Job Discussion Forums

[DaveW125]

My girlfriend and I are both currently teaching in South Korea, and have been for about 2 years. I have an Ma in Law and she has an undergrad in Linguistics and is TEFL certified. We both really enjoy teaching and are looking to become fully qualified. We have been looking at different universities and have seen that the University of Hong Kong runs post graduate teaching course. We would be looking to study part time over two years in 2010. This entails evening classes twice a week with the observed teaching practice done in the school that you are working at. Does anyone have any experience with training to be a teacher in Hong Kong? Would acceptance on to the course add to our marketability when applying for teaching jobs?

Any information would be great, thanks.

[Yes Sir I Can Bogey]

I think you will encounter (at least) four major hurdles. First, I am not entirely sure whether you can obtain a study visa for part-time courses (everything in HK requires a visa, even voluntary work). If you were planning on working full-time and studying part-time � for which you would not require a study visa as you would have a work visa � then you would most likely find it quite challenging to find the time (full-time teaching posts in HK are really full-time). Second, unless you have been in HK for a certain period of time (I forget the exact amount of time) you will be charged overseas fees, which can be nothing short of extortionate. Third, even though many courses in HK are advertised as 'English Medium of Instruction' and as having 'top professors' as the tutors, I can tell you for fact that more often than not such courses are typically farmed out to local research students � many of whom have never taught before, let alone set foot in a local school � and that they will often slip into Cantonese during lectures (indeed, many are barely competent in English). The top drawer professors 'co-ordinate', 'oversee', and 'manage' the course from afar, that is, from the sanctuary of their office. Fourth, there is the problem of recognition, or rather, the lack thereof. Many previous graduates of courses such as the PDGE offered by 'universities' in HK have gone on to discover that their costly certificate is not always necessarily automatically recognised by institutions or other employers outside of the territory.