Job Discussion Forums

jobe3x · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 45

I considering whether get a teachers certification in English in my home state of Texas or just get a CELTA and go overseas?

My goal is to teach ESL overseas. I've already got a BA in Business. I'm debating whether a cert in english for the U.S. system is usefull overseas. Should I skip taking all those classes in favor of masters after two years of teaching esl?

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

It depends on where you want to teach. Many jobs in places like China, Japan and Korea do not require a certification (just an undergraduate degree for visa puposes.) Some of the better jobs require a teaching certificate (CELTA seems a commonly preffered example.)

I am unfamiliar with the US education system, and am uncertian how employers would react to US certifcations.

If you want to teach in East Asia (or South America as I hear) then you have done the bulk of your work in getting a "qualification" (ie your degree.)

Research countries you are interested in and decide.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

It also depends on how long you think you will be teaching overseas. (By the way, EFL is for teaching English in a foreign land. ESL is teaching it in your native English speaking country.)

If you are only in it for a year or so, the money you invest may take quite a while to recoup.

Also consider how comfortable you feel teaching English. That is, do you have a good sense for lesson planning and presentation? What size group do you think you will be into? 5 people? 2? 45?

Jeff Mohamed · Joined: 18 Oct 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Houston, Texas

If your aim is to teach English overseas, I certainly would go for the Cambridge CELTA. A K-12 teacher training course won't equip you with the skills that you'll need for teaching EFL abroad and the certification won't be recognized by as many overseas employers as the CELTA.

BTW, I work at North Harris College (Houston), where we offer both teacher certification and CELTA courses.

jobe3x · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 45

How is the CELTA program at North Harris community college?

It's big debate within me right now whether to take the 36 college hours required to get a K-12 cert in english.

I wonder if I'll ever come back to the states after going overseas.

Jeff Mohamed · Joined: 18 Oct 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Houston, Texas

I think NHC is a pretty nice place to take the CELTA: The campus and facilities are good and we have good trainers. Also, because it's a community college rather than a private language school, the course fee is much lower than elsewhere in the USA. Housing costs (for people from outside of Houston) are reasonable as well: about $600 for a month. You do need to have a car, though, as public transportation isn't good!

You can find out more about the course by going to: www.nhceducatesu.com
When you reach the website, click on "CE Programs" and then on "CELTA".

Snoopy · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 185

I cannot generalize, merely add my own experience. After a year of teaching overseas armed with a degree and PGCE (and some years' schoolteaching in the UK), I returned to the UK and did my Cert. I learned more in those weeks than I had in a year of PGCE and it improved my teaching. I recouped the cost within a few months of returning abroad by teaching rather a lot of evening classes: but then it was the Middle East. In between that ME job and the present one, I did some language-school work back in the UK, a job which I certainly would not have got without my Cert (by then Dip, even better).

Hope this helps.

nighthawk · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 60 Location: USA

jobe3x wrote:

Ben Round de Bloc · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1946

donfan · Joined: 31 Aug 2003 Posts: 217

I got my teaching qualfications in Australia before I went overseas teaching EFL. I certainly don't regret doing it. I go home on breaks every now and then am able to do casual school teaching to support myself while I am home. It also enables you to get a job teaching in international schools, which generally pay more than language schools. I also know that when I eventually settle down in Australia I'll be able to get a job easily enough as there is a huge shortage of teachers.

jobe3x · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 45

MindTraveller · Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 89 Location: Oman

I've seen lots of EFL jobs recently requiring a teacher's certificate in addition to a Masters. It seems employers are waking up to the importance of TEACHING and not just having a Masters.

I entered a certificate program when I was 40 with the intention of trying to get jobs at the good int'l schools. Then I got a job at a bad one.... and went back to teaching at universities overseas for the most part.

I regretted, for years, the money I spent - full time college for 1.5 years - but now it seems, on the job market, that degree has helped me a lot. So I'm glad I have it. It's a good investment, IMHO.

jobe3x · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 45

There's so many different opinions on the subject that it's hard for me to make a decision. I guess it's simpler to go ahead and go get esl job first. If I like it then I would go ahead and invest in a masters. After that, ME here come. Right now, my office job really sucks. I would rather spend my teaching.

Nobuhle · Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 17 Location: Xi'an, China

There does seem to be a variety of opinions. I will add mine. I did my teaching credential and master's in education before I had any real teaching job. When I decided to teach EFL for a while, I did a TESOL certificate. I have no idea how people with no teaching background can feel confident teaching with only a four week course. I know you pick up a lot of things when you are actually teaching, but I am very thankful to have done my teaching credential first. Some of the most useful classes I took were the psychology courses, where we discussed how people learn. With that knowledge, you can teach anybody and adapt your teaching style to that person since you have the theory of how people learn.

With all that said, if you don't know that you want to be a teacher for many many years, it is probably best to volunteer for a while to see if this is something you want to do. That will enable you to make a better-informed decision. If you just want to teach in another country for a couple of years to have an adventure and then never teach again, don't invest in the teaching credential.

Erica

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I wholeheartedly go al9ong with Nobule.
In addition, I have to say that the TEFL/TESL domain is full of amateurs, both on the employer side and among the jobholders. A 4 week course doesn't lift you out of that category.
The best grounding in the teaching profession, in my opinion, is if you had to become proficient at at lest one other lingo, preferably two or more.

If you are perfectly bilingual (for an US person: Spanish/English; a Canadian: French/English; a Brit: many different combinations possible) then you have prctical, hands-on experience from before you actually had to choose a career path.

Such folks won't need much more than a cheap TEFL cert. Where I come from, language instructors usually specialise in several languages and teach one or two of them. And then they join the civil service as teachers for a lifetime.
I haven't done that, and possibly I couldn't because I didn't study teaching per se though I did study linguistics.
But the way I had to learn different other languages gave me enough insight in how one becomes bilingual or multilingual; I am often somewhat perplexed at the theories on L2 acquisition by monolingual TEFL cert holders.