Job Discussion Forums

wccanuck · Joined: 05 Jul 2009 Posts: 1

Hello,

I am new to the forums, and although my search was not exhaustive, I did not find what I was looking for through the forum search function, and didn't think nitpicking through my search string would have turned up anything more.

Without further adieu, these are my questions, and some background information:

I am a 27 year old Canadian post-graduate with an MA in Library Sciences and a BA in Asian Studies. My MLIS (Master in Library and Information Science) has a focus in teaching methodology and information literacy. My BA is in Asian Area Studies.

I would really like to go overseas to teach in Taiwan or Japan. The reasons for the specificity have to do with a shortlist given to me by my wife based on her comfort levels with moving abroad, (she is a Taiwanese citizen, and Japan fascinates her).

With my degrees and training, what are my chances to find either a high school, college level, or university level teaching job? (If international schools often recruit foreign librarians, please also include any information on this).

Would a TESL certificate greatly improve my chances?

I also have a strong business background Are business English classes/courses popular in these two countries? I have heard and read that they business English courses are popular, but I would still like to hear more opinions.

I am a rather imposing figure (bald head, tall, kind of mean looking some say), would this hurt my chances? This is the reason why I don't include young learners are students of mine, I think there is a comfort level that I feel would be necessary, but would not be present.

I would really love to pursue my teaching endeavors, but also want to know how competitive I would be compared to other applicants.

Thanks so much for any answers.

-wccanuck

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

fregona · Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 18 Location: canada

Hey canuck,

I came across these job postings at the Western MLIS website.

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/employment/lis_us/index.htm

Scroll down and there is a positon for a librarian in Dalian, China. This may not be the exact location you want but you may get a sense of what schools are looking for.

Question...I have been considering a MLIS, library studies. How is the job market in your opinion? Is it worth getting a masters at this time? I have been loioking at Western also. Thanks for any input you may have.

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

Assuming that your goal is to teach English (this being the ***ESL*** cafe and your thread title being about teaching)

For Japan, your masters degree is nice, but irrelevant. Pretend it doesn't exist (that's what a lot of Japanese employers will do!), and then you see what your options in Japan are: you are entry level with no training.

A TESL certificate would help- more and more job ads are specifically asking for them. Sometimes interviewers ask if they were online or if you did them in person. They don't really care about the difference between a CELTA and a year long university program and a month of weekends only at the Y. Some will know what your training is because they are familiar with differences between qualifications.

Appearances ARE very important in Japan, but 'Big scary bald guy' is pretty common here (because of the US military). You may run into slight problems if you were approaching, say elementary schools, but even then it wouldn't be because of the kids, it would be because of some of the teachers. There's a tendency towards female foreign teachers in elementary schools, and because elementary teachers and schools usually have less experience with foreigners than the other levels (other than some private elementary schools that have been running English programs for years) they can be more interested in showing stereotypes- even if they go totally against reality, than other levels. If you show up and they think you're scary looking then they may think twice about telling you to do things that you might not want to do (like never teach Canadian holidays, but teach all US holidays, teach English that is just plain wrong in order to save the face of the person who translated it ages ago, use flashcards that actually do not show the target vocabulary "this is a snow plow" when it's a picture of a steamroller [they FLATTEN the snow so you can drive!] etc)