Job Discussion Forums

SuperKid2007 · Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Portland, OR

Ok, so the plan is that in February I am heading to Zhuhai, China for a 4-week TESOL Cert Course, followed by a 3 month teaching placement somewhere in the north (paid salary of $1500USD total). Then, since I will end in June, I will be able to travel through a bit of SE Asia, maybe do some volunteering and then come back to start College Fall 08'.

My question is, Is it a bad idea for me to do this since I don't have a degree (just graduated high school)? It's only 1 year off, it just seems after reading many of these forums that maybe it's a bad idea. =-/ I really need some inspiration.

El Monstruo · Joined: 25 Apr 2003 Posts: 6

SuperKid2007 · Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Portland, OR

Hey! Thank You Alot! I actually graduated from Heritage and my mom lives in Vancouver lol

Anyways, yeah I was planning on maybe teaching in Thailand after for a year and then travel for a year and THEN come back for school, but I am also anxious to come back and finish my degree also lol

I am going to seek a Bachelors of Arts in International Studies (needs a focus of Business, History or .. ect) and the language I will study will be either Japanese or Italian, I'm not sure which or if I will do either. Who knows maybe I will fall in love with Chinese. While I am talking about it, is there a specific degree that will make you super employable as an ESL teacher or will my Bachelors of Arts in International Studies end up doing the trick?

Thanks again! =-)

El Monstruo · Joined: 25 Apr 2003 Posts: 6

tedkarma · Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:20 am Post subject:

I've taken a year or two off twice in my life and loved it.

Nothing wrong with stepping out of the squirrel cage for a breath of fresh air every now and then.

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I got the impression from your first post that you already had a job lined up in China. If that's the case--go for it!

Just keep in mind that if you stick around to do extra teaching before going back to college, it will be harder for you to find jobs (no degree, competing against people who do have 'em). Your plan of teaching, traveling, and then going to college sounds good, though.

I don't think being a year behind your peers really matters in college--there are all sorts of reasons people start later, take longer, etc. Who cares if you're 19 and your dormmates are 18??

Having a non-teaching first degree didn't hurt my chances of getting jobs. Really, as el monstruo stated, the important thing is that you have a degree.

d

SuperKid2007 · Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Portland, OR

I'm glad to hear that it does not matter what the degree is, at this point I could most definatly see myself teaching alot after I get a degree. I am just anxious to see the world and everybody in it and this seems like a great opportunity to get a start to it, with no anchors right now, I can come and go as I please.

Thank you sooooo much everyone! Sometimes I feel that I need a bit of encouragement to follow my dreams and I know I'm not the only one. It seems like so many people are against the straying from the 'School-Career-Marriage-Kids-Retirment' path.

GambateBingBangBOOM · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 2021 Location: Japan

As for degree majors, the obvious one from a marketability poit of view is an education degree- but often those are one year programs for after (or occasionally concurrently with your undergrad). English is also highly marketable in Asia, but mostly because so many employers don't realize that studying English Lit and teaching English language, much of which is basically grammar teaching in Asia- there is a huge amount of resistance to anything that wasn't done in in the past, even if the past teachers were ones with no training or experience in teaching language, had never successfullty learned an additional langugage and were basically winging it each and every day.

Another issue is the the most applicable subject matter is Linguistics (that's why graduate degrees in this area are in TESL / TEFL etc or Applied Linguistics- and if you do a university certificat in TESL it is usually housed in the Linguistic department, though occasionally English).

A problem is that if you do a degree in Linguistics- and there are courses specific to teaching second and foreign languages, then that sets you up for teaching English, but then when you go to do a B.ed you sill discover that B.ed programs are for teaching elementary, middle or senior high levels- and linguistics is not a teachable, so in some areas you may not be able to apply for a b.ed at all. In the past the elementary level had no teachable requirements- that's the specialization area, so for math teachers, it's math- they don't necessarily have to have an honours degree in math, but they do need a minimum number of courses in math, and usually you need at least a three year degree in your first teachable- senior high teachers often need to have more than one teachable. Another issue is that even though ESL is increasingly required at all education levels, it's treated as an add-on, so TESL is not a teachable either. The only things that are, are the subjects you take in high school etc- math, biology, English, certain foreign languages- they require much more experience than other subjects and to pass a fluency exam.

One thing to think about with your degree if you are thinking of using it for teaching outside of the US, is that although Japanese is almost definately going to be much, much harder than Italian to learn, the chances of an American teaching in an Italian speaking country (there really is only Italy, including two city-states which are seperate but totally surrounded by Italy, and one canton in Switzerland) is much, much, much lower than the chance of being in Japan, and the number of people who speak English and the generl level of it is much, much lower in Japan than Italy.

My only issue with people who take a year off is that so may of them never go back to actually do their degree. A year really isn't that long, and I know I've 'lost' much more than a year after finishing university, but the difference is that it seems that many people who finish high school and don't go back to university keep have a sort of 'school is for kids' mentality (whereas for university graduates with humanities degrees we tend to instinctively try to go back into university whenever we wnat a change!) and then don't go back. Before taking the year off, they tell themselves they will definately go back, but then they go for a year or less (if at all) and complain that people who graduate high school and go immediately into university are basically just kids (which is true) and that they don't want to have anything to do with that (which is not true, because they end up not getting their degree).

FuzzX · Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 122

tedkarma · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:44 pm Post subject:

Joeys ESL Room · Joined: 31 Jul 2007 Posts: 20

I too think that it is a fantastic idea to take a year off, especially if you have a job in line already. Too many people take a year after university, but to me, a year before university will allow you to figure out what you are dedicating the next 3-4 years of your life to. I went through uni without knowing what I wanted to do when I got out - if I would have gone abroad before I started, I would have done it ALL differently.

Take a break. Live your life. See what's out there for you!

(you will find it)