Job Discussion Forums

[globalnomad2]

Ditto what Glenski said. I might add that when I was in Japan, it was a serious stigma to have a language school on your resume, in the sense that you'd never get a college job after that. I can't tell you how many times Japanese I met in the city would perk up and suddenly become nice to me when they found out that their assumption that I was probably a language-school teacher was wrong and that I actually taught at a university.

So personally I would avoid language schools like the plague, especially in Japan and Korea. Maybe an MA first is the way to go. I got extremely lucky after my MA in EFL; my first job was with SUNY-Buffalo in kuala Lumpur. This was a World Bank-funded project and not only was the salary great, it was tax-free, with free housing, and even single lecturers got to live in huge villas by themselves. This set the stage for my being a spoiled pampered brat and I got really bummed out when I wound up in the Middle East (but at least the UAE is comfortable and free enough).

I would recommend Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and Thailand as the premium places to work in Asia. Singapore doesn't need any salaried English teachers, generally speaking, but I have a friend who made out well by freelancing as a Business English teacher to companies. KL is wonderful--you'd have a blast there, but salaries are low and I wouldn't take a job for less than RM5000/month ( a little under $1300) although that is well above average for that country.

Hope this helps a little.

[Glenski]

[coffeedrinker]

I'm not going to pretend I know much about Asia - I don't. But while private language school may equal conversation school there, this is not the case in Eastern Europe and I suspect plenty of other places, so I wouldn't make that assumption everywhere.

Still, this doesn't mean private language schools are necessarily good places to work! Like any place of employment you need to find out what a school is about if you're thinking of working there.

I realize it might be hard to find all of the things I listed before in one school and of course not meeting all of those "requirements" doesn't make a school a bad one - but these are just things I would want to compare potential schools on.

While I agree that a new teacher cannot expect to get the best job ever, there is still lot of room between taking pretty much any entry level job that's available and trying to make the best of it...and trying to make an educated choice about where to work. Again, obviously I can't speak for everywhere in the world, but I feel that there are entry-level jobs that are better than others and some that are better suited to a person's interests than others.

[saint57]

[globalnomad2]

Saint. Can I ask where you work? Do you work at one of the British or Australian universities? Troy State U in Malacca was offering up to 9,000. I really didn't know that lecturers made that much in KL nowadays. I figured about 3500 for the local ones.

[Stephen Jones]

Burngirl will start near the bottom because she doesn't have the experience. Happens in all jobs.

[burngirl]

Thank you so much everyone, for giving me an idea of the situation in various countries. Glenski your advice was particularly helpful!

And goodness, of course I will start at the bottom, I never meant to imply that I wanted to head off to Japan and become a university lecturer in my first year By "a range of teaching experience" I suppose I meant the opportunity to teach 5 year olds, 8-12 year olds, and maybe some adults.

I had thought, apparently correctly, that I'd probably have to take a job with JET or a private language school, teaching conversation classes. I expect that after the first year, regardless of where I end up, I will want to move on to a public school job with my new-found classroom management skills in tow.

I suppose I have a new question then - do you think it's a good or a bad plan for a completely inexperienced new "teacher" (keeping in mind I'll only have tutoring experience, and a CELTA) to jump into teaching in a public school, having no idea how to manage a classroom and only a theoretical idea of how to plan lessons? I've been scared off by the prospect of being completely green and having to cope with 40 students.

[Glenski]

[Stephen Jones]

Start off in a language school if you already have the CELTA; it's what you have been trained for, and it will be of little use in a high school with forty kids in the class.

If you are interested in different age ranges then a language school should offer you 7-70.

Wherever you end up at though, don't expect much mentoring. Places with good academic management are few and far between, and they will have little difficulty in attracting experienced applicants.