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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:33 am Post subject: |
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yes, I meant lived.
Here in Cambodia there aren't CELTA courses.
So I t hought to get it in Muscat, but I simply can't efford to pay 1000 Omr for the course + the flight ticket + the living expenses for the first 2 months. It's too much.
Nomad, correct what you wrote, but I still have teaching experience and I'm currently working as a teacher, so I'm still gonna give a try. There must be a way. I'm not looking tto teach to Universities, but to kindergarten and preschoolers! |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:07 am Post subject: |
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sandrina85 wrote: |
Nomad, correct what you wrote, but I still have teaching experience and I'm currently working as a teacher, so I'm still gonna give a try. There must be a way. I'm not looking tto teach to Universities, but to kindergarten and preschoolers! |
Frankly, I wasn't sure why you were looking at the CELTA since it's geared for adult learners. International schools in the region want to see teaching qualifications and education specific to children, which is your challenge. You have to meet the school's requirements instead of the school adapting to you, especially when they can choose from others who are credentialed teachers. |
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balqis
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 373
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:39 am Post subject: |
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1. You can do CELTA at the British Council in Oman.
http://www.britishcouncil.om/en
I knew teachers who were teaching with me at a uni in Oman and doing CELTA in Muscat at the same time.
I think it is quite not that uncommon in KSA too, and if I remember rightly, KSU in KSA employs teachers without CELTA and make them do CELTA as part of the employment deal. Some potential employers may view it as plus point, especially that in Oman BC has very high reputation.
In your CV and Cover Letter indicate clearly that this would be your intention for working in Oman, which is doing the CELTA course.
For now forget about doing any on-line course if you really mean to work in the GULF countries.
Prepare your CV the great clear-cut and full of edges Armani style, and then send it out to schools and language institutes in Oman. And see if you get any responses.
As your long-term goal, you may think of moving up from early education/language institutes to high school or even college/uni later on. This is not impossible in the longer run, i.e. with experience at the right places and intelligent moves on your side job-wise.
You may/should also think of taking an IELTS course and conclude with the IELTS exam with BC. This should improve your selling points. Better than IELTS would be CAE or CPE exams.
Perhaps it will be easier for you to anchor yourself in Oman if you combine doing CELTA with teaching English. As I said some employers may be sensitive to such path.
Hope for contributions from other teachers on this forum when the weekend finishes i.e. from Sunday onwards.
balqis |
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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:48 am Post subject: |
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AH! ok, I could do that for sure! and yes! I'm all ears if someone else want to suggest me something else/some specific primary school!
Otherwise I can alternatively do a bartender course and work in a luxury hotel in Muscat ah ah ah (just kidding) |
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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:49 am Post subject: |
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What's KSU? And KSA? |
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balqis
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 373
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:59 am Post subject: |
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KSA - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
KSU - King Saud University, its biggest and oldest university in Riyadh
This forum is not often frequented by primary school teachers, though you never know. And besides, it is still out of season' time of the year so not many of the regulars who visit this forum quite often seem to be in Oman, judging by lack of their presence here.
Try to locate the thread on the KSA/Saudi forum here opened by another Italian young woman a while ago and try to revive the thread. Perhaps she is still around and will pick up your call for revival, and you also may get contributions of other teachers there and their PoV on your circumstances.
balqis
Last edited by balqis on Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:03 am Post subject: |
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nomad soul wrote: |
sandrina85 wrote: |
Nomad, correct what you wrote, but I still have teaching experience and I'm currently working as a teacher, so I'm still gonna give a try. There must be a way. I'm not looking tto teach to Universities, but to kindergarten and preschoolers! |
Frankly, I wasn't sure why you were looking at the CELTA since it's geared for adult learners. International schools in the region want to see teaching qualifications and education specific to children, which is your challenge. You have to meet the school's requirements instead of the school adapting to you, especially when they can choose from others who are credentialed teachers. |
To be honest I mentioned TESOL in my first post, than I wrote CELTA because veliedsentiments and maybe someone else wrote "you need a real certificate, like a CELTA".
I'm able to attend a part-time TESOL here in Cambodia while I'm working, but I thought it would be better to do it in Oman...am I correct? |
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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:23 am Post subject: |
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nomad soul wrote: |
sandrina85 wrote: |
I was going to start an 120 hours online TESOL course next week, but now I am a bit confused. |
anything less than a CELTA is a waste of your time and money because your CV won't get a second glance. |
This also made me focus on CELTA, but here in Cambodia it doesn't exist and I was thinking to to a TEFL or TESOL course, but from a quick research in the intimate web, here in Phnom Penh there aren't part-time courses available (and I do need to work!!) |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: |
To be honest I mentioned TESOL in my first post, than I wrote CELTA because veliedsentiments and maybe someone else wrote "you need a real certificate, like a CELTA". |
By "real" (assuming that it was me that said it. )I meant not online. If you can find a course that is similar to the CELTA that has supervised classroom teaching with real students, that is what you need.
Oman would be very expensive to go and take the course because of the high cost of living. Cairo BC often has a course and Egypt is a cheaper place to live. There are also courses taught around Asia... like in Thailand... where it is much cheaper to live.
VS |
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madrileno
Joined: 19 Aug 2010 Posts: 270 Location: Salalah, Oman
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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veiledsentiments wrote: |
Middle East employers do NOT recognize online certificates and most do not accept any online degrees. The whole point of the requirement of the certificate is to show that you have had supervised actual classroom experience... |
VS nailed it with this.
If OP does not have the qualifications to AT LEAST be considered for an interview for a position in the Gulf, (related BA from an Anglophone country and/or CELTA), their chances are pretty much nill. Just this past Spring at TESOL Arabia, employers were specifying online certifications/degrees WOULD NOT be recognized.
Also, as it has been addressed in a previous thread on here, competition for positions in the Gulf has recently become more intense. There doesn't appear to be consensus WHY this is, but it certainly exists.
Once OP has an MA and/or a CELTA maybe she could try applying to Gulf places then... In the mean time, Asia is her best bet. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 2:42 am Post subject: |
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Keep in mind, the OP is a non-native speaker whose only interest is in teaching at the kindy/primary school level as opposed to higher ed or language schools. That requires different qualifications. |
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sandrina85
Joined: 24 Aug 2015 Posts: 13
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 3:59 am Post subject: |
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Yes nomad and all. I'm aware I'm not skilled enough- don't have appropriare qualifications, that's the reason I'm aiming to work in a primary school (just for now!)
I'm re-doing my cv and cover letter right now and will send it all over the places in Oman and I'll keep you posted about what happens. The worse scenario is that I will have wasted my time. |
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balqis
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 373
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:03 am Post subject: |
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To round off my main remarks again and for the last time, first and foremost consider yourself very young, which means future is for your open and you may make a lot of wise [ and unwise] career moves. You are not yet a closed entity. You are only starting your steep climb. Turn a blind eye and develop a deaf ear to most what you hear and will hear from people around you in the so-called ESL milieu. Consider ESL a very shoddy profession, to which the famous ''walking shadow, full of ado, signifying nothing'' applies aptly. This summary I am giving after a life-long ESL career - I am about to part with the profession and retire early. The Gulf allowed me to make some decent money and live amongst the Arabs and their culture, experience that compares to nothing else in my life, in scale and depth to nothing else indeed.
Besides, non-native speakers, even with unrelated M.A. degrees are not that uncommon in the Gulf, I would say from my own experience. Nations I have met in the Gulf teaching ESL - and I always worked in unis and colleges, the so called ''jet set'', some unis numero uno in the whole Gulf - would make a long paragraph on its own. And if you are so focused on developing your ESL career, you can try and join some PhD in ESL programme, and suddenly, like devil from the snuff-box, you may jump out as a - so called and as it were - ESL ''specialist'' [ I don't myself believe in ESL, and so called ESL specialists are to me vacuous bizarre creatures, that is why I use inverted commas here]. So, unless you really like it, do not even think that your ultimate level is only kindergartens and primary schools in the Gulf. It is just your thinking, which should be re-tracked. A number of KSA jobs require just any degree, any nationality as long as it is EU, Celta and IELTS score at least level 7.5. if I remember rightly [ review KSA jobs here and on tefl.com].
Alternative path for you would be doing DELTA after CELTA, but not everyone is able to swallow that amount of ESL .... [ I meant: raspberry juice] DELTA demands. And not every employer gives a damn about DELTA, so may be a blind alley.
If you improve your qualification and encounter some luck on your way, you may become a marketable entity in the Gulf, and besides again, your Italian origin may be your trading asset - Arabs are in love with Europe, Italian fashion designers, Mediterranean beaches and tourism and Italian food [ nothing offensive about Italy here, simply Arabs are consumers of the European culture, they don't give a damn about Fra Angelico or Leopardi, as they have their own very sophisticated culture].
Good luck then!
wishes you
balqis
Last edited by balqis on Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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Balquis... your posts are sometimes obscure. Are you using a translator? They often lead us wrong or are confusing. You have done well in the Gulf over the years being a non-native speaker as have many others.
For instance:
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Consider ESL very shoddy profession, to which the famous ''walking shadow, full of ado, signifying nothing'' applies aptly. |
Do you mean the line from MacBeth? "It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." Or perhaps the play "Much ado about nothing" So... are you calling every naysayer an "idiot"? LOL
While our OP is young, at 30 she really is of an age where she needs to focus her goals and get the proper educational credentials for these goals. If she wants to continue to work with very young children, she needs to find out what credentials the better jobs in this field require and spend her time and money on this. For instance, CELTA and DELTA are focused on adult learners. Perhaps her best option is to return to Italy and get properly credentialed to teach in elementary schools... properly certified/licensed (focusing on teaching English). And then the world of international schools will be more open for her.
But if her goal is to teach adults in universities, then she needs to get that CELTA now and start on a related MA for teaching EFL.
While I appreciate your positive, supportive posts, we must also be sure that we don't give new teachers unrealistic expectations.
VS |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: |
Perhaps her best option is to return to Italy and get properly credentialed to teach in elementary schools... properly certified/licensed (focusing on teaching English). |
That would very likely entail completing both a related degree and teaching certification from a university in the UK or other Anglophone country rather than Italy.
And yeah, some of the posts on this thread have been "off." |
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