Job Discussion Forums

[smythb0i]

Hi everybody, long time lurker, first time poster who was hoping to pick your brains for some advice if you all don�t mind!

I am due to complete a PhD in the spring/summer of 2009, and I have been considering my future options. One of these has been to pursue a long-held ambition to move abroad and teach in another country, so I was hoping you could perhaps provide me with some information so I could weigh up the relative pros and cons of my plan. My destination of choice would be Hungary, ideally Budapest.

Just to give you some facts to work from, I am a 26 year old UK resident and passport holder who has a BA, MA, and will (hopefully!) have a PhD, all in the field of English Literature, specializing in Medieval Literature and Critical Theory. As part of my PhD training I will have also accumulated 4 years worth of teaching experience in a university environment, which has involved preparing material for tutorials and seminars with undergraduate students, leading the discussions, preparing essay questions and marking said essays, and all the associated administrative faffing about one has to do when implementing a syllabus. We are also sent on various externally accredited courses with titles such as �Small Group Teaching Workshop.�

Now, having done quite a lot of reading both on this site and elsewhere I realize that a background researching and teaching in the field of English Literature does not necessarily provide someone with the skill-set needed for the much more technical and systematic discipline of teaching English as a foreign language, so I was considering doing one of the intensive four-week CELTAs or TESOLs in Budapest during the late summer of 2009 with an aim to be ready to get involved with the start of the academic term in September/October.

Finally, I would be looking to do this not as a stop-gap �see the world and have a good time� graduate travelling experience, but with an eye to the medium to long-term. I think the most important thing to put here is that, having read many of the posts and advice offered concerned with working in Eastern Europe, I am realistic in my expectations of the type of lifestyle that EFL teaching can provide in this region, so I am aware that I will not be earning mega-bucks � and more importantly OK with this being the case! Rather, I would like to put down some roots in another country and culture and hopefully develop a career that could potentially lead to a comfortable standard of living doing something I love, i.e., teaching!

So, given all this (and thank you to anyone who is still reading my waffle!), I would like to ask the following questions.

1) I get the impression from some of the other threads I have read that having advanced academic qualifications doesn�t necessarily mean improved employment prospects for the �newbie,� as most schools are looking for specific and successful language teaching experience, and places in International Schools and the like are generally offered to those with local contacts. However, would having advanced qualifications (and the obvious necessities of demonstrating a good work ethic and a willingness to work hard at acquiring the local language) allow someone to more rapidly make the kind of impression and/or contacts that could lead to more stable, career type employment?

2) On the topic of local contacts, I have seen it stated in some of the advertisements for the CELTA and TESOL courses (on websites such as Cactus TEFL) that they have a proven track record of putting their graduates in touch with institutions that can offer good employment prospects. Does anyone have any personal experience of this happening? How has it worked out for you? If not, why not?

3) The university issue. In an ideal world, I would like to combine my two biggest passions and try my hand working in academia in another country. I read in this thread

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=58676

some interesting comments about getting a job in Hungarian universities. To sum up, the poster said that qualifications were not of overriding importance, and that often the best way of getting a place was simply to wander in just before the start of a semester and see what happens! Is this true? Would this be the case only for EFL teaching positions, or would it be equally applicable for other specialisms? Has anyone had any success or failure in securing university positions either as a �newbie� or with a few years of other teaching experience in Hungary behind them, and could maybe offer some pointers? Could being overqualified be a problem in that employers would prefer to take on someone they do not have to pay as much? Do university positions offer a stable career in Hungary, or would something like and International School be a better bet?

So many questions! Thank you if you have taken the time to read all this, any help or advice on any of the topics would be much appreciated.

smythb0i

[Deicide]

[Plisken]

My usual disclaimer: I'm also a newb, so most of my attempts at helping others on here are amalgams of second hand information from teachers that seem reputable after a cursory inspection. k. Anyhoo...


The 4 years teaching experience may not matter to whatever school(s) you apply to given the unrelated subject matter and such, but it could definitely help your actual overall teaching ability. It also helps that you're from the UK, since people from that area seem to get preferential treatment as far as hiring in Eastern/Central Europe goes. It sounds like (once again, just based on replies I've received here and elsewhere on the internets) you'll probably be vastly overqualified for the jobs you'll get straight out of a CELTA course, but it beats the alternative I guess.

Just give it some time and lurk on here to find the local gurus. They've been straight enough with me so far that I may have possibly avoided whatever pitfalls afflict someone simply jumping in headfirst.

[CaPow]

If you want to teach English, I would definitely recommend doing a TESOL or CELTA course. Your teaching experience will give you an advantage, but I haven't met any ESL teachers who took a course and didn't think it was valuable.
With your experience and passport I don't think you'll have trouble getting a job. The hardest part will be the paperwork of being able to provide invoices. There are a lot of jobs available for native teachers, but you'll have to turn most of them down if you can't provide invoices.
One good thing about Hungarian language schools is that they keep your CV on file for future need. I was contacted months and even a year after I had applied to a few schools. So if you do intend to stay longer term you'll have work.

[lou_la]

[redsoxfan]

If you want to teach ESL you should get a CELTA.

Normally int'l schools want a teaching qual, but this is not always so. A good friend of mine was the head of the English dept at an int'l school (ok, in Gambia), and he only had an MA English. European schools surely have higher standards. Getting an M.Ed. (distance?) would probably be good enough to get in, even if it is not a certification program.

If you really just want to hang out in Budapest for a while, a CELTA should do you fine. The thing is, you're almost over-qualified, but at this point you're under-qualified. If you jump into the ESL game, you should not expect too much as a newbie. Personally I'm finishing up my M.Ed. because I can't stand working for these crap 'schools'. There are some good ones, but most are not any kind of real educational institution.

Int'l schools pay a proper salary with benefits, TEFL schools typically pay, at best, enough money to get by and have a bit of fun. But hey, nothing wrong with having a bit of fun.

[smythb0i]

Hey everybody,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. End of term here in the UK so have been marking diabolical undergraduate essays and filling out reports for the last month. The joy.

Thanks for all the advice. Much as I expected really - my teaching experience should help a little bit but as far as postgrad qualifications go they need to be in the field of TEFL or education to really make an impact as far as jobs go. I had pretty much realized that I would need to do a CELTA and so will definitely be going ahead with that if all goes to plan. After that I guess it is just a case of plugging away to build up a good reputation and picking up other qualifications as necessary if I decide to try and make a career abroad.

Needless to say my Hungarian is totally non-existant at this point! Lou-la, you mention that the grammar is very logical. I don't know if you know any Latin, but it is a bit like that in the way the nouns decline/verbs conjugate/etc. regularly? I have to say I found Latin much easier to pick up than any other language I have tried, so if Hungarian is similar then you have just allayed some of my fears regarding its notorious difficulty. (although pronouncing it proficiently sounds like a different matter...)

Deicide - I'm getting my PhD from the University of Liverpool, after getting my BA and MA from Durham. Liverpool isn't a real top university in the UK (Oxbridge, Warwick, Durham, Imperial, etc.) but it is still a Russel Group uni, and definitely not one of the glut of new "Universities" (i.e. ex-polytechnic 2:2 factories) that the government seems intent on getting every school leaver into these days. Although it often does seem difficult to tell judging by some of the comments made in tutorials...