Job Discussion Forums

[Spaceghost2]

Hi,

I am from the UK, I am 25 and have a BA (Hons) and a MA. For many years I have wanted to live in exotic locations and teaching English always seemed like a good way to do that.

Having a degree, I am aware that I can get a job in many places and a CELTA or TEFL certificate is not required. The truth is though that I don't want to be one of those many temporary teachers that has no teaching experience. I want to be a good teacher for the students, so I thought it would be best to do the CELTA so I have an inkling of what I am doing.

Spent ages saving the money, the school seemed to send me an endless amount of applications and preinterview tasks to do. I felt more like I was applying for a job.

Anyway I went to the interview today and it didn't go so well. Despite me explaining I had no teaching experience or knowledge, they wanted me to demonstrate how I would teach various things. I thought the point of the course was to teach me how to do these things. Anyway I gave it a try but it was difficult for me to express myself because every time I tried something, the teacher would say I can't do that but not tell me what the correct way was. I don't want to throw around accusations but I felt as if the guy was making things extra difficult for me compared to the girl that was interviewing with me, she did have teaching experience and I admit she did a better job than me but he seemed to drop more hints to her than to me. In the end the man said he wouldn't offer me a place but I was welcome to try again later. I think I could have handled it, sure it is intensive but I have two degrees and it seens strange to me if they have place available to not want to fill them up. Was he doing me a favour and saving my money or was the school being elitist?

Of course I am disappointed and I am trying to think of the best next step to take. The plan was do the CELTA in April, and then apply for jobs and leave ASAP. I am really quite desperate to leave my town, I know it is not the best motivation but it is the truth.

There is one other schools that offer the CELTA but it seems to have a very long winded application process too, but perhaps this is the procedure for all CELTA schools? There is a local college that offer the CELTA as a 4 week and 12 week part time course but they only do it once per year so that is not really match my time frame.

TESOL is another option, I kow it is supposed to be an equivalent of the CELTA but the CELTA still seems to be more widely recognised.

I do have various English grammar and teaching books which I will read through, I thought I would do the interview, pass that and then read the books in the 3 weeks before the course starts but I guess I should read them before I interview.

I just want to do a good job of teaching so figured educating myself was the smart way to do it instead of jumping in the deep end.

My number one destination is Japan and I am aware there is much competition which is why a CELTA would have been useful. There is always South Korea The interviewer said he has taught there for a number of years and he loved it!

Perhaps I should just apply for jobs anyway and see what happens or delay my plans, study some more and apply again when I am better prepared.

I suppose I am just a little flabbergasted that even with two degrees, they think the course would be too difficult for me? Anyway, good or bad, it was a learning experience and I can see where I need improvement. They did give me a spelling and grammar test and I made some silly mistakes, but these are the kind of errors that take one minute to check and fix (which I would always do if I was unsure) and I would have fixed this holes before the course started, so I do feel as if they were being too stringent.

Anyway enough whining, I probably sound like a sour grape (I am at this moment). Please pass on your wisdom and experience so that I may learn and improve.

Thanks.

[fluffyhamster]

Probably every training center interviews slightly more applicants than there are places, if only so there will still be a sufficient intake should any trainee drop out before fully accepting the offer of a place and paying up (which reminds me, there might be a waiting list worth enquiring about, by the way - and their willingness or not to put you on any might indicate if they really are interested in ever seeing you and your money again or not!). In your case however it does sound like there was a bit of sexual favouritism going on...but hey, maybe the girl really was the stronger, readier, more willing and aparently capable potential trainee, and you just don't appear to have quite as much of that indefinable "what it takes to teach" just yet (if ever)... (though judging from your writing/self-expression I can't imagine you would [turn out to] be a complete and hopeless "basket case" teacher!).

Way back in the mists of time and before I'd really read much on TEFL aside from a few "careers guidance" leaflets and books like Susan Griffith's, I remember attending a GEOS group interview in Hove, and being pretty much at an almost complete loss as to ideas to contribute on how to teach anything (though the tasks were IIRC quite "nasty", especially for complete newbs - things like "Teach how to use 'some' and/versus 'any' to a group of Japanese students even more braindead than yourselves!" ), and surprise surprise I went home with a big reject mark stamped on my forehead. Sometime between then and applying for the CELTA however I studied Chinese, and then started reading about English with a bit more linguistic appreciation, and whaddya know I made it onto the course...then again, there were only about a half-dozen trainees so probably the center was desperate for my greenqueens as well as anybody and everybody else's! (Not saying however that you haven't been doing any reading, but what is your educational background exactly? Any languages, or modern, solidly descriptive English courses under your belt? Anyway, the sad truth about ELT is that you have to teach yourself a lot of it, especially the grammar [which IMHO is or should be what actually drives a lot of the ideas for activities]...you really can't sit there and expect whatever methodology they throw at you to be more than a bag of tricks or a few recipes' worth [assuming they were more willing to do much more than ask you to 'Tell them what you know, or think, would work' - and then of course politely disagreeing, by always saying what was so wrong with what you suggest or do, rather than telling you in their own words the actual right way to go about anything - from the very start!]).

I must say though that it might be slightly unusual to be pitted against other applicants so...when I interviewed to do the CELTA it was a private/individual thing the whole time...(see above comments about there being only a half-dozen trainees etc).

Bear in mind also that there may be more applicants than usual wanting to flee to apparently greener pastures, given the present economic climate!

Ultimately if it isn't convenient for you to reschedule doing the CELTA, then I'd say just start applying for Japan jobs now (with a view to commencing any quite a few months further down the road - visas etc take time to arrange, and the time you arrive in Japan will probably also be the time you will eventually be looking for a new contract in following years, so try to make sure you arrive around a "peak" hiring season!) - I don't think the CELTA makes much difference in terms of being eligible for most entry-level jobs in Japan (at least not in terms of pay!), certainly if you're applying from outside Japan with no experience of living there, nor a work visa already etc (though with something like JET, the more halfway-decent referees you can muster the better, and CELTA trainers could fit that bill), and I think of all the books (or indeed essentials like groceries, rent etc) that you could buy in Japan with the money saved - I mean, the CELTA isn't cheap, and arguably isn't that great an investment, especially if you are actually serious about becoming/always being the best teacher you can be! (Individuality and genuine learning for yourself at least versus trotting out "recommended" but tired old hackneyed stuff that "does the job").

[Chancellor]

There's always Trinity or SIT.

[Spaceghost2]

Hi,

Thanks for replying, I have had some time to calm down and reflect upon my performance and perhaps it was not the best. They did say there are places available, they have a course running every month (the girl was doing a different course date). I did make some minor errors in various spelling and grammar tests, usually I would look these up if I was unsure but I couldn't do that in the interview. I am annoyed because to me these are minor mistakes that are quickly and easily corrected. I would not be so arrogant to believe my knowledge is perfect and pass this down to students. I suppose these little things all added up at the end but I won't be put off and now I will be better prepared for next time.

I think I will brush up on my grammar and teaching methods through reading and try to apply for the Trinity course in June at a different branch of the school.

AEON seems to be the only company taking applications at the moment, I suppose I could try the smaller independent schools on this website, in-fact I would rather live in a small town or village so I can be more culturally involved but I don't know if they would support the visa. I also lack a driving license which appears to be required for the small town jobs (I am working on it).

I was taught all the English stuff at school but it was nearly ten years ago now and to be honest, during that time I day dreamed when the teacher got any more complicated than simple past, present and future. The CELTA school did give a pre-interview test and I had to look everything up but I think I got it right, not so good at remembering those details without the book in front of me though

Thanks for the encouragement! I work in the family business and my Dad is not very supportive of any plans that involve me leaving which can make things tough. He will probably be happy about my failure today.

The interviewer had a really limp handshake which set off alarm bells from the start, but maybe I am reading into it too much

[fluffyhamster]

Hi again SG2 (forgot to greet you before!), hope the Trinity goes well and that you manage to land that job in Japan! (Just ask on the Japan forum if you have any questions in that regard ).

Regarding cert interview/application mistakes, who knows what counts for and against when for example you slip up with not catching written errors (made by somebody else for your "reading pleasure" i.e. for you to correct, I should add!) regarding its versus it's, but then find yourself on the course alongside a supposedly equally well-educated person who is actively writing 'of' every time he means 'have' ("I should of written 'have' instead of 'of' just then - hmm, I wonder how I'd contract that 'of'? 'Should'f'?" ). (I've banged on about these before, over on the Teacher Discussion forums: http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2719 ( < http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2796&highlight=bugged )).

Limp handshakes, isn't that just how us Brits are?

The only formal English grammar I ever had in secondary school (about 25 years ago now!) was some well-educated, polite but fatally out-of-touch (with good old ever-incipient English yobbo culture I mean) African English-speaking English teacher suddenly seeming to take it upon himself (and probably in spite of the prescribed syllabus) to teach us something quick by launching into a bit of 'clause analysis' (i.e. parsing); he'd barely started labelling and diagramming the grammatical relations within the simple sentence he'd boarded when the more intellectually-challenged members of the class went completely apesh*t at the stress that tiny amount of teaching-learning was causing them. I think the poor guy actually quit teaching soon afterwards, because I don't recall ever seeing him around the school after that, and we were given a replacement teacher. But in hindsight it may have been good to have been spared (beyond the more obvious formal basics) any potentially prescriptive nonsense! (That is, as an adult it is easier to sort the wheat from the chaff and appreciate the truly descriptive essentials).

By the way (and as you yourself may have been reading/suspecting by now) there's no future tense in English (i.e. just two tenses, in the strict sense of a tense consisting construction-wise of just a single, appropriately inflected, main verb: simple present and past, like you say!), but I doubt if (i.e. don't recall that) they bang on about technical stuff like 'aspect' etc too much at the cert level; mainly they are just on about 'The various ways to express futurity, and their slight differences in meaning/function' or somesuch. (Still, might not hurt to consider getting something like Michael Lewis's The English Verb sooner rather than later, even though it's more held as a DELTA-level than CELTA-level book).
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=4131

[80daze]

I was rejected the first time too as was a colleague of mine - the simple answer is go away and study and then reapply.

I don't think it was anything personal maybe it was just a lack of preparation - you didn't know you would be asked to demonstrate how to teach certain vocabulary. You'll find that this is the method that most centers use - put this down to experience- the next time you will know what you are walking into and I'm sure you'll be better prepared.

My advice, sit down reapply straight away and then start sticking your nose into teaching and grammar books - when you do the next interview relax, smile and show confidence in what you are doing, It worked for me

Good luck !