Job Discussion Forums

[China.Pete]

"Guess I'll have to learn how to become an IELTS or SAT specialist." - Nature Girl

10,000 per month is possible at some language schools, whether you're teaching specialized courses or not, especially if you're willing to work 30 or more hours per week. When you calculate the hourly rate, however, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive.

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[naturegirl321]

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[naturegirl321]

[SnoopBot]

Tagalog, two dialects. I originally took it at the University of Hawaii for a few years and then lived in the Philippines awhile.

One of these days I might become fluent in Chinese too.

Tagalog has lots of Spanish mixed with it, I took a few years of Spanish in HS.

For the degree thing, I just did not know exactly what career path to pick after I retired in 1995. So I ended up doing two back to back.

Looking back maybe law school would have been a better choice.

I've not made back 1/100 of the cost for my education expenses (if I had to repay them, the VA paid for it, so I was lucky)

For China, the MA Ed is considered window dressing, most places cannot tell the difference or do not care. However, having good ability and other skills often gets you extra work and that is about it.

The most interesting point is the fact most International Schools will reject a Masters degree in Education in favor of a BA Ed with Public School teaching license.

Since 2004, the USA's teaching license requirements is a complete mess , especially my state. If I got a teaching license I would need to work in a Combat Zone inner-city school for a few years.

If I got my license and tried to take off to greener pastures they would cancel it. So getting a license to bail out overseas (since 2004) is not an option now.

Only those that were under the old system with perm licenses can do this.\

I'm better off going to the UK, Aus, NZ and getting a PGCE/PGDE instead of a 3 year long masters degree.

However, BA Ed's with public school licenses cannot teach at the Uinversities in the USA and must get at least an MA or Ph.D.

In China the universities are the lowest paying positions while the International schools K-12 are the highest paying positions. The exact opposite as the USA, universities often pay higher than most private and public school jobs k-12.

So this is a good example when a masters degree will not get you a better position compared to a passing of a ESOL praxis exam and public school license with only a BA Ed.

Oh well, such is life.

Oh, if you are thinking of getting a Masters in the future DO NOT get an ONLINE one.

The good paying jobs at the universities in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Middle-East will check to see if it was completed online or not. The first thing the better paying positions outside of China will ask is if the degree was completed online, had a practicum or research component and for at least 1 or 2 references from the teaching staff at the university. I just had an interview for a Middle-East position last week.

The online degree has no teaching practicum and supervised evaluation. This is why my degree was 3 years long 1 year was the practicum, research, endorsements for TESOL, and supervision. The other 2 years was the standard instruction period including a heavy amount of linguistics based instruction.

So those universities that advertise on the TEFL job sites are not worth the time an effort most of the time.

Same with where you get your MBA from, these are a dime a dozen these days too. So don't be lured to go the online route for your masters. Do it the classroom traditional way same for MBA which must be business certified.

[naturegirl321]

My MA is a distance one. It has a practicum and a thesis. But I guess if I want to go to China, it doesn't really matter, MAs usually only get you about 500 more a month.

Also about USA certifications, try NJ, they seem to have lots of loopholes, I've got a cert of elegibility in P� (preschool to grade 3) ESL K12 and Spanish K12 good for life. If I want a permanent cert all <I have to do is teach there for a year and take some classes.

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[naturegirl321]

What state are you from?

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Northern Ohio is my location near the west side (Toledo)

[waxwing]