Job Discussion Forums

[chode]

Hi folks,

I�m a 31 year old german and I want to go to Canada next year to make a TEFL-Qualification at GLOBATESOL-College.
Later on I want to go to Japan to find an English teaching job.
I alleady know about problems for non-native speakers to find a job over there but I�m convinced my english will be good enough to give it a try.

But I still have some questions:

1. Does somebody know GLOBALTESOL?? Some good or bad news about it??

2. Do you really think I�m having a chance at all to find a proper job in Japan?? Do you think it will be easier to get a job at the big schools like NOVA??
I even heard NOVA is hiring German teachers as well, especially at the Multimediacenter in Osaka. Could it be a good idea to start there as German teacher and later on to try to get an English teaching job too??

3. Does somebody know www.findateacher.net or www.findstudents.com?

They say if you let your profile there, Students will find you to arrange private lessons for all kind of languages.
Is this really a chance to find private students?? I could teach them German and English...
Has anybody some experiences??? Is it legal??

4. Can I get a visa for Japan just to teach private students??

Thanks a lot for some answers!!!

Sweet as

[Glenski]

I believe findateacher.com etc. are legal, but the trick is that you may have to offer your services at a fairly low fee, and you need to continue to update your profile so that it stays at the top of the active pile.

No, you cannot get a visa just to teach private students. You need an employer to sponsor you for a work visa, which means providing contracts and tax records to show they are legitimate and that they can guarantee a certain salary.

Since you are German, you may have the option to get a working holiday visa, depending on your age. No sponsor needed. Look into it.

[Willy_In_Japan]

I do know that Interac (an ALT dispatch company) has hired Hungarians and Bulgarians in the past to teach English, so, I think that a German with TESOL qualifications could probably get hired.

[24601]

We have several german teachers at NOVA's MM centre.

But yes some places do hire non native speakers.

Personally, I would be *pissed* if I was learning a language from a non-native speaker. I'm not saying that is right or justifiable but it would piss me off to pay money to someone to teach their non native language.

[chode]

Thanks for your answers guys.

24601: I know what you mean. Generally you are right!!
But in Germany some germans give english lessons at "low level" schools as well. and the students know before who is teaching. Hey...students have the choice which course they will take...
And maybe some non-natives can be better teachers than some natives. I heard some schools will take (nearly) everybody who is a native and has a college degree. Dont know if theese guys are the better teachers....
I�m not sure if I have the skills to teach english yet. But I will do my best to get what is takes to be a good teacher...


If you get hired by a language school in Japan, do they let you give private lessons?? Can you make an arrangement that you teach just part-time to have time for private lessons?? Is NOVA so cool??

Are the germans at NOVA working at the Multimedia Center in Osaka or in branches??

Lets have a big week!!

[canuck]

There are Germans working at Nova at both the MM Centre and certain branch schools, as well as French and Spanish teachers.

Your best bet is to come over to Japan working for Nova or another school that hires you to teach German and while here, look for a school that is willing to hire you to teach English. It's not impossible, but much more difficult, as your competing against native English speakers.

[johanne]

[TokyoLiz]

24601,

Woah, that is a really damaging thing to say. Many highly qualified and experienced language teachers do not speak the target language as their mother tongue, and many of them speak it at a near-native level.

Where I worked in Canada, ELT teachers from the former Yugoslavia consistently performed as well as their mother tongue English teacher colleagues. Their students said they had a great rapport with learners, having challenged the language themselves, and were very good at giving both grammatical explanations and meaningful contexts for lessons. That's not to say the native speakers that I worked with weren't great, too.

I'm with Johanne. It's a waste of money to learn a language from a native speaker who doesn't know how to teach. You'd be lucky to go to a 'graduate' of the language, someone who learned the nuts and bolts from the beginning, and has put the time and effort into learning how to teach a language.

Sheesh.

[cornishmuppet]

There's a German girl who works in my prefecture as a JET, and she seems to get on perfectly well. Also, when I did summer school in England a couple of years ago my boss was German. I didn't realise at all. I asked her one day if she was South African, because that's what I thought the accent was. I'd never picked a single flaw in her English. Her winter job was as Director of Studies at an English school in Italy.

Re Findateacher.com - I'm on there. Have been for a year. I've got one student out of it, who pays me a regular 4000 an hour, though the lessons do tend to overrun. Otherwise I was contacted by one other person and had many two more take my details and not contact me. That's not much, but I live in the sticks and am not prepared to drop below 4k for a private. I have a mate who used to pick up the timewasters, the 'well, actually, I'd like to pay you 2,500 an hour. Is that ok?' (after two or three lessons) types, but he needed the money. It seems totally legit and I imagine you could do well from it in a big city, though of course you have a lot of competition from other teachers.

[womblingfree]