Job Discussion Forums

[gonzoteacher]

Hello,

I am an ESL teacher in a public school system in the U.S. Being an ESL teacher, I have the itch to move on at times. I would like to know any good job possibilities in Moscow, St. Pete, or large cities in Ukraine.

I have at least 4 relevant years of ESL teaching experience. Two of these were in Ukraine while in the Peace Corps. I grew to love the culture while I was there. This is why I would like to go back to this area.

I have an M.S. in Education with an added certification in TEFL. The coursework is the same as the M.S. in TEFL. I have other teaching experience in American/Social Studies. I also have all but a dissertation in coursework for a Ph.D in Educational Psychology.

I have just tried BKC-IH in Moscow, but strangely enough, they say I don't qualify for a teaching position there. Does anyone have any ideas. I would be able to start my August or September.

Thanks.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Sounds to me like you're qualified to the gills, especially in relation to many of the people one runs across in the CIS. Perhaps BKC-IH is only looking for people they can charge for their courses, and then place them...who knows.
Anyway, seems to me that you could find a job somewhere in Ukraine (Kyiv, Donetsk, Lviv, DP, Odessa, et al) easy enough. If you're looking to get rich there, however, it might not be the place; of course, you've lived there before, so I'm sure you know the score.
Don't know much about Russia, sorry. There are a ton of pros on here who can help you out, though.
I have one or two contacts in Ukraine. PM me if you're interested.

[canucktechie]

Sounds strange about BKC - perhaps there was a communications problem.

Anyway the other big school in Moscow is called Language Link, you may want to try them. English First is also big in Moscow if that's your cup of tea.

All the IH schools post their vacancies on www.ihworld.com. BKC is the only IH school in Russia, but there are several in Ukraine. However vacancies are few and usually seem to be filled internally by IH, before being advertised. There are exceptions however - I did see a posting by IH Odessa not long ago.

[Katyusha]

BKC recognises MA TESOL, MS TESOL and MEd TESOL and has employed people with those qualifications.

[Phillip Donnelly]

BKC IH recognise the CELTA, and its bona fide equivalents. The problem is knowing what is a genuine equivalent is, and what is just a worthless TEFL Certificate, handed out like smarties by some many �illustrious� institutions. It�s no easy business sorting the wheat from the chaff either, as there are just so many TEFL certificates out there.
I think jpvanderwerf2001 is being unfair, however, in claiming that BKC reserve their jobs for people who have done the CELTA with them. The fact is the number of new teachers they recruit every year far outnumber the number of people doing the CELTA in Moscow who actually want to work there. When I was DOS there, we recruited about 3 or 4 CELTA graduates from each class, and in a school with over 100 teachers and a high turnover rate, there simply wouldn�t have been enough of them to meet demand, even if we had had that policy.
I�m not saying that Gonzoteacher�s qualifications are not a valid equivalent. It may simply be that they haven�t been officially recognized by the doyens of Cambridge yet. You certainly seem far more qualified (and experienced) that the majority of teachers at BKC, or most of the others schools I�ve worked at, come to think of it.
Perhaps canucktechie is right in advising you to contact recruitment again. I say 'perhaps" because I don�t know the details, and I�m very much �out of the loop� these days.

[Castro]

It sounds like gonzoteacher is qualified enough for any TEFL schools throughout the world.

But you shouldn’t forget that any certificate (recognized or not) is not enough to be accepted.

A bunch of teachers (according to papers very good teachers who would be full of conceit) are rejected because of their not well done pre-interview tasks.

Cheers,

[gonzoteacher]

Just to clarify, my TEFL certification is from one full year of full time university graduate study. Certification in this sense just means qualification.
It is not a certificate, but a qualification. This is opposed to the certificate programs which are from 2 to 4 weeks long. At that point, you are given a certificate and then told, "Alright now, you are a teacher". I may very well be wrong, but aren't the CELTA certificates a 4 week long program? How is this compared to an MS in TEFL or it's equvalent? Of course, Castro is right. I have seen these teachers. Many come into class and read from a book. You should also look at experience, etc. Be your own judge.

But we are digressing from the topic. Like one person said, there are many pros on this board who can help. I am interested in coming to this part of the world to teach. Job boards are good, but the people on the ground provide much better information. If anyone can offer information in this area, it will be much appreciated.

[Phillip Donnelly]

Not too clear what you mean, I'm afraid. Do you want information about teaching in language schools, academies, universities...working for Yukos?
BTW, I wasn't trying to question your credentials, or certification or qualifications, or whatever else you want to call them. However, you may make yourself rather unpopular in a teacher's room by harping on about their superiority to the CELTA in teacher's rooms.

[Volodiya]

Gonzoteacher,

I lived and worked in the CIS for eleven years. You taught English in the Ukraine for two years. You know, without asking anybody, that your qualifications are fine. You know that it's easy to find official work, and tons of privates there. So what's really got you in this holding pattern, if I may ask?

[gonzoteacher]

Trying to keep a discussion thread on topic seems as hard as managing a
classroom full of K-12 students.

For those who have offered useful information to my question; thanks.

For those who will offer useful information; thanks in advance.

[Aramas]

I had a good look through the BKC-IH and LL websites, and in spite of some rather good writing skills, it would seem that feudalism is alive and well in the FSU.

Both places seem to allow very little separation between work and real life. It reminds me of Dickensian (lol - D i c kensian ) Britain where the peons were 'permitted' to sleep under the machines that they operated for the other sixteen hours a day. I wonder if their DOS's prefer to be addressed as 'massah', 'sahib', 'bwana', or perhaps, 'O Munificent One'? Is there a peculiarly Russian form of address for someone that holds total power over you, your job, your home and your time 24/7?

I seriously doubt that I would make it through the first day without laughing in someone's face and advising them to quietly bugger off

[Xenophile]

Just to clarify one point-Gonzoteacher's application was not rejected because of qualifications, but because of an unsatisfactory pre-interview task. Paper qualifications are just the starting point of an application.The pre-interview task tells us a lot more about your competence as a teacher.

[canucktechie]

I don't know where you are coming from, Aramas, but I don't see anything peculiar about the schools in Moscow compared with those in other countries.

Yes you might get classes anywhere from 9-9 M-F. Nothing unusual about that (although if you worked elsewhere in a smaller school with one location you wouldn't have to travel). Weekends are yours, except for one Saturday afternoon a month.

As for accommodation, teachers are quite welcome to find their own if they want to. No thanks.

And I think the ADOS's at my school are pretty nice.

[Phillip Donnelly]

Gonzo teacher is right in stating this thread is bouncing around like the proverbial tennis ball! Let�s see where we are:
1) It seems Mr. Gonzo Teacher was so full of his own credentials that he may have considered the pre-interview task beneath him. He is not the first to make this mistake. Personally, I always evaluated a pre-interview task without even looking at someone�s CV. If a prospective teacher wasn�t prepared to spend time on a pre-interview task, it seemed logical to assume, he probably wasn�t too serious about coming to Russia, so there didn�t seem much point in even proceeding to interview. Interviewing teachers and the whole visa process is a very time-consuming business.
2) As to the job advice he claims to desire, it would seem logical to try to set up a job in a posh private school, teaching spoilt oligarchs� brats for enormous sums of money and minimum hassel.
3) Aramas describes himself as �left of centre�. �Yeah, so left of centre, he�s living on a different planet!� might be a cruel retort. Forgive the harsh words, but I�ve been in the EFL business for nearly 10 years, and a teacher�s life in Moscow is one hell of a lot easier than a teacher�s life in Western Europe. Perhaps he has been teaching in the Paradise of Asia, where teachers� relative living standards and terms and conditions are far better. To compare a teacher�s lot to a toiling proletarian�s in Dickensian England really is going too far, even in jest.
Moreover, the idea that DOSes and ADOSes in Moscow�s school are power-crazed tyrants lording over the teaching masses is also beyond absurd. They work longer hours than teachers are only paid about 25 per cent more. They also have to teach 12-hours a week themselves, before even beginning their administration duties. They also have remarkably little �real� power.

Perhaps there�s a sub-thread going on here that I�ve missed, but I think that�s it.

[Phillip Donnelly]

Either the censor has a problem with dead English writers or it's the first four letters of his name that's causing these beep problems!