Job Discussion Forums

Jorik · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:04 am Post subject:

Well, at least I got my Trinity Cert. TESOL last week, in Prague. A hell of a job, exhausting, very demanding but, after all, a great reward. English grammar rules!
Now I have to convince potential employers of my great teaching skills. Give it a try...

Chris_Crossley

Congrats on your getting your Trinity Cert. I have one myself, but I will say that I didn't do the intensive route, nor did I go abroad to do it. Instead, I did it at my home town's adult education centre part-time over 31 Fridays (no full-time option was available there, though)!

You can find yourself in a city where you may have one school, which does not insist on having native speakers of English, and another, which DOES insist on having them. I taught at the first kind of school for two years in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in China. While I was there, the school employed a young lady from France, who just happened to have lived in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, for six years and so spoke absolutely fluent English with the local accent, and another young lady from Romania, who taught English to kids at the weekend. This young Romanian is all set to come back to Wuhan very soon, such is her enthusiasm for teaching.

My current school is a state-run primary school, which enacts a native speakers-only policy. They are very strict with this. The reason for this is that the parents pay extra to have their little darlings to be taught English by foreigners, and so the school is unwilling to accept applications from non-native English speakers. They even turned down my Romanian friend, but she managed to find a job at another school.

Just shop around, Jorik, and you are bound to find something, especially now that you have that covered Cert TESOL under your belt (or, even better, in your CV/resume). Good luck to you! Very Happy

Chris_Crossley · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 3:36 am Post subject: Natives or non-natives

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Jorik,
congrats from me as well! What kind of country do you fancy to work in?
Here in Chinaforeign teachers are not usually required to teach serious things such as grammar or literature - unfortunately I wish to add! There is, however, an American-run school that uses English as a medium of instruction (the other one is Mandarin), and it prefers non-native English teache4rs for grammr and similar subjects. The school is located in Guangdong province and is rapidly building a good reputation. Their remuneration package is above average. The name of the schol is Incarnate.
Elsewhere you will end up doing boring conversation lessons with heavily-overpopulated classes numbering 40 and more.

Jorik · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:26 pm Post subject:

Thanx for supporting this TEFL newbie! It's a bit of an odd experience, being 'certified' and now suddenly in the position of looking for a real TEFL job. Life is about to begin...

Answering Roger's question: there are loads of countries I fancy to work in. China is one of my favourites, not only because of the great demand for teachers but I also consider China probably the most alien nation from Western perspectives, hence a huge cultural experience.
Other preferable countries/regions are:

*The Middle East (Oman, United Arab Emirates)
*Turkey
*Morocco
*Georgia
*Latin America

It all depends on the job possibilities and, related to that, the employer's willingness to hire non-native language & teaching experts.

Regarding my M.A. in Dutch Linguistics and my teaching experience at a public school in The Hague (for three years) , I might also try to get a job as a Dutch lecturer at some university in an English-speaking country. That wouldn't be exactly following the TEFL path, but does that matter? Within ten years, I even want my dreams to be English-spoken...