Job Discussion Forums

paulc510 · Joined: 26 Feb 2011 Posts: 6

I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused. Let me try this again.

I have lived in Osaka, Japan for quite a while and made some good connections in the country(as well as some other Asian nations) in terms of people involved with English language teaching. They've told me that if I wanted a job over there, they would start me off fairly well because they know my work ethnic and they know I am serious about teaching and learning. Many of these people own their own English academies and have been living in Asia for 10+ years.

However, I am not sure if I'd actually want to take one of my connections up on their offer. Maybe I'd like to go out on my own and see what I can do and do something much more independent.

Also, I am not very sure where people have gotten the impression that I would drop out of grad school and then go do this. This is my alternative plan if I fail to make the graduate programs that I really want. This way I can spend a year getting teaching experience, studying languages, studying for the GRE again, and passing certifications. What I mean by studying languages is that I am already quite proficient in several languages. That is what I do in my spare time. Currently I haven't taken any actual language tests like the JLPT or the KLPT or anything like that, but if I am not in graduate school and taking a year off to teach, I can focus on passing these exams much more and strengthen my resume in this way.

Also as I said before, even though I don't necessarily want to be an ESL teacher as my main job, I would love to do it as side work or help set up or strengthen ESL programs at colleges. Right now I am a volunteer T.A. with the ESL teachers on my college campus because funding is so low. The teachers on my campus aren't even getting paid for their ESL work because of the budget cuts and I am helping them out. So while I don't actually want to be an ESL teacher in the long run, I certainly want to be involved in someway with ESL courses and programs, even though I want my area of expertise to be in a different field.

Unfortunately I am still uncertain as to where I would like to go. It would be easy for me to take up one of my connection's offers in East Asia but I might want to go some place else; maybe Russia, Mongolia, South America, or something like that. Or if I do make a graduate school or decide to stay in America, maybe something like teaching ESL part time or on-line or during the summers or something like that would be good for me too. I'm certainly not getting involved with ESL for the pay so I do not really care if the pay is the bare minimum.

I hope that this has cleared somethings up and now I can get some advice on what is best for me.

artemisia · Joined: 04 Nov 2008 Posts: 875 Location: the world

Actually you really have already been given some very good advice. The point made about further study is that if this is something you want to do then taking time out now is risky. The risk is that one year abroad can easily become two/ three and then you might meet someone and so on... However, I appreciate the fact that you�re waiting to find out whether you�ll be accepted or not into grad school and, if not, want to use the time in the interim to pursue teaching and private study etc. You could look at interim options in the USA but I don't see how that would involve language teaching without recognised quals.

There have already been several threads on online certs vs on site courses. http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=86796
I�d recommend on site because I think it prepares you better for the reality of the language classroom. I don�t think qualifications are a waste of time and getting a recognised cert may be useful in ways you don�t yet know about. Certainly it will be good from the point of view of your (future) students unless you already know a great deal about English grammar and comprehensible ways of explaining it.

Finally, I�d suggest you spend a bit of time reading the posts in the individual country (and regional) forums here and see if you can narrow down where you�d like to go, always bearing in mind passport restrictions. You�ll get a sense from that of what it�s like to be an EFL teacher in that part of the world.

paulc510 · Joined: 26 Feb 2011 Posts: 6

artemisia · Joined: 04 Nov 2008 Posts: 875 Location: the world

I meant I understand you want to work out relatively short-term options if you don't get accepted into grad school this time round. Those options might include working overseas or possibly staying in the US, until such time as you reapply for grad school again - assuming that's what you want to do. By mentioning staying in the US, I was referring to this part of your initial post:

Zero · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 1402

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

Zero · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 1402

Are you independently wealthy or something?

Here's what I advise regarding graduate school. The thing is, you mentioned three different majors. What you want to do with your life? I suspect you don't know. So it's a bad idea to go to graduate school, unless money is no problem.

Here are the questions to ask:

-What do I want to do for a career?

-Does this career require graduate school?

-Will the money I can earn with the degree justify the investment in dollars-and-cents terms? (Don't forget to factor in opportunity cost, too.)

-If not, do I have compelling nonfinancial reasons for going?

Remember, until you know what you want to do, you don't know if you need to go to graduate school or not. And therefore it's not worth the investment of time and money. Graduating with a ton of debt and no decent job offers is not my idea of a picnic.

Master's degrees such as the ones you mentioned are not prone to paying off. Graduate degrees in engineering, nursing and some other fields are.