Job Discussion Forums

ll86 · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:16 pm Post subject: how did you guys start teaching?

when you decided that you would like to teach abroad, how did you guys start off? follow a TEFL course and apply directly to your ideal place? start off at a kindergarten? etc etc....
saying i wanted to start next september, when would be the best time to start applying as i think starting now is way too early.....

suggestions please?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I took a TEFL course in Canada, but hadn't intended on seeking anything solid for employment. Had a volunteer gig at an orphanage lined up in Peru that fell through last minute. Not wishing to suffer another Canadian winter, I found a teaching job in Mexico City and performed a minor re-route.

Still here, and never looking back.

tedkarma · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:21 pm Post subject:

Started by accident. I was in the Peace Corps in Africa and in the second year they start sending you job notices. Saw a few ads about teaching English overseas - and went for it!

I took a training course from the Literacy Volunteers of America before I started - but took many other training courses along the way.

I started in a hogwan in Korea in 1991, but quickly ended up in the college/university track.

Have never looked back. Love the life, lifesytle, and the work.

fancynan · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:08 pm Post subject:

Tedkarma,
In many of the posts referring to Korean positions, I see the word "hogwon." It appears to be derogatory, but what does it actually mean?
Thanks!

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

Hogwan is a language school.

I started teaching 11 years ago in a hogwan in Korea. I had no training or experience at the time, but wished I did.
I started teaching as a means to see the world, I had just come back to Canada from a 9 month backpacking trip through southern and Eastern Europe, so had very itchy feet to get back out there. I found out I liked this teaching English thing so over the years got more training and education and am still at it. Fortunately, my wife and kids like living overseas too.

GambateBingBangBOOM · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 2021 Location: Japan

I took a (year long) TESL certificate course through a university in Canada, during which the JET programme was sold as a good way to start out (get experience living in a foreign culture, see other ways of teaching English) and save money.

I then taught English in Canada for a year and decided that actually having money to eat every day and having someplace to live at the same time would be nice, so I came to Japan with the JET programme, thinking of staying three years, then doing either an MA in Applied Linguistics or a Bachelor of Education and staying mostly in Canada from then on.

I'm now in my fourth year in Japan and thinkng of ways to stay on for much longer, but at some point returning to Canada to do an MA in Applied Linguistics (and then most probably come back to Japan).

So for me, I was interested in other cultures, but really actually coming overseas was more for the work experience than anything else, but that's changed now.

MELEE · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:52 pm Post subject:

I was finishing my BA in Spanish. I had done my junior year in Chile and wanted to go back to South America to see more an work on my fluency before persuing a career in which I would need to be bilingual. (I hadn't gotten around to figuring out exactly what that career was going to be. Wink

) And there was an ad up at my university for Spanish classes in exchange for tutoring English in Ecuador. I wrote to them, talked my boyfriend into it and we were there a few months later. It was very hard to teach English with no training in English teaching, luckily I had kind students and it was only a couple of hours a week. I had a great time in Ecuador, but at that point didn't think teaching was for me. Back in the US, I got a two temp positions receptionist by day, a bilingual telephone interviewer in the evenings. It sucked. I saw an ad for a TELF course, took it and set off for Japan. Turns out I like teaching now that I know how to do it! I've also taken additional course over the years and have now settled here in Mexico.

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I saw an ad for a TEFL course in my local laundromat in Berkeley, California in my final year of uni. I decided that I wanted to give it a try, even though I was so shy that at the time I had a hard time even introducing myself in my small seminar classes. It took me two years of office work to save up the money (TEFL course, moving fees and expenses, plus enough to actually enjoy my life for those two years) and work on public speaking--hooray for Toastmasters! So basically I had two years to get psyched up for the change.

I planned from the beginning on doing my TEFL course in Prague and then staying there to work and live. By the third week of the TEFL course, I was going to interviews, and I had a job lined up before the course ended.

I agree with tedkarma. I haven't looked back, either. It's a wonderful job and lifestyle.

d

ll86 · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 8:25 pm Post subject:

sounds like TEFL training really started it off for you guys....sounds great, think im going to try it that way too, thanks for all your replies, i really appreiciate it.

guangho · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Posts: 476 Location: in transit

TEFL training definitely helps. I started when, after I finished teaching a summer law program, I was hired to work as a copyeditor in southern China. Taught some company classes there and clueless, but amiably bobbed over to South Korea, where I taught for about a year. After that came the CELTA and now I'm in Europe doing an M.Ed.

ll86 · Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:39 pm Post subject:

is there much difference between CELTA and TEFL? what difference does having both of them make?

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:59 pm Post subject:

CELTA is a brand name for one of the best known certs- accredited by Cambridge. (Certificate in English Language teaching to adults)

TEFL is just a general acronym that means Teaching English as a Foreign Language. There is no governing body that controls this acronym. Some legitimate courses use it, but so do some fly by night online cert programs.

You want to investigate the specific program you're considering, to see how good it is. THe initials don't tell you much...

Best,

Justin

ll86 · Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:03 am Post subject:

yeah, I have been researching into all these certificates and qualifications, TEFL seems like the 1 people tend to use in the far east where I am intending to go whereas CELTA seems for more advanced stages.....I even read it was something more the Americans take, needless to say, confusing the heck out of me.....

Have decided to add 'introduction to TEFL' into my current degree programme at Manchester University.......do I still need CELTA following this though?

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

My (teaching unrelated) company relocated, leaving hundreds of us flat. I decided it was time for break, so I chose to come back to Japan where I'd worked and vacationed previously.

In the middle of my TESL certification program, I read an ad right here on this web site, applied, was interviewed in my city, and got the job. A few months later I was in an eikaiwa teaching (with my completed TESL certificate in hand).

Deconstructor · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 775 Location: Montreal

As a university student I volunteered to teach English to refugees and new immigrants in Canada. I had no idea what teaching entailed. It was a way of participating in the community. When I got up in front of those people for the first time, I knew I had found what I was looking for. As soon as I graduated, I packed and left for overseas. I haven't stopped teaching since.