Job Discussion Forums

[thelmadatter]

If you had a US passport, I would think that the fact that you were born in Taiwan wouldnt matter. Without it, I dont know. At least here, US citizenship makes you American, period. Your green card would go a long way, sans the passport.

Here is a third alternative to either the MA or the CELTA... get certified as public school teacher in the US... specializing in ESL. Less costly than a MA and makes you more employable both in the US and abroad. A number of international schools require someone with a US teacher�s cert and you would be quite employable at one of the campuses of ITESM (I work at the Toluca campus). With these kinds of jobs, your Chinese speaking ability can be an added plus, rather than a liability.

It interesting to note that even though I have an MA in English Language and Linguistics, I am NOT qualified to teach public school! Would need a year's worth of bachelors classes to do that.

[naturegirl321]

YOu don't have to be white, though some places in ASia will count not be white against you.

[Extraordinary Rendition]

Just a thought, since you're in the U.S., you could try out teaching English by volunteering to teach immigrants through your local Council on Literacy. They'll give you some training, but the training is likely to be for one-on-one teaching, much different from classes. Better yet, you may be able to try out language teaching by getting a paying job teaching Mandarin Chinese, since it's your first language. A language school might give you some free training and put you to work, if they can find enough students to comprise a class! If you find you like language teaching, you can go for your CELTA/Trinity/SIT.

By the way, another advantage to putting off your MA until after your CELTA and some experience is that some MA programs will let you include a DELTA as part of your MA. You'll find having the CELTA and some experience first will make this easier by an order of magnitude, and will pay off in the long run - some jobs require the DELTA and could care less about the MA (too theoretical, they like the practicality of the DELTA training).