Job Discussion Forums

[Meowwow]

I want to work in hong kong. Should i spend my time working for three/four months in china or getting a tefl certificate? What is more important for employers in Hong Kong?

[Serious_Fun]

[anninhk]

I think it all depends on your first qualification. If you have a degree in English, for example, you can teach on the SNET scheme without a TEFL certificate but you would need one for the PNET scheme (in theory). I also think that experience teaching in a primary school is very helpful for the PNET scheme which expects the teachers to be able to disseminate good teaching practices to the teachers.
I have no experience of language schools but probably a TEFL cert would help with your application.

[hkteach]

A degree is highly regarded here.
It doesn't matter if you don't know your a***e from your elbow, if you've got a degree, you are well-regarded.
To clarify - the local teachers have degrees (in education) but what they know about teaching and learning could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Zilch. Zip. Zero. Anybody who thinks it's ok to keep P1 kids working throughout the day 8-3.45 (sometimes working through all breaks) needs to give up the game (and a good hard slap as well).

[11:59]

Well, that is a tough one! (Starters for 10, fingers on the buzzers, please!) Which is the more important to 'employers' (i.e., tutorial centres, language training centres, primary schools, secondary schools, sixth form colleges, vocational training organisations, adult education centres, and universities) in Hong Kong? A three or four month stint in a backward Third World State in which the sole requisite qualification for employment seems to be a pulse (though of course some white skin is always an advantage), or a poxy bog-standard (presumably monolithic) TEFL certificate, such as, for example, an online certificate from Mr Blog's no-observed-lesson-element online shop, a CELTA, or Trinity Certificate?

Of course, there is a third possibility, and that is that the most important quality sought by employers in Hong Kong is the 'ability' on the part of prospective employees to know how and when to capitalise letters when writing and typing. (Who knows? Perhaps this is how people here earn their Saudi-like salaries.)

Well, I give up! Tell me, what is the answer? Or can I pass it over to the other team for a bonus point?

[Jenice]

Having TESL or TEFL would be much better in apply for the NET vacancies in schools.