Job Discussion Forums

[Crazy Eagle]

Hello,

I am studying to be a high school teacher, and I have one year left after the current one.

For personal reasons, I am considering taking a year off and working overseas teaching ESL. My question is this: would it be wiser to wait until I finish my teaching certificate? Does it help in the ESL market?

Someone told me that it does make a diff in some countries.

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

Crazy Eagle

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

Yogi Berra

[juststeven]

COMPLETE YOUR DEGREE!

[osakajojo]

If I were you I would finish school before leaving Canada because taking off for one year could turn into more. You may not want to go back after one year.
Depending on what country you go to, you may or may not need it. In many cases you won't, but might as well get school out of the way first. Only positive things can come out of it.
Then again, a lot depends on your personal reasons.

[Glenski]

[hamel]

a completed teaching cert. is a great asset in most countries, and it can get you a good career in the west. but if you want to take a break maybe china would be interesting for six months to a year. go for it!

maybe esl teaching (short term) could help with your student teaching and certainly all of those ed. classes must get a little boring?
hamel

[eslHQ]

Finish your degree, especially if you just have a year left. It will not only help you get better jobs teaching abroad, it will help you get a job when you return to canada X years later

[bluffer]

Finish the degree.

Even here in Thailand a degree ( any degree ) will get you more pay and its far easier to work legally. And of course, if you are a fully qualified teacher that could get you into a full international school which pays a damm sight more than EFL.

Is your final year a lot of practical work? If so thats even more of a reason to finish. You will get more confidence teaching under proper supervision in your own language than going somewhere and having to shout at 50 kids who dont know, dont want to know and who could destroy your confidence.

[Crazy Eagle]

Thank you all for your kind advice! FYI, I will probably just finish off the education degree, as all of you have advised.

[Chris_Crossley]

At the Chinese mainstream primary school that I taught at until recently, there were at least two American guys who did not have a degree at all, yet that did not stop them from receiving quite a reasonable salary, although it obviously helped to have the qualifications completed already, because the people who had them attracted higher salaries.

I myself have both a bachelor of education degree (for the high school sector) and the Trinity Certificate in TESOL, and having them has paid dividends for me in terms of receiving more money compared to those who had neither, but the difference between my salary and theirs was only a few hundred yuan per month, so don't expect that you will be "rich" when compared with those as-yet unqualified colleagues just because you have that degree.

You don't get rich teaching ESOL no matter whether you have a PhD (which I don't) or no qualifications at all, but you might find that having the degree might give you that valuable foot in the door and the chance to earn more than your basic general ESOL teacher, depending upon what type of job you want.

For example, expats teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to, say, local bachelor's degree holders, who want to go abroad to study for a master's degree, might have to have at least a bachelor's degree with honours, if not a master's degree, themselves; if you have no degree at all, you can basically forget any idea of becoming an EAP lecturer/teacher.