Job Discussion Forums

[tammyaudette]

I searched the forum and could not find anything that really answered my question.

I am pursuing my TESL full classroom certification at the University of Toronto. I also have an MCSA certification (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator) as well as a college diploma in Business Administration, with my major as Accounting.

I would love to live and work abroad, but I want my scenery to change frequently.

I checked out Linguarama, who's concept I like very much. However, it seems that you are tied to the country who's office you work out of. I dont have particularities with respect to what I am teaching and whom, but I prefer not ot go to Asia or the Middle East.

Does this make sense? I would love a job that sends me for weeks at a time to different countries. Are there companies that you know of that are multi-national and are english language teaching? Or am stuck with 6 month and 1 year type contracts.

Hope I explained this adequately.

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Kindest regards,

Tammy

[hollysuel]

My initial thought to your idea was that most companies/schools/universities which have to sponsor a visa are not going to want someone to come for just 6-8 weeks. Then I got to thinking and realized that I have seen one or two job ads for EFL teaching on cruise ships. I think that might be the only way your scenery can change while teaching EFL. These types of jobs are rare and hard to find, however. Good luck!!

[denise]

[hollysuel]

[tammyaudette]

What got me started was that the company I work for currently has implemented new software.

The company we purchased it from is based out of the U.S. However, the woman who goes around checking for requirements and such, invited me to lunch. She told me that her job is to travel all around the world to all of the sites that have purchased their software. She said she loves it, she's employed by a US company but travels 90% of her job. She stays for two weeks, then moves on to the next site.

I don't know how that affects work visas, i guess since shes not working for an overseas company she simply is just a business traveller.

It got me thinking about how great that was in my eyes, and to do the same thing, but teaching english, or business english, would be great! Even if in a corporate environment,

Ahh well, always good to keep my eyes out for the ideal personal opportunity.

[tedkarma]

I spent some time teaching in a hospitality program at a college in Bangkok and we regularly placed our students with cruise lines, airlines, hotels, etc.

The cruise lines and airlines came to the campus several times a year to interview students, but their bottom line was that the student's English needed to be in good shape before they were hired. Interviews were always in English.

Particularly with cruise lines, staff tend to work 12-hour 7-day weeks for long periods of time - too busy and too tired to study. Thus, the hiring of English teachers is probably a really long shot, at best.

[spiral78]

I do project work for a university in Canada that sends me abroad - but, first, it's irregular (live contract to contract, with unpredictable time gaps in between projects), and, second, to get such projects usually takes relatively serious specific qualifications. For example, I've an MA TESL/TEFL + 10 years of experience + experience in English for the Oil and Gas industry - hence, when some Chevron or Exxon project comes up, I'm on a list of teachers to consider. There are different kinds of projects and you might find some IT related ones, but this isn't the kind of work that you can count on as a primary income.

I really don't know of any regular kind of position in our field that sends teachers to different locations on a regular basis.

[tammyaudette]

Thank you so much to everyone for your input and ideas. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Best regards

Tammy

[Justin Trullinger]

Hard to find- most English teaching organisations, even the big "chains," are managed locally or regionally. Even the biggest multinational companies seem to meet their English training needs locally, rather than offer their own training programs.

There are some pretty good reasons for this- I have taught EFL in a lot of places, worked with a lot of different teachers, and strongly feel that most problems come up within 6 to 8 weeks of arrival. During this period, teachers don't know the procedures of the school, don't know the local language or culture, don't know where the nearest supermarket or dry cleaner is, don't know their way around the city and may get lost, and perhaps most importantly do not know their students. In two months, they get at least a basic handle on many of these issues, and things smooth out. What you're looking for is a job where the employer gets the worst 2 months of the contract, and nothing else. This is going to be a hard sell.

From the point of view of a teacher, I've got to say that a school with a lot of 6 to 10 week contracts sounds like a fate worse than death. Nobody would know where the staplers were kept, for crying out loud.

Also, with only a 2 month commitment, I'd have a hard time trusting that teachers had their hearts in it...when you're staying so briefly, why would you need to keep up with paperwork, or not work hung over? If you're leaving anyway...you see what I mean.


So not to be negative, but entry level teaching work with such a frequent switch of locale is going to be very hard to come by.


That said, I have several good friends who are teachers, travel 6 to 9 months out of the year, routinely visit several different countries in each year, and generally are working on 4 to 10 week contracts. As a bonus, they're reasonably well paid. I plan to be doing this myself within a few years.

The secret is that we're no longer entry level- teacher training, with all the short intensive courses on offer, can offer a lot of what you're looking for. So can certain kinds of consulting work, especially if you can manage to land some government contracts.

But...you'll need some years of experience. Also some graduate training. Nothing is without a cost...


Best,
Justin

[tammyaudette]

That makes sense Justin, which is why I was leading towards the corporate type scenario.

I noticed that Marcus Evans (Linguarama) does intensive 8 week "business english" courses for companies looking to break the language barrier. Not a typical classroom setting, but still teaching english in a short contract.

They have a basic knowledge of english already, but need to fine tune etc. I was looking for the same type of place, only with a more global reach. Which is what I was looking for "ideally". I understand the importance of in-classroom teaching, especially in reference to locations of supplies and lengths of contracts. The contract would be with the company you work for, who in turn would have a contract with the business you are going to teach. So the short length of the class would not be ill-fated to me, I would simply move on to the next assignment my company gives me, whether it be immediately or with a short delay.

Your input was valuable and straightforward. Thanks!

[naturegirl321]

[tedkarma]

[Justin Trullinger]

[MELEE]

Sounds like my dad's old job--only he didn't teach English. He was a corporate trainer for the telephone company--then after the telephone company split up for he worked for Ericsson. When local telephone offices got new equipment, he went there and taught the locals how to use it--mostly in the US, but he went to Seoul to whip the Korean telecommunications system into shape before the olympics and he had a few trips to Europe when he was with Ericsson. And while this may have been exciting for him at first, it was hard for my mom and my brother and I. At the peek of his travelling he was gone 48 weeks a year. His courses were usually two weeks which met he was home every other weekend--when he was offer early retirement, he snatched it up and I think he regrets all the time he spent away from us while we were growing up.

I did once meet a women whose specialized in accent reduction. She worked one on one with foriegners who work in the US who had a very high level of English, but who's managers, coworkers, or staff thought had a heavy accent that made it difficult for the average joe to understand him/her. She travelled all over the US doing 10 day intensive accent reduction courses, but she had an MA in Speech therapy as well as many years experience.

So basically these are highly specialized jobs, that you might set your sights on after you build up your resume and expertise. I have seen several resumes of people who have worked in 6 countries in 5 years and travelled extensively in each country. I agree with Justin, you won't really know a place--neither a workplace, nor a city, much less a country if you are there for less than 8 weeks.

[stillnosheep]