 5 are teachers I would hire, in the order I would prefer them. Number 6 wouldn't get the job. Also notice that I didn't mention the diploma/DELTA - they wouldn't be taking entry-level jobs. They would be DOSes or coming in at a higher salary, even if from a different school. Unless they had just decided to lay back and do an easy job and not wear themselves out, in which case a diploma holder would go to the top of the list...and I'd still try to take advantage of him/her if I could.
Also notice that I don't distinguish between a TEFL holder with and without experience - this is because I want to train the teacher to do things the way I - and my school's students - expect them to be done. Everyone on the list will require more or less the same amount of training.

As for me - I never earned a first degree, certainly not a master's. I have a Trinity Diploma, and I've had official translations done in China, Japan, Indonesia and I'm still waiting to hear back from Korea, but so far, I qualify for any job that requires a first degree, and a few that ask for master's degrees. It's not good for all jobs requiring masters, because it doesn't translate as "a master's degree," but rather as "a degree somewhat below a doctorate."
I've had people take offense to that and accuse me of "pulling the wool over someone's eyes." This is because they have spent years, and thousands of dollars or pounds or whatever on their degrees, and I didn't.
And I don't care. I love my job, I have been doing it for years and years (ten, to be exact), and my students all love my classes.
I have finally started to relax about this issue. I like my job. I have been upwardly mobile for a while and I haven't reached an age ceiling yet. AM I a professional? Who cares?
So I'm a TEFL teacher. I'm also a drummer. Not a real teacher? Not a real musician? Well, I never set out to BE a musician. Just a drummer.
And I never set out to be a teacher. I wanted to be an ex-pat, and to make a respectable living without being in constant debt or relying on friends of family for my well-being. TEFL helped me do that, the very day after I finished my certificate course. It was instantaneous gratification.
What more could I want? Beautiful wife? Nice home with an already-paid-off mortgage? Got both of those, and I just turned 40. I could retire NOW if I wanted to. Man, oh man. Ask your American professional teacher friends about THAT.
I'd say TEFL is a great career, and if it's done right, it CAN be something that the alternatively-educated can still do.
In America, I'd be flippin' burgers.

The point of all this is:
A) You don't have to be a university degree holder to have something - maybe A LOT - worth sharing with students. Frank Zappa did his fair share of university music classes, and he was COMPLETELY self-educated.
B) and more important - Someone on this thread has already mentioned the qualification of being able to deal with living in a foreign culture for an extended period of time. No university in the world can teach this. Neither can they teach what any DOS needs to have, and that's the ability to spot this quality in inexperienced teachers. I can spot that quality OVER THE PHONE. That alone makes me worth my salary to my boss. These are real world considerations. THAT is what this industry needs to be about.

[lumber Jack]

What makes you so sure you are doing a good job? What makes you the fountain of all wisdom? It's easy to climb up the ladder to DOS in China. The ability to put up with it all counts for most, as you say.

A good number of people with a app.ling MA also have a Trinity/CELTA, and hopefully that will apply to me two years down the line. I don't suppose I'll be a worse teacher then, but I might be getting a little less tolerant of silly DOS people with each passing year. And that does seem to be what they hate.........

If you hold to the bizarre opinion that the one month course is worth more than any experience, is it because you wish to mould and control your staff? Or perhaps the institution where you serve is especially suitable for the energetic and knowledge free?

[Gregor]

HA!
Hey, Lumber Jack. Nice post. I really don't know (or really care) why you want to be so pissy to me. But, OK, how do I know I'm doing a good job? Call it old age. Confidence. Professionalism. I care about my students, and they react to that.
The teachers where I work, when I got here, were at odds with the management. They had no idea what was going on. I have given them (and the management) direction, and I've managed to help them to communicate better.
I've already managed to improve test scores, teacher/client communication, and, more to the point, morale among the teaching staff.

If you have experience teaching in the field, then an MA or whatever isn't going to hurt your chances of getting a job with me. (And it IS me and my kind that you will be asking for a job.) It's the people with all education and no experience who are useless in the trenches.
And "in the trenches" is where I am. The pay is crap, the BS level is high, and some days - MANY days - most decent ESL teachers wonder why they bother. This is NOT academia. This is, ultimately, what offends you, and that offense (and your grander-than-thou attitude toward higher education) is EXACTLY why I wouldn't hire the likes of you for an in-the-trenches job. You would simply not be suitable.

Entirely by the way, would you happen to be Canadian?

[moot point]

Wooo. I've been holding my breath and hesitated to respond to this post but Gregor you've reminded me of someone I once was.

I, too, was once a DOS in charge of about fifty or so teachers. That said, I think most DOS's are just white monkeys fronting their money-seeking companies.

No disrespect...

[Gregor]

"No disrespect." Right. NICE.

You're missing my point. This is a respectable way of earning a living. I grew up poor, so maybe that's why you and Lumber Jack are so superior to me. I don't know.
The way I see it is that the teachers I'm here to help - and that's my job, to help the teachers AND to help the management - are getting through their teaching contracts with their self-respect in tact. We KNOW, full well, that the "school" we work for is a business. It wants to make money. I know this, and the teachers know this. It's no secret. it's not MEANT to be a secret.
OK, so you WERE a DOS, just like me, and now you are better. You're cured. Good on ya.
At he moment, though, there are still plenty of people going into TEFL, for whatever reason - gap year, classroom practice before becoming a "real" teacher, at odds with the world around them and not sure what to do with themselves, retired and want something to do, or any number of other reasons. My job is to: 1) make their teaching experience tolerable, and 2) help them work within the system we are all in, so that their experience is positive as I can make it and the school continues to make money.
I know what my job is. I have no illusions. I still think it's a job worth doing. If I do my job well, then it benefits the students, the teachers and the business. It's not easy to please all of those people, but I can see good reason to try to do so, AND, I can do it. Not many people can. I am proud of the job that I do.
Does that make me more simple than you? Does it just make me a simple person? I don't really care. I know ME, and I know what I know and what I can do. The reason I defend this career is because I think it IS a valuable service, to all the people involved.

Now, what do YOU do for a living? As I have said before, my job, demanding as it may be, is agreeable to me. I LIKE it. In addition to that, I have a very nice home life, and I have paid off my home, already. In fact, my property value has doubled in the last YEAR. That is a HUGE return on my investment, I would say.
Why do you think you can get my goat? What ideal job do YOU have?
Are you married? Do you love your wife? Are you living where you want to live? Do you like your job? Do you HAVE a job? if you can answer "yes" to all of the last five questions, then you are in a VERY small percentage of human beings. If you can answer "yes" to those questions and still think that you're better than me, then GOOD ON YOU. Those things are what is important to me, and I HAVE them.
Am I a white monkey fronting my money-seeking company? My teachers might actually contest that. I don't know. Again, I don't care. As long as they are happy in their jobs and my money-seeking company is happy with their performance, what difference does it make?

[Chris_Crossley]

[Gregor]

Good post, Chris.
Thanks for not attacking me.
I am well aware of some of the power-trip people in this business, both CM and DoS. It makes no sense to me - how much power do they imagine that they wield? Pathetic, really, but I know it's true. Those people exist.
I don't work for those types of people. I don't even work WITH them. Their existance is the very reason I took on such a BS job as DOS in the first place - because I KNEW I could do a better job than a lot of the clowns I'd worked for in the past. I've known some real psychos, as I'm sure have you.

Of course, that last post of mine was directed primarily at people like Moot and Lumber Jack. They seem to be taking pains to make sure that I feel as shabby about myself as possible, and I don't want to just drop off the sight because I don't want other people, especially newbies, to read their posts and get the idea that they "won," and that I DO feel shabby about myself.
I couldn't care less what they think. But a lot of people read these forums and I want to sit here in defense of what I think of as a rerwarding career worth doing and getting into, for the right type of people (quite clearly, THOSE boys were NOT the right type of people, and that is probably their problem). I'd hate for someone to think, "I'd really like to get into this...but I don't want to turn into THAT kind of person, or have those kinds of experiences when I get older, so forget it!"
I want to show a brighter side to this life, as you have done with YOUR last post. Thank you for that, sir.

[Chris_Crossley]

[lumber Jack]

I didn't mean to be superior to anyone in my post. After all, I do not have any inferiors, or a TEFL MA. I'm perfectly qualified for Gregor's "in the trenches" school of hardship, and have long experience suffering in those trenches in Asia. A DOS does have inferiors though, and a teacher trainer does, and since nobody in the real world usually gives it to them like it is, us poor teachers have to stick together and give them a spanking when they start preaching about how wise they are on forums like this.

I think basically you are right, Gregor, people with MAs probably don't want to freeze their precious parts off in cold areas of China and work for a education mill school. Your hiring policy may well be wise enough, suitable for that environment. Why make a song and dance about it though? It is just that people like that often have higher expectations, and easily can find a better job. I'm not personally of the opinion that you need a big heap of qualifications to work in a bog standard TEFL place (I even like evil method schools), and I think you may well be doing a great job without them. I don't see any point in knocking people who do want to learn to do their job better though, and get some studying done.

[Gregor]

Oh, I don't have anything against education, as such. I'm all in favor of it. Who WOULDN'T be?? Did I sound like I was against education? No, no, no, what I MEANT to say was that I am against educated PEOPLE.

(That was a joke.)

(Sort of.)

I just meant that, in the job that I have been doing for years, and now hire people to do, I have encountered a lot of educated people who are not prepared or willing to deal with UNEDUCATED school owners and so on. They have these MAs or MEds and when asked to teach children "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," they flip. And if someone is to tell them that they aren't personable enough or they need to make the students LIKE them or something similar (and perfectly legitimate complaints in a place like where I work), they flip out. They are BETTER than that, by God, and they are not going to be treated like that.

And they are quite right. If that's their attitude, then they shouldn't have to put up with that kind of BS.
But the job, by definition, requires putting up with a good deal of BS, as I pointed out, and these people are simply not suitable for the position. SURELY, if you are in the trenches that I describe, you know what I mean.

I have two main points in this whole thread - one is that those people should not be in these jobs, and their complaints about those jobs are unreasonable. They are simply asking and, evidently expecting, apples to be oranges.
The second point is that, for those of us in these jobs, those of us who have accepted the constraints and so on, and made a life with this career, this field is a perfectly valid, respectable way to earn a living.

As for my prejudice about the one month course being worth more than experience...well, that's just a rule of thumb, but, well, I've been doing this for a couple years now, and I'm not going by mindless indoctrination, but actual experience. THESE people work out well, and THOSE people do not. Simple as that. I can guess at why that is, but I don't need to do that for my own good feelings. It is what it is. That's my mantra and motto, in this job - It Is What It Is. Experienced teachers, with the right experience, are great. But so many have the WRONG experience that I don't trust a resume on face value (neither do I trust a TEFL cert. on face value). I want to talk to the candidate and get more information. I'm just talking about what has been my experience.
And for the "moulding teachers" comment, well, yeah, that's what I want to do. Is that so bad? I want to get the teachers to do what is expected of them. I don't want to argue fine points of educational theory. That's a waste of my time, and I'm far too busy, acting like a clown to get students to come to my school, or trying to get TEACHERS to come to work for me, or dealing with one of my current teachers' culture shock, to give a toss.
I want them to bring their personalities and teaching styles to their classes. I really do. If they DON'T, there's always trouble. Students complain if the teacher is a robot. But still, they have to do things within aframework. Teachers who come in already "knowing" what to do, then those teachers are not going to be successful in this venue. That's all, and that's IT.