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How to get into full time work?

 
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jph_1985



Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:49 pm    Post subject: How to get into full time work? Reply with quote

A little bit about myself.

I have a CELTA and recently completed an MA TESOL. I have spent five years abroad in South Korea at an elementary and middle school academy (one of the franchises) and currently, I am working part time at a language school in Birmingham.

My job searches haven't really turned up much, but for the jobs that I have found, such as INTO or some positions at colleges, I haven't had much success.

What kind of career paths are there into full time work in the UK? Is it a case of freelancing at language schools for a while before becoming more employable?
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bograt



Joined: 12 Nov 2014
Posts: 331

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd have thought getting pre-sessional work at unis in the summer and work your way up to full time.
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LH123



Joined: 13 Jun 2010
Posts: 61

PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi jph

These are the sectors available to you:

ESL in private language academies

You know the deal: teaching 'General English' mixed with various other exam preparation, conversation, grammar (etc..) classes to adults in language academies. There are good ones and bad ones. There are many more opportunities in the big cities, and more going on in the south of England than anywhere else. With a CELTA, 5 years and a Masters you would be on track to becoming a Senior Teacher, ADOS, DOS and perhaps school principal in the future - assuming you did a good job, were well-liked and got in at the right place at the right time. Bigger companies would offer more opportunities than smaller operations, for obvious reasons. Jobs abound on places like www.tefl.com. This kind of work isn't hard, is usually fun and is normally pretty low-stress, but not particularly well-paid.

EAP in universities and organisations affiliated with them.

Teaching mostly academic English (think essay-writing, participating in seminars, etc..) to international students who are doing/aspiring to do undergraduate or postgraduate study in the UK. Better paid than ESL, but much harder to get into. As bograt says, the usual foot-in-the-door is a summer pre-sessional course, then hoping that positions on a foundation programme or something like that come up. Jobs on www.jobs.ac.uk and https://www.baleap.org/jobs. Unlike with ESL, where an MA will put you at the top of the pile, pretty much everyone in EAP has an MA and/or DELTA. A Ph.D or Ed.D would push you to the front in many EAP circles... Many EAP contracts are fixed-term, and so don't offer good job security. That said, full-time permanent EAP positions do exist - it is a matter of being lucky, skilled and personable. The EAP crowd tend to be older, more serious and grumpier than those in ESL.

ESOL in Further Education Colleges

Teaching mostly refugees and immigrants English in Further Education Colleges. See https://www.indeed.co.uk/Esol-Lecturer-jobs and http://www.natecla.org.uk/content/506/Jobs. Money better than ESL, but not as good as EAP. FE/ESOL is a turbulent job market, as it is mostly dependent on fickle government grants. The ESOL sector has its own set of qualifications and certificates, so your CELTA+MA is likely to be less recognised and acknowledged - although they are far from value-less. This sector is characterised by its strong sense of social justice: strong feelings about the patriarchy, cisgendered archetypes and neo-Marxism? ESOL is for you...

EAL in the state sector

The state sector employs English as an Additional Language teachers/coordinators to work with first and second generation migrant children who do not use English at home. Often, but not always, they will require QTS. This is usually seen as an offshoot of Special Educational Needs, and so academic support as opposed to a full-blown academic subject. Accordingly, the pay won't be great, but you will get a good contract and lots of holidays. See https://www.tes.com/jobs/search?keywords=english+as+an+additional+language&viewtype=list&locations=United+Kingdom&positions=Teaching+and+Lecturing&sort=date

EAL in the independent sector

As above, but with private schools; so not children of immigrants, rather children of rich foreign families. They study in (mostly) secondary and sixth-forms, and have ESL/IELTS classes. Money likely to be better than in the state sector, and QTS usually less of a concern. See here: http://baisis.org.uk/vacancies/ and here: https://www.tes.com/jobs/search?workplaces=Independent%20Senior&positions=Teaching%20and%20Lecturing&subjects=EAL%2FEnglish%20as%20an%20Additional%20Language.

Private tutoring

With luck and an entrepreneurial spirit, you can set yourself up as a private tutor (see: http://www.thetutorpages.com/english-as-a-foreign-language-efl-teachers). This will require quite a lot of start-up work: building up clients, establishing a niche, figuring out rules and systems which work for you, having your own transport, etc... But this can be very lucrative.
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jph_1985



Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LH123 wrote:
Hi jph

These are the sectors available to you:

ESL in private language academies

You know the deal: teaching 'General English' mixed with various other exam preparation, conversation, grammar (etc..) classes to adults in language academies. There are good ones and bad ones. There are many more opportunities in the big cities, and more going on in the south of England than anywhere else. With a CELTA, 5 years and a Masters you would be on track to becoming a Senior Teacher, ADOS, DOS and perhaps school principal in the future - assuming you did a good job, were well-liked and got in at the right place at the right time. Bigger companies would offer more opportunities than smaller operations, for obvious reasons. Jobs abound on places like www.tefl.com. This kind of work isn't hard, is usually fun and is normally pretty low-stress, but not particularly well-paid.

EAP in universities and organisations affiliated with them.

Teaching mostly academic English (think essay-writing, participating in seminars, etc..) to international students who are doing/aspiring to do undergraduate or postgraduate study in the UK. Better paid than ESL, but much harder to get into. As bograt says, the usual foot-in-the-door is a summer pre-sessional course, then hoping that positions on a foundation programme or something like that come up. Jobs on www.jobs.ac.uk and https://www.baleap.org/jobs. Unlike with ESL, where an MA will put you at the top of the pile, pretty much everyone in EAP has an MA and/or DELTA. A Ph.D or Ed.D would push you to the front in many EAP circles... Many EAP contracts are fixed-term, and so don't offer good job security. That said, full-time permanent EAP positions do exist - it is a matter of being lucky, skilled and personable. The EAP crowd tend to be older, more serious and grumpier than those in ESL.

ESOL in Further Education Colleges

Teaching mostly refugees and immigrants English in Further Education Colleges. See https://www.indeed.co.uk/Esol-Lecturer-jobs and http://www.natecla.org.uk/content/506/Jobs. Money better than ESL, but not as good as EAP. FE/ESOL is a turbulent job market, as it is mostly dependent on fickle government grants. The ESOL sector has its own set of qualifications and certificates, so your CELTA+MA is likely to be less recognised and acknowledged - although they are far from value-less. This sector is characterised by its strong sense of social justice: strong feelings about the patriarchy, cisgendered archetypes and neo-Marxism? ESOL is for you...

EAL in the state sector

The state sector employs English as an Additional Language teachers/coordinators to work with first and second generation migrant children who do not use English at home. Often, but not always, they will require QTS. This is usually seen as an offshoot of Special Educational Needs, and so academic support as opposed to a full-blown academic subject. Accordingly, the pay won't be great, but you will get a good contract and lots of holidays. See https://www.tes.com/jobs/search?keywords=english+as+an+additional+language&viewtype=list&locations=United+Kingdom&positions=Teaching+and+Lecturing&sort=date

EAL in the independent sector

As above, but with private schools; so not children of immigrants, rather children of rich foreign families. They study in (mostly) secondary and sixth-forms, and have ESL/IELTS classes. Money likely to be better than in the state sector, and QTS usually less of a concern. See here: http://baisis.org.uk/vacancies/ and here: https://www.tes.com/jobs/search?workplaces=Independent%20Senior&positions=Teaching%20and%20Lecturing&subjects=EAL%2FEnglish%20as%20an%20Additional%20Language.

Private tutoring

With luck and an entrepreneurial spirit, you can set yourself up as a private tutor (see: http://www.thetutorpages.com/english-as-a-foreign-language-efl-teachers). This will require quite a lot of start-up work: building up clients, establishing a niche, figuring out rules and systems which work for you, having your own transport, etc... But this can be very lucrative.


Thanks a lot @LH123. As far as all those jobs I've seen on TEFL.com, a lot of them are summer temp jobs, do a lot of them turn into more permanent work?

Also, with a lot of the pre-sessional posts, it seems that they prefer candidates to have a lot of experience before they offer jobs to them. Should I just apply to any and everything anyway or is that a waste of time?

Sorry for sounding like a total noob...
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 5:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also... Become an active member of IATEFL and start networking.
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LH123



Joined: 13 Jun 2010
Posts: 61

PostPosted: Sat Mar 11, 2017 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ESL jobs advertised on tefl.com tend to be fixed-term or zero-hours, because the demand for ESL in the UK is highly seasonal (think of it as more or less correlational with average monthly temperatures: in July and August demand is huge, and language academies are fighting for teachers; in December demand is very low, so there is a lot less work around). It would be financially ruinous for academies to hire everyone on permanent contracts, so they keep it flexible by paying people to work only when there is work to do.

However, when the academies have someone that they want to keep (be it a specialist in a certain area, a very good teacher or someone with some sort of managerial responsibility) then they will (or at least should) employ them permanently. These permanent positions are not advertised on tefl.com as often, because they are nearly always filled from existing pools of staff (who were taken on initially as zero-hours or fixed-term). So, those temporary jobs you see advertised are foot-in-the-door type deals. As I said in my last post, though, some are more promising than others. I would look at larger schools/organisations - there are far more opportunities for sideways/upwards career progression. This is also something worth asking about during the application/interview process - it's perfectly acceptable to say 'I'm looking for a permanent contract in the future, might this be a possibility further down the line?' With a CELTA+MA & 5 years you have some currency in the ESL job market.

Pre-sessional EAP adverts will normally ask for experience, but when it comes to the crunch they will take someone with a MA/DELTA with no experience if they have to (better to have a teacher with no prior experience than to not have a teacher at all). Believe me, hiring for EAP is difficult - there are not as many MA/DELTA qualified people out there willing to work in the UK in the summer as you might think. If I were you, I would apply for everything and see what turns up.

And, as nomadsoul says, network like crazy. Go to the British Council teaching seminars, English UK conferences, etc... All of that is very valuable.
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jph_1985



Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks a lot nomad soul and Lh123.

I'll definitely take your advice going forward![/quote]
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