Job Discussion Forums

[LiniusP]

Hello Everyone,

I'm wondering what the teaching market is like in Canada (specifically Toronto, or Vancouver). I hear it's swamped, that the waiting lists are endless, and that it's impossible to get a job without a Master's degree in Education. Also, I'm wondering what kind of weight the Trinity CertTesol certificate carries. Any thoughts/comments?

[Gordon]

It really depends on what you'll do. In Vancouver, there are dozens of language schools and if you have a degree and your TEFL cert, you should be able to find a decent school. The more experience you have and your ability to market yourself is a big deciding factor as well. The problem is that the wages are not very good, OK if you are supporting just yourself, have very minimal debts and don't care about saving for your future.

[cangringo]

My husband worked in Vancouver for a short time with a TEFL cert and no degree but he could only get part time. The wages weren't too bad but being part time is not enough to survive on. Vancouver has a very high cost of living.

[TravellingAround]

deleted

[LiniusP]

thanks for the info.

[TravellingAround]

[saint57]

I'm pretty sure that the U of T doesn't offer an MA TESOL.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

University of Toronto (it's not called Toronto University) churns out people with TESL certificates (one year full time programme- the equivalent of an initial training MA TESOL, but without the final thesis) every year, but they ALSO churn out people with MAs in Second Language Education through a different department. Now that they solved the teacher shortage by just cancelling mandatory retirement a lot of people who graduated from the one year B.ed (especially non-Catholic people, because 50% of the k~12 jobs are only open to Catholics) are scrambling looking for a job and are taking jobs with private language schools either in Canada or abroad.

Then there are also a bunch of community colleges that are also churning out these one year certificates, although the community college focus less on theory, and there is an equivalent programme at York University in Toronto as well, but it takes two years instead of one (the DTEIL or something it's called) and all the people who come from further out in Ontario to find a job (people routinely move to Toronto from as far away as Ottawa to find employment, and in Ottawa there are two more of those TESL certificates- one at Carleton University- Carleton also has an MA in Applied Linguistics TEFL and one at Algonquin College) and also Brock U from the other direction which has both Certificates and MAs in Applied Linguistcs TESL as well.

Finally, there are the private TESOL Certificate providers (CELTA, Oxford etc) and some of their graduates are looking for work in Ontario as well.

The competition is definately the reason why the jobs aren't so great, but it's not just teaching or teaching English, it's ***MOST*** things. Canada has a low population but it's centred in just a few cities and instead of the cities growing and more jobs being created (which would take entrepreneurial people- something Canada lacks) there is just increasing competition to get the few non-retail (normally big box companies that are American owned) type of jobs available to recent graduates (who are people who are up into their 40s now because so many have never gotten out of the dead end rut of the short term contract hell just because of the job situation).

[TravellingAround]

You make it sound like all Canada is doing is churning out legions of ESL teachers!

Are they going to take over the ESL world? Soon will all English speakers end their sentences with "eh"?

[Gordon]

[cangringo]

sick of the government

the cost of living going up faster than the pay rates? Or is that just Vancover?

[canuck]

[Deicide]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Multiple national languages within a population that is primarily unilingual (in one or the other national language, or may be bilingual but in only one of the national languages plus a third non-national language) means that people have a greater awareness of language issues.

People are not expected to somehow automatically melt into the dominant culture and so we hear tonnes of languages all the time (the third one I referred to in the last point).

Student debt and lack of scholarships with zero prospects for decent jobs.

In Ontario only about one in ten people who apply to B.ed programmes get in, but there are a tonne of one-year TESL Certificates and B.ed programmes like to see that particular kind of qualification in the experience profile of applicants (plus, in many areas of Toronto- THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD!!!!- you are more likely to be teaching kids for whom English is not their native language than teaching those for whom it is).

If you are male and have English teaching qualifications then your chances of getting a job are about as slim as the slice of crappy processed cheese compared to the rest of the Double Big Mac (called a Mega Mac here in Japan, where it's almost all sold out all the time because the rocket scientists didn't get enough packages and it would be far too complicated to just tell people this and so give them the double Big Macs wrapped in a couple of sheets of the wax paper they use for cheese burgers. It's much better to just not sell them at all!!!)

But of course the real reason is that people are desperate to get out of their $8hour job stocking shelves or being a cash register jockey at a big box store.

[canuck]