Job Discussion Forums

[biffinbridge]

I've been a qualified EFL teacher for almost 12 years and taught in England,Poland,the Czech Republic,Qatar and Libya.I've had some really good experiences and met some great people.At the moment I am not teaching.Why not?Because the salaries are becoming ridiculous even by EFL standards.It's insane when positions in Libya are advertised at 1200 quid/month or jobs in Saudi are going at 1600.It used to be that people taught in great places for a decade or so and then went to the Gulf to save a bit but you just can't do that now unless you are lucky enough to work for BAe.EFL is just a series of sideways moves no matter where you are.Rarely is experience remunerated adequately.Once you have kids it's a real struggle.People don't teach because they are money mad but you need to earn enough to live and retire....this industry just doesn't cut the mustard in that respect.
It's not just about the lack of financial reward though;increasingly,private language schools are employing more non-native speakers and we are being sidelined.I've worked in several schools in which the native speakers had no real input,in effect, we were just part of the marketing gimmick and this just gets you down.
In the Middle East teachers are treated awfully as they are in Poland etc but often for different reasons.In Poland the bosses just have bad man management skills,in the Middle East they rarely have any skills.Employers lie about your visas,your overtime,your net and gross rates,your accommodation and god knows what else because often you are at their mercy once you've committed financially to a move overseas.
Maybe I'm being cynical,but I've seen the damage of a career in EFL reflected in the fifty- something -year- old brigade out in the Gulf .Most of them are scr*wed and they know it.It's an industry rife with ageism,sexism,racial discrimination and plain exploitation,which will eventually end when everyone speaks English.The sooner the better.

[saint57]

[guangho]

Conventional TEFL is a dead-end. I have seen Korean EFL veterans, on the peninsula for fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, saddled with kids. a wife and no prospects. But isn't that partly TEFLers fault too? Where does anyone get off thinking that merely being born in a Western, English-speaking country is sufficient for a career? Without skills, education and a sense of responsibility with regards to career development, what does anyone really expect?

[rossttuedu]

In my case I've never really looked upon TEFL as a career choice but more as a segway to other career opportunities. TEFL allows you to travel and live in exotic countries and have cultural and linguistic interaction. This experience can be advantageous to other career paths such as business, sociology, anthropology, or international studies, to name a few. I for one have always wanted to be a teacher, atleast for a little while, but I plan on moving on after a couple of years.

[ls650]

[Stephen Jones]

[Justin Trullinger]

[Sgt Killjoy]

I thin you have to move up the food chain in TEFL and that means dropping the bouncing around from job to job, country to country and finding that one place where you can build up a career. That means eventually leaving the grunt TEFL work and moving into more lucrative services. Maybe managing a school, maybe selling TEFL books for a publisher, maybe doing tefl training, anything that moves you higher up the value chain.

[shuize]

[sidjameson]

Of course working in a language school is no career. Everybody knows that. I mean come on, the equivilant would be a shop assistant complaining that a shoe shop in London wasn't willing to pay her extra for her 10 years experience working in a shoe shop in Manchester.
The most obvious and common way to make TEFL a career is to get on the country you are in"s regular teaching career ladder; public universities, high schools, International schools and the like.

Or stay single and as a poster said on another forum, "get pocket money for life"

[Guy Courchesne]

[spiral78]

Shuize, this forum is for ESL/EFL teachers. People who have 'moved beyond the wonderful world of..." are seriously underrepresented on Dave's!!
I actually know several people who have taken their language skills into foreign service (government jobs), official translating, and international business.

sidjameson makes a couple of good points - to move ahead in our field is most often going to mean that we move into official education - after all, we are educators, right? Or, at least, if we've put in the time and energy to gain higher qualifications, we are.
And that's a great analogy about the shoe salesperson

[White_Elephant]

[sheeba]

[Gordon]

About 4 years ago I came to a crossroads in my teaching career. I had been teaching for 7 years, but only had a BA and a TEFL cert. I was supporting a family but I knew this could not continue unless I upgraded my education. There is no way you can support a family on a language school salary in any country. If one wants to stay in this business long term, you need either a masters or a teacher's certificate, depending on what kind of teaching you want. I am sure every country is different, but this is what I have found in countries I have taught in or are thinking of going to.
I think on the most part, TEFL is a young, unqualified, single person's job. Salaries are too low to attract people with families or for people who want to save for their retirement .