Job Discussion Forums

[Dinah]

Hi all,
I am just graduating from college and hoping to come out to Indonesia to teach in the near future. From browsing online job listings, it seems like the only places prepared to hire people with no experience and no certificate are EF schools, and no one seems to have anything good to say about them. If getting a certificate is the difference between finding a decent job and possibly getting ripped off/cheated then I�ll go ahead and get one. The problem is that as of now I have enough money saved up to cover a month-long course and my flight over and that�s about it, and I�m pretty nervous about showing up in Jakarta without a solid offer from a school and very little money in case anything goes wrong.

So, I think I have a few questions:
1) Will having a certificate actually help much in terms of jobs available/quality of jobs?
2) If I enrolled in an SIT TESOL or CELTA course in a few months, would there be any chance of finding a job while enrolled but before getting certified and coming all the way out to Indonesia?
3) Do you have any suggestions on places to look for entry-level jobs not at EF? Or is working for an EF school my best option under the circumstances?

If anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much!

[rayman]

Despite what is said and given your position, most EF school's aren't that bad.

If you're just after building up some ESL experience and set on living in Indonesia, then taking a job with EF may be your best bet. Particularly given you're income situation. Just avoid the EF chains mentioned negatively on this forum.

Then, after your contract is up, you're wiser and have made more contacts. You may have even done an ESL course with your ample free time and stress free life as an EF teacher. So if you decide to stay you can move on to greener pastures.

[Fishy]

My advice is to do CELTA before you come out. Not just because you will get a better job (which you will) but because you will be a better teacher. For someone who hasn't taught before, a CELTA will help you massively starting out. If you want to be your best as a teacher and you want your students to get the most out of you (which they definitely deserve) then you really should do some training first. Some people on here will tell you that you don't need any training but they are the people who spend years working at EF and earning less money than they could elsewhere whilst having significantly less time off.

CELTA is excellent preparation for teaching ESL. You will have no problem finding a job while you are doing your CELTA. I did my CELTA in beautiful Prague (great course at Akcent IH) and quite easily found my job at TBI to move to afterwards.

Best of luck

[tanyakenapa]

Actually a CELTA course is actually avaiable to do, at TBI about twice a year (last time i checked) and usually once a year in Bali as well.

[guruengerish]

Good advice given there Dinah, but you say you're graduating from College.

There is a supposedly minimum age for teachers of 26, 'tho I note that some EF schools are advertising for teachers from 22 to 44.