Job Discussion Forums

[darren1807]

Hi Everyone

I have been reading the posts on this site, and have a question myself. I am just about to embark on a Celta course with IH in London. I currently work in Careers Guidance advising in Secondary Schools in the UK on Further and Higher Education (university) choices. I have a Degree in Business Studies with Economic; plus two Postgraduate Diplomas one in Careers Guidance the other in Law.

I am interest in working abroad and teaching. My question is would my qualification in Careers Guidance have any weight with employers? Also can you recommend a country where I would earn enough for a good standard of living, as I would like to have a good work life balance?

Hope you can help many thanks.

[mozzar]

How do you think your Career Guidance qualification would help you be a better teacher?

[darren1807]

Hi
Thank you for you response, I don�t think it will make me a better teacher; this is why I am embarking on a Celta course. My enquiry was whether employers would see it as a valuable addition to a teaching qualification.

Hope this clarifies, many thanks

[mozzar]

I may be wrong but: if it won't make you a better teacher, then it may not be of worth to the employers as it has little to do with direct teaching, aside from the fact that it will show a broader experience of work issues. And i figure the more quals the better.

[spiral78]

I've a friend who was in counseling before starting a career in teaching. Her counseling qualifications were not particularly valuable to employers, who didn't see them as relevant to teaching language in any important way.

[justcolleen]

As if "teachers" don't "guide"!

Of course it's valuable.

What country interests you?

[spiral78]

I'm not suggesting that it's irrelevant - there are a very wide range of skills that add up to a good teacher.

But as someone who reviews CVs, this wouldn't pop out as especially 'valuable' in terms of making the CV stand out above most others.

[coledavis]

Yes it is useful, and some of the more enlightened employers will recognise this, especially as students at the higher levels and with wealthy parents will probably be thinking about attending UK universities. (I hold the DCG myself, btw.)
Standard of living: well, remember that this is different from how big your salary is. TEFL teachers do not usually get paid the same as careers advisers. On the other hand, the pay is often a lot more than local people get, so your life out there can be quite good.
If you don't mind living in such a place, I think places like Qatar and other parts of the area round and about Saudi Arabia pay good money. Although why not be a careers adviser in that area; they can get good money and probably more than TEFLers. (I do TEFL as it gets me in to the countries I want to go to.)

[spiral78]

It may be useful in certain teaching contexts, if one is working with students who are planning their university careers. However, I'll maintain that that is just one smallish niche of language teaching in general.

It's not going to be directly applicable if one is teaching businesspeople, for example, or at a university like 'mine,' where we do a substantial amount of our work with MA and Phd students. Nor is it applicable to young kids..or, or....

Really, if you're applying for high school/gymnasium positions, perhaps...but will you know much about education and jobs going in a foreign country?

[coledavis]

Not the point. They want to know about universities in the UK, and that is something a UK careers adviser can help with. I would mention it on an application.

[spiral78]

Who is 'they?' Not every student, for certain.

Unless I've missed something, all we know about where the OP intends to work is:

Also can you recommend a country where I would earn enough for a good standard of living, as I would like to have a good work life balance?

This doesn't focus on students interested in university study in the UK.

[coledavis]

This can't be a serious response, can it? Of course, 100% of all students everywhere are not going to be interested in 100% of anything. This sounds like arguing just for the sake of it.

Returning to the subject, any additional qualification is likely to have some use (I find my computer science degree comes in very nifty when it comes to some one to one students, for example). In the case of careers guidance, however, it is easier to show potential employers how it fits with their students (careers advisers know how to enhance their own applications as well as those of others).

[spiral78]

This is a case of miscommunication. Of course I'm not implying that any skill or experience won't be a useful part of the teacher's package. I'm responding to this:

OPMy enquiry was whether employers would see it as a valuable addition to a teaching qualification.

An addition, yes, but particularly valuable only in some very specific contexts.

My point is that this qualification won't make a CV stand out to most employers above others. That's what I think the OP was inquiring about.

[coledavis]

I think the use of the word every is the source of the problem. Most people take that to mean 100% or close to it. On the question of the cv, yes I agree that most employers won't be jumping up and down about it, but the right sort of schools - e.g. private schools with wealthy parents - may well see the utility of this particular qualification, if our careers adviser makes the point in the particular application.

[coledavis]

Or employers that cater for graduates, who may well be considering the UK for a postgraduate course. (Universities are another possibility, using the same rationale, but the pay in Russian HE may not be at all attractive.)

In short, I think the type of school to apply for needs to be considered. In my case, I haven't bothered much about using my DCG, but that doesn't mean that I may not have been mistaken.