Job Discussion Forums

[pabo]

i've taught ESL for 4 years at a uni in korea, and am now teaching at one in Shanghai. i pretty much know everything about the esl scene in asia, but am just starting on my latin america research. i want to make a career out of teaching overseas, and i'm thinking latin america could be my next stop for a few years. i know the money is not great, and neither is it in china (400usd a month, even in shanghai), but i'm more interested in the experience of living in a new country for a few years and the satisfaction of having a good, stable teaching job. i have 5 years ESL experience, a B.A. in English from an American university, but i haven't gotten around to the master's yet. where does that put me in terms of finding a good ESL job at a university in latin america?

by good i mean, enough money to live on comfortably, free or subsidized housing, under 20 hours a week teaching, few weeks holiday a year, and health benefits. i've read through the argentina and chile posts, have a general idea about the university teaching scene there, but was wondering about the other countries in latin america. i've also heard mexico only takes teachers with master's at the university level. i was hoping to find a job before arriving in august or september 2006. any general advice about working at universities in latin america, or any contact info of university jobs would be great. i know latin america is a big place, and i'm not sure where i would want to live, but for me thje first step is finding out where i can get jobs teaching at a uni.

thanks in advance.

pabo

[MELEE]

Its not true that Mexico only hires teachers with MAs in the universities. Heck, even among the Mexican staff, not all the teachers at universities have MAs. I read an article in the newspaper 3 years ago, that only like 25% of the teaching staff at the Michoacana had higher degrees. The general rule in Mexico, is that you need to have at least the level of education the students are working towards. Technically that means you can teach at a high school with out even going to college. Luckily, that doesn't happen very often!

Having said that. There's a lot of competition for jobs and a lot of the applicants you'd be up against will have MAs. BUT, I think there's a lot to be said for your experience. If I had to choose between a recent MA grad with limited teaching experience, or someone with a BA and extensive experience, I'd choose experience.

Another issue, that we are currently talking about on the Mexican forum, is that immigration will want to see something like a CELTA or TEFL certificate, in addition to your BA, especially if your BA doesn't have the word ENGLISH on it. Also, as an American, I know that a degree in English doesn't teach you how to teach EFL, so I'd also like to see that you've had some training, and that you have interest in your professional developement, like have you attended conferences, what new techniques have you learnt recently, what do you personally do to keep learning in the field.

Another thing to consider is that more and more Mexican universities are adopting the style of having the professor on campus 8 hours a day. We only teach 10 to 20 hours a week, but we have to be here 8 hours a day. The advantage is I don't ever take home any work, and I post here quite a bit!, the disadvantage is obvious. As for making enough to live on, I have two small children, my husband (Mexican) is in grad school, I own a car and a house (the Mexican government gave me a no interest mortgage!), and a live in house keeper, and I'm living on my salary, not as comfortably as I was before the kids!, But a single person would do fine here.

As for the other things you mentioned, forget the free or subsided housing. Some schools in Latin America offer this, put usually because they don't pay you enough to live on, so its a way for them to attract teacher at a much lower pay. At a university you'd pay for your own housing, but rent would probably be 20% of your income. We have less vacation, than I've heard teachers at Korean universities get, we get 5 weeks paid vacation, and we have health benefits, but some people perfer to pay out of pocket to see private doctors. I take my children to a private doctor, but have used the social security clinic for my self with satisfactory results.

[denise]

I work at a uni in Peru. A MA is not a requirement, although the director does want us to challenge ourselves academically, participate in workshops, etc. It really seems, though, like he's more concerned about getting the Peruvian teachers properly qualified. There aren't many native speakers on the staff, and we don't seem to be required to work on professional development (although we do anyway, for our own reasons!). I've got an MA, and it has been advantageous because it makes me feel worthy of the "native speaker" salary--apparently we get paid quite a bit more than the Peruvian teachers. I've also been consulted on some non-teaching projects that have been really interesting.

The salary is more than enough to live on here. We don't get paid housing, though, and I'm not sure what the deal is with health insurance. We get four weeks of vacation. There are more than four weeks of breaktime between the terms, so when classes aren't in session we still have to be in the office, or use our vacation time.

Overall, it's a good system. The teachers are dedicated and professional, and the director is awesome!

d

[naturegirl321]

Here where I work not even the director has an MA, lots of teachers don't have a BA, they seem more concerned about the level of language that everyone speaks. Though the majority of us are studying something to get a degree or international cert.
For the original poster, 400usd seems like very little, I made about doublt that in a kindergarten in Changchun two years ago, you just have to search for the good jobs, then demand a higher salary, and they will pay you what you ask for!

[naturegirl321]

Also, look at the LA job links here on this forum. You will find lots of unis there.

[pabo]

thanks for the help everyone. its good to know that there are jobs available in peru and mexico for people like me with the experience, but no master's. my next step is, finding them over the internet.

nature girl, i've looked through the links, and saw a few ads for unis, but its mostly private language schools. is there a link or web page that just advertises for university jobs in the different countries. for example chinatelf.net has this, but i know the market in china is much vaster. i'm just trying to streamline my search. i guess i could also just wait for ad's to come up on dave's.

how easy is it to land these uni jobs over the internet? (assuming you send all the appropriate diplomas, transcripts, references and have a phone interview). or do you have to show up for a personal interview--something that won't be too easy for me from shanghai?

i'm not too interested in the money, but of course i'm a bit realistic--and i realize that the cost of living in mexico, and bigger cities in latin america like santiago and beuno aires is quite high considering the salary. what do you guys think is the best deal with salary when compared to cost of living?

thanks again everyone for the help.

and about china uni's: the universities pay considerably less than language schools or public schools in china. especially if you find one with a good location in beijing or shanghai. the idea being that they don't need to draw people into the jobs with salary--people are happy enough with the location, decent-sized apartments, 3 months holiday, and 12 hours a week. and the abundance of side work for 15-25usd an hour.

[ls650]