Job Discussion Forums

[rbos]

I'm currently preparing to teach ESL in Asia (probably Taiwan), where ESL teachers can teach with only a B.A. Although I'll be teaching in Asia for the next year or two, I eventually would like to teach ESL somewhere in the Middle East, since I took two years of Arabic in college.

The problem:

-As of yet I only have a B.A. (in Political Science), and currently have no certification (such as TEFL/TOEFL/CELTA). I hope to be able to teach in the ME some time BEFORE I earn a Master's degree or other type of graduate/professional degree. But I've heard that ME countries often require a lot of credentials to be able to teach.

Questions:

-Can someone please help me understand what sort of experience, certification, and college degree is required to teach in various countries within the Middle East? E.g., the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt?

-Will having just a B.A. (in Political Science) with a year or two of ESL teaching experience in Asia be enough to teach in some places? If so, which places? Will some form of certification be necessary to go along with that? If so, does it need to be a specific kind of certification for most places in the Middle East (e.g., CELTA)?

-Do I also need to have a certain amount of years of ESL teaching experience AFTER I obtain this certification? Or is it sufficient for me to have ESL teaching experience, but only BEFORE before I obtain this certification? In other words, is it okay to teach in Asia for two years (as I won't necessarily be required to have certification there), and then to obtain some sort of certification right before I decide to teach in the Middle East?

Thanks!

[helenl]

If you do a search on each country's forum, you should get some basic answers.

I'll give you some basics for the GCC countries - you do not and will not qualify for the better jobs in any of these countries even if you did get the CELTA (a minimumrequirement) - at best you might get an offer from the bottom feeders who are prone to abuse employees, not provide legal documentation, no benefits and may not pay in full or on time

You DO NEED a proper work visa to work in the GCC, most good employers WILL require a relevant masters plus 3 years relevant post grad experience (not conversation but preferably writing and preferably to Arab students).

You might get work elsewhere in the Middle East but the pay and conditions are not as good as for qualified people - but you can get experience teaching Arab students. There are a lot of qualified people with the right letters after their names and with many years of the desired post grad experience in the job market in the GCC right now - even in 2 years I would rate your chances of getting a decent job (not a good let alone desirable job) as slim.