Job Discussion Forums

[Phil_K]

[KingEric]

Good advice, well worth adhering to. I read a journal article on the subject recently and it got me thinking, that's all.

[soapdodger]

Thanks Phil, that's nice to hear. Personally I'd like to think I'm an average bloke who sees things as they are. Whoever said travel broadens the mind would have choked on their words if they could see what EFL throws up, sure enough. We're the same age, and I like to think it's an age thing, people will grow up and move on in their outlook, trouble is that only a very small percentage of people do EFL for a long time...hence some content problems in forums from time to time.

Where am I? Central Europe, and although my family is here I don't see it as the end of the road.

[justin032]

Soapdodger and Phil K, I actually completely agree with both of you. I wasn't arguing that getting an MA would make you a better teacher, just that it would be more likely to get you a more "career like" position. In my profession I have to sit through tons of seminars and continuing ed. courses. I don't feel it makes me any better at what I do (most of the time anyway) but I do it because I have to keep up and to make my resume more appealing, and that's it.

[KingEric]

What, then, would you say people with ambitions in TEFL can do to genuinely achieve? Is it out of the question to expect to make good money? Should we expect to have to look for satisfaction elsewhere?

[spiral78]

I make good money. I've 10 years (nearly) of experience in the field and invested time and money in an MA TESL/TEFL - and paid other dues in many ways....
But my work is challenging, interesting, and well paid these days.

Or else I turn it down.

[Phil_K]

[fraup]

"Any person with average intelligence and a sound grasp of how it functions can teach their own language and there is a limit to how far you can try to imbue it with intellectuality before the exercise becomes farcical." (Notice he doesn't claim this person of average intelligence can teach it WELL. )

Does ambition mean "getting a secure job with benefits and a pension"? I know several ex-teachers who now are working for governmental agencies or NGOs in the education field. You can't get more secure than a government job--unless you're an elected official!

I would hope that any EFL teacher would want to "move on" in some way, to avoid getting bored and burned out. Get qualified to do teacher training. Take some business courses and start your own school, if you're in a country that allows foreigners to do this and you really want to deal with all the headaches that entrepreneurship brings. (I've done this, and am happy that the 60- to-80-hour weeks are long past.)

Or if, like a number of successful writers, you're doing EFL while you write your first novel, get busy and finish it. (FYI, here in the U.S., November is "National Novel Writing Month"!)

[Jetgirly]

I'm doing my B.Ed right now, trying as hard as I can to turn a Language Arts specialization into an ESL specialization (this will never be formally recognized, but I'm doing what I can by attending Pro-D events, volunteering with international students at my university and doing multi-cultural extra-curriculars in my practicum). Right off the bat, I got bad vibes from my professors for saying that I wanted to teach for several yaers before moving into educational administration or curriculum development. Clearly, if you didn't dream of teaching until the day you died, you weren't going to be a good teacher. I absolutely DO NOT see myself in the classroom for the rest of my life, but career advancement does seem to be a taboo subject within the public school system. It's like we're supposed to feel honored just to be hired on a subbing contract.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[John Hall]

For those who claim that ESL is not a career, I would like to point out that it is a career for hundreds of millions of people in the world. As the most widely spoken second language in the world, English is taught by citizens of their own countries. Sometimes their English is not that good, but they do make a career of it, retiring with a pension and all of that.

So if you think of international English teaching as not being a career, then "go local": settle down in one country, marry a local, and teach English in a university or some other place where the natives work as professional English teachers with a career. That's what I have done, and I have every reason to believe that my career will continue until I reach retirement age. That's my ambition.

[Stephen Jones]

[John Hall]

Well, okay! Tens of millions? Or millions? How many English teachers would there be in the public school system of India alone?