Job Discussion Forums

[Aisling]

Greetings All! I have been perusing this site for a couple of months now and have finally got up the nerve to post.

I would love to teach English in Europe to satisfy both my desire to teach and my yen for travel. Even though I am American, I have one thing going for me in that both of my parents are Irish. I have already contacted the Irish Consulate in NYC and they have informed me that I can indeed get an EU passport. They have already sent me the paperwork, so I will be starting this process ASAP. From what I have read on these boards, this is an enormous hurdle that I have already cleared.

Second, I graduated from university with a BA in English and a teaching certification in Secondary Education (middle school and high school). I have experience teaching through my student teaching and with substitute teaching for a year at several local schools.

OK, so not to be boring everyone with my resume here, but I'm confused about what my next step should be. I am specifically confused with the difference between CELTA and TEFL. Which would be best for me to take? I would ideally like to teach in either Spain or Italy - are there on-site schools that offer CELTA and/or TEFL?

Any advice that you all could give would be greatly appreciated as I am still in the "research" stage of this right now!

Thanks!

[Marcoregano]

Hi Aisling,

First off, you might want to consider whether you want to teach at private English schools or in secondary education (or wherever). If secondary, there's little point on doing the TEFL cert. and you should start focusing on international schools in Spain or Italy. If you want to work in private schools (a whole different ballgame to secondary edn.) yes you need to get your TEFL/TESOLcertificate. I might be a bit out of date on this, but when I did mine 10 years ago, you had to make sure the course was recognised either by Cambridge or Trinity, and they are basically the same.

[Aisling]

Thank you, Marcoregano, for your reply.

Am I correct in assuming that "private" schools would be teaching adults in companies and that sort of thing? And I really don't mean to sound like a complete dunce, but what is the definition of an "international school"?

[Marcoregano]

I'm sure there's bags of info about the various types of school elsewhere on this site. But very basically, private school teaching might (tho not necessarilly!) involve a mixture of teaching adults, teenagers and kids - you could focus in on the type of teaching you fancy - some private schools are more business focused, some more kids focused, etc.

International schools are generally (but not always!) upmarket primary or secondary schools which provide an education for the children of expats - overseas businessmen, diplomats etc. There are also American international schools, (and which use the US curriculum), often in countries where there's a big US military presence.

[Bradfrd12]

As this is posted in the Spain section of the forum I will assume that you are thinking about coming to Spain.

Secondary education is virtually not an option. Although you have hurdled the whole EU resident thing you'd have to 1) Covalidate your degree through a Spanish University 2) most likely get the one year teaching certificate here and 3) take the state civil servants (oposici�nes) exam which is a beast that most people take 3 or 4 years to study for. In all fairness the "oposici�n" would be easier for you since you already know English an dgrammar but it's still another hurdle and 4) you will not necessarily be able to choose where you live. When you take the exam in one of the provinces of Spain they allow the highest marks to choose first among the jobs available. So if there are 5 jobs available and 200 people taking the exam obviously only 5 get the position and then maybe only 1 of them is actually in, for example, Valencia city. the rest may be anywhere else in the province. So that's that.

As for private. You are looking at two options.

One, finding an international English school. This is a private secondary school whose teachers do not take the oposici�n and may or may not require you to have the Spanish teaching Cert. You're best bet would be to find an American School like the one in Pu�ol here in Valencia. I believe they hire according to your US credentials and not necessarily Spanish credentials. But I am not entirely sure because I have never personally appied for any position there.

Two, you get a job with an English academy. These are the typical jobs that 99% of the people coming over get. You end up teaching whatever the academy has for you. Plus side is that it is very easy to get, especially taking into consideration your degree. Down side, pay and timetable. Although one benefit you'd have is that you would get a contract and other Americans can't. It basically would put you on par with all other EU residents looking for work at an academy.

Good luck.