Job Discussion Forums

[skinnedchicken]

hi,

i'm going to do a weekend tefl certificate this summer before i go off teaching somewhere, and i'm basically wondering where's best to start, as i'm just totally freaked out by the thought! (but we must face our fears, ey?)
i have a degree, but no experience teaching.
i've heard rumours, such as class sizes in china are huge...?
i have dreads and i've been told that this might be a problem in some countries....?

also, is anyone actually gonna hire me if i don't have any teraching experience? there seem to be an awful lot of qualified esl teachers out there!

cheers, thanks for any help, it's muchly appreciated!

sei xx

[Girl Scout]

You have a degree, that's the basic requirement for getting hired. Since your interested in China, your chances are even better. The weekend TEFL course, although unnecessary, will help you feel more confident in front of your students. Some class sizes are large. I teach at a small private college. My class sizes range from 25-60 students. Every school will be different.

About your dreads, as long as you look clean and neat there should be little problem. If you have an interview or need to send a picture I suggest you pull them back off your face. Tha's what we did with my husbands long hair.

[younggeorge]

Is there any chance of doing more than a weekend course? Although a degree might get you hired, training in the classroom has a lot more to do with how you cope in the job.

[grwit]

I teach in a small city in china and I began with short hair but now my hair is long. My boss keeps telling me how cool I look and if he wasn't the head of the english department he would like to grow his hair the same as me. As far as appearence I was told on the first day that I can dress and look the same as I would in an Australian classroom. Which basically means anything is ok.

I did the TESOL course and most of what I learned is completely impractical in a chinese classroom. Using technology to aid your lessons... yeah right all I have at my disposal is a blackboard, a box of chalk and my wits. Preparing group activities for a small number of students.... hahaha my classes are all over 50 students. You can find just as much useful teaching material on this and other internet sites for ESL teachers.

No teaching experience shouldn't be a problem. Self Confidence, an out going personality and good organisation skills will help you. Last year the other 3 foreign teachers I worked with had no experience and they seemed to do just fine. Sure you might have to wing it for the first week or so until you get use the the classroom environment but after that you'll get the hang of things.

[Chris_Crossley]

Be aware that there may be plenty of people who have CELTAs, Trinity Certs in TESOL and suchlike, whereby one has to undergo a course of about 100-120 hours of class tuition and include about six hours of practical teaching. Such people may view a weekend certificate course as being totally and utterly not worth the paper it is printed on, since there is no way to cram all that study and teaching practice in during a weekend.

The chances are that, even in a private language chain school, your application might go to a director of studies (DoS), who already possesses such a qualification. If so, he or she just might bin all those applications from people who have only a certificate from a weekend course or else no certificate in TEFL of any kind at all.

I have, in the past, worked with people who had not gained any TEFL qualifications at all. Some could do the job quite well, while others were scared totally witless at having to face up to 50 students in a class in China, whether adults or kids.

One person who came to work at the Chinese primary school that I worked at for a year was ready to quit on just his SECOND DAY. He had quite literally packed his suitcases and was ready to go when everybody, including Chinese staff, sat down with him to discuss his problems. It was a completely new world for him and definitely not what he had been expecting. Fortunately, he settled down and I never heard anything that suggested that he could not do the job. Ultimately, he did stay one whole semester, so I guess that it must have been the shock of facing all those Grade 1 and 2 kids!

Hence, teaching people with even no TEFL qualifications is do-able, so long as one is able to tackle the job head-on from the start. However, you never know just who is looking at your resume and how qualified they may be. Having said that, I do not believe that TEFL jobs in China are in short supply no matter what qualifications you have (or have not) got!