Job Discussion Forums

[Fersum1]

Hi,
I have plans to teach in Indonesia in around 9 months time. I have been through hundreds of threads and cannot find all the answers I need.

Here is a little background to start the ball rolling:

27 yr old male, White, English, Degreeless ( college educated ), no family ties, no debt and last but not least a tefl newbie.

My plans are to teach in anywhere but Jakarta, preferably somewhere cooler, less crowded and polluted. Are Yoygi, Surabaya, Bogor good alternatives?

I plan on acquiring a Celta. Would I be sensible to do an online tefl 100hr + to prepare me for this, help my cv when I do get a Celta? Should I just apply for the Celta on its own and only do the recommended pre- course reading. The course that I am potentially looking at is the 150 hr one from The English Training Centre.

http://www.englishtc.co.uk/ces-tesol/

I do plan on teaching in SE Asia for a number of years. I know eventually I will have to look into doing a degree to bolster my chances of landing a better job.

What level do my chances go up for getting another job in an adjoining country after I have taught for one year In Java? This will be still assuming I only have at minimum the Celta and no degree.

I know I will have to start on the bottom rung with my planned qualifications. What might be a good school to start at?

Sorry fo the randomness and most likely self-fulfilling questions and answers. Any input greatly anticipated.

[Atoms for Peace]

[Fersum1]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply.

The reason I was going to do the 150hr course was not as an alternative to the Celta. I wanted to know whether it looked useful in terms of preparing me to do the Celta, to make it easier and less likely to fail.

With regards to the alternative cities, I didn't realise I may be able to teach in Sumatra. Having looked at a few jobs posted from schools in Medan I have seen the minimum they would accept is a tefl course with teaching practice or a Celta.

With regards the degree. At the moment I have little in the way of savings, a 3 yr degree would cost around �10000. This is not an option I am considering until I have successfully taught abroad for at least two years. Even if that happened the pay increase that I would get from a degree would take a long time to meet the 10k outlay., therefore hardly worth it.

[Madame J]

I did a weekend TEFL course before my CELTA (though admittedly, a couple of years before) and found that, whilst I did learn a few useful tricks on it, it didn't contain anything that made the transition to CELTA easier. On the latter course, I felt like as much of a novice as those who had never taken any sort of quick teaching course.

I probably can't offer the best advice as, as I said, my short course took place some while before the CELTA. However, I'd have thought a much cheaper alternative would simply be to ask as many questions on here (and elsewhere) as possible about what you might expect on the CELTA. There's a post of mine regarding the CELTA in the "Newbie" section of this board in which some good points were covered, I found all the responses there to be extremely helpful.

[Atoms for Peace]

The CELTA is an entry level course. Many participants have never taught before, and the course instructors know this.

In my opinion, money set aside for online courses before a CELTA would be better spent on a decent grammar book (Swan's Practical English Usage, for example) and a methodology book (such as Harmer's The Practice of English Language Teaching or Thornbury's How to Teach English).

[Vertumnus]