Job Discussion Forums

[joost]

Could I still do TEFL work? I am quite fluent when speaking, I notice a lot of wrong grammar even on these pages, I'm planning to do a high level English course pretty soon, after that get a TEFL degree.
Could I get hired? Should I spend a few months in an English speaking country still, so I could pretend to be native? Should I just forget about it and move on?

Any opinions, experiences?

[Veritas_Aequitas]

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=22733

[Justin Trullinger]

To be hired as a non-native, you'll probably need higher level qualifications than many native teachers have. It may not be fair, but it's basically a market reality. If you're serious about teaching English, it can definitely be done, but you'll need to think about how much preparation you're willing to do. If you're thinking about doing it as a lark for a year or two, it may be very hard. But if you get a degree in English or English teaching, and spend some time in native English countries, good jobs can be open to you. And if teaching is something you love, well, there's a lot of places you can see.

A note about "pretending" to be native: most schools will be dealing with your visa paperwork, and will therefore know your nationality. If they're willing to "pretend" too, are they the kind of school you want to work for? In any case, I've been teaching/travelling in non-English speaking countries for close to 10 years, and I have met ONE guy who could actually pass for native, although he wasn't. No matter how good your English is, an educated native with experience in linguistics can probably tell that it isn't native.

Good luck,
Justin

PS- Your writing is very good, and you should be proud of it. (You should see some of my students, if you want to know where I'm coming from.)
But I would work on eliminating run-on sentences and double check the use of "still." (Not easy, I know.)