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AmandaAnne
Joined: 28 Aug 2010
Posts: 2
Location: Ontaio
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 Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:16 pm Post subject: Female 25, Never traveled alone, Collage Diploma and TESOL |
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Hi all,
I am looking to go to Cambodia (I know there is a forum section for this but thought it fit in both categories) to teach.
I have never traveled alone especially to a foreign country.
I am told that I can only get a teaching job in Cambodia because of my education. I want to take the Language Corps course there and hopefully get a placement afterwards.
I have done a lot of reading within the others postings and online about this.
However, I have not seen anything about a female traveling alone to Cambodia.
Is it safe or at least some what safe for a female to travel alone in Cambodia?
How easy is it to get a job if I hit the ground running once I get there?
Is $3000 Canadian a good cushion to start off with?
Thanks!!  |
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tttompatz
Joined: 06 Mar 2010
Posts: 1951
Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines
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| Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:53 pm Post subject: Re: Female 25, Never traveled alone, Collage Diploma and TES |
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| AmandaAnne wrote: |
Hi all,
I am looking to go to Cambodia (I know there is a forum section for this but thought it fit in both categories) to teach.
I have never traveled alone especially to a foreign country.
I am told that I can only get a teaching job in Cambodia because of my education. I want to take the Language Corps course there and hopefully get a placement afterward.
I have done a lot of reading within the others' postings and online about this.
However, I have not seen anything about a female traveling alone to Cambodia.
Is it safe or at least some what safe for a female to travel alone in Cambodia?
How easy is it to get a job if I hit the ground running once I get there?
Is $3000 Canadian a good cushion to start off with?
Thanks!! |
College diploma (from Canada?). It that an associate or a bachelors degree?
IF it is a bachelors degree you can obtain a work visa/work permits and work (legally) anywhere in Asia.
If it is only an Associate (2 year) then your options (for legal work) are largely limited (immigration rules not employment rules).
Hard to give any more accurate advice based on your post in regards to employment.
As to traveling alone - yes, with a little common sense you will be fine. Lots of single women travel alone through out SE Asia every year.
CAD $3000 is a comfortable cushion for getting established in SE Asia as long as you are careful about how you spend it.
Be aware that if you do NOT have a work visa arranged before you travel that you will require return or onward passage from Cambodia before they (the airline) will let you board the plane in Canada. They are absolutely anal about it at the Toronto and Vancouver airports.
Final comment - I am not a grammar cop but you should use a spelling and grammar checker on your resume and cover letter before you send them off. Your post above is full of spelling and other errors; looks like something a high school kid would write and it won't look good on a job application if you want to be an English teacher.
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AmandaAnne
Joined: 28 Aug 2010
Posts: 2
Location: Ontaio
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| Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for the suggestions.
I apologize for the errors.
I don't have the internet at home and I am at work. I am not suppose to be on websites such as these. I get limited time to search things. I wrote it in 2 minutes while my boss was off getting coffee. I did not check it, I should have.
I have a lot more research to do. Thanks again! |
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Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
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| Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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One wonders what a "collage diploma" is.
The Cambodia questions should probably be asked in the Asia Forums. I don't think you're really limited to Cambodia, especially if you get the right TEFL qualifications (there's a really great Trinity course in Toronto). However, many countries (and it seems there are more and more of them) will insist that you have a bachelor's degree in order to get a work visa. |
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naturegirl321
Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 9041
Location: home sweet home
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 12:08 am Post subject: |
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| There's a poster here who loves Cambodia as well, khermit. Try PMing him. I just went there on vacation and I can say that while it's a lovely country, don't expect to be able to save much money. Sure, you'll learn well and have a good time, but you won't be lining your pockets. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 3:39 am Post subject: Re: Female 25, Never traveled alone, Collage Diploma and TES |
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| tttompatz wrote: |
College diploma (from Canada?). It that an associate or a bachelors degree? |
| Chancellor wrote: |
| One wonders what a "collage diploma" is. |
In Ontario (and other provinces in Canada) colleges and universities are two different paths. Colleges are more hands-on. Universities are more theoretical. A college diploma is NOT a university degree, although it usually takes three years (and we have three-year university degrees in Ontario as well- but they are from universities). A college is similar to a community college in that they have programs in auto mechanics and other "shop" kinds of programs and pathways into apprenticeships. But they also have some programs that are available disciplines at universities (journalism, nursing, accounting etc) and they also have the majority of post-graduate certificates in the province. These take a year and require a university degree, or a college diploma- sometimes they don't allow people with college diplomas in, especially if you won't be able to actually do the job that it's for. For example, that's the case with one-year post-graduate TESL certificates (which are also available through universities, with the university ones being more theoretical, though both require a lengthy practicum).
Some of the colleges now offer "Bachelor of Applied Arts" degrees, which actually are degrees, but you do a big chunk of the courses at universities, not colleges- more and more joint programs where you do some courses at the university, and some at a college are cropping up each year. Many people from Ontario had up to grade 13 in high school, then a degree for three or four (for an honours degree) years in university and then a year at a college for a post-graduate certificate because almost no initial undergraduate university degrees in Ontario actually train you to do a specific job (except for journalism, some sort of fine art performance, some of the business subjects, engineering and computer science) and no company is going to train you to do your job when they can get someone who's already done a post-graduate certificate in it. And so it isn't uncommon for people to actually have more than one of these post-graduate certificates (or a post-graduate certificate plus a one-year consecutive B.Ed or something) if they discover that for whatever reason they aren't suited to job (teacher burnout is common in the first couple of years often get a post-graduate certificate in something else, like PR, many people do English degrees, and then a post-graduate certificate in publishing because they really REALLY want to be editors, but discover that there really isn't a publishing industry in Canada that can actual support that more than 100 graduates per year, and what actually happens is companies use post-grad students doing their required placement as free labour, then hire them at the end of their placement, then fire them just before the next placement period is about to come along).
Anyway, yeah, that's what the OP is talking about. She doesn't have a degree. She doesn't have a university or very likely Ontario college certificate in TESL either, because without a degree, she wouldn't have met the prerequisite to get in (I'm not sure if it's still the case, but at least one Ontario college was allowing people with a college diploma into their TESL post-grad, but they were told and would read in the course descriptions that without a degree, they wouldn't be able to get into the governing bodies for language teachers in Ontario, blocking them from most jobs that anyone would want, and that they would furthermore not be able to work overseas in many countries either).
One thing that makes the term 'college' in Ontario more confusing is that university campuses, and the buildings on them for large campuses, are often called 'colleges' as well. York University is one really large campus [and one smaller, bilingual one] and there are many colleges on that one campus- students have to be affiliated with a particular college, that has a speciality, and offers some first-year courses that are available only to York students affiliated with that particular college. The college is generally set up for a specific type of major [Winters College is where most people in the Fine Arts Faculty are affiliated, Stong has a lot of Phys Ed majors. But because the first year Winters Creative Writing courses always fill up really early, some people in Fine Arts or English end up affiliated with Stong, because they have a non-fiction writing class. You usually cannot change affiliation after choosing it).
And then, of course, there are private training centres that might be called a 'college' as well. Recently there has been a crack-down on them because many of them aren't real schools at all, they're just diploma mills that get put under the umbrella of 'career college'. Some are legitimate (bar tending schools, hair dressing schools etc) but many aren't (there are many language teaching, 'Aunt Sally's Worldwide TESOL College' types of things in Canada). |
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Big Poppa Pump
Joined: 28 May 2010
Posts: 167
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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I know Languagecorp sounds tempting, but in my experience I've found the program to be wanting in certain areas. I've dealt with several newly hired teachers who all seemed woefully unprepared in the sense that they almost all looked like the time they spent teaching during their TEFL course was non-existent. . Another thing that surprised me, languagecorp does very little screening as to who they allow to take their course. That means more or less anyone with enough cash and a passport can take the thing.
One of my teachers told me about weekend debaucheries involving pills, booze, rented girlfriends, and bribes to stay out of jail on the part of some of the trainees.
Not that LC has a responsibility to weed out that sort of thing, but from what I was told by a graduate they did very little to actually check your competency in the usage of English as well.
If it was me, I'd dive into Thailand and get a CELTA and then go overland to Cambodia. From the reports, jobs are easy enough to get if you hustle, have your resume, and look fairly presentable.
The CELTA has that name recognition and if I remember correctly you can do it at International House in Bangkok that has a package that includes rooming.
At least, this is the course I'm considering taking if I keep on teaching. My eyes are turning other directions, so who knows where I'll end up next. |
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Chancellor
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 1337
Location: Ji'an, China - if you're willing to send me cigars, I accept donations :)
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: Female 25, Never traveled alone, Collage Diploma and TES |
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| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| tttompatz wrote: |
College diploma (from Canada?). It that an associate or a bachelors degree? |
| Chancellor wrote: |
| One wonders what a "collage diploma" is. |
In Ontario (and other provinces in Canada) colleges and universities are two different paths. Colleges are more hands-on. Universities are more theoretical. A college diploma is NOT a university degree, although it usually takes three years (and we have three-year university degrees in Ontario as well- but they are from universities). A college is similar to a community college in that they have programs in auto mechanics and other "shop" kinds of programs and pathways into apprenticeships. But they also have some programs that are available disciplines at universities (journalism, nursing, accounting etc) and they also have the majority of post-graduate certificates in the province. These take a year and require a university degree, or a college diploma- sometimes they don't allow people with college diplomas in, especially if you won't be able to actually do the job that it's for. For example, that's the case with one-year post-graduate TESL certificates (which are also available through universities, with the university ones being more theoretical, though both require a lengthy practicum).
Some of the colleges now offer "Bachelor of Applied Arts" degrees, which actually are degrees, but you do a big chunk of the courses at universities, not colleges- more and more joint programs where you do some courses at the university, and some at a college are cropping up each year. Many people from Ontario had up to grade 13 in high school, then a degree for three or four (for an honours degree) years in university and then a year at a college for a post-graduate certificate because almost no initial undergraduate university degrees in Ontario actually train you to do a specific job (except for journalism, some sort of fine art performance, some of the business subjects, engineering and computer science) and no company is going to train you to do your job when they can get someone who's already done a post-graduate certificate in it. And so it isn't uncommon for people to actually have more than one of these post-graduate certificates (or a post-graduate certificate plus a one-year consecutive B.Ed or something) if they discover that for whatever reason they aren't suited to job (teacher burnout is common in the first couple of years often get a post-graduate certificate in something else, like PR, many people do English degrees, and then a post-graduate certificate in publishing because they really REALLY want to be editors, but discover that there really isn't a publishing industry in Canada that can actual support that more than 100 graduates per year, and what actually happens is companies use post-grad students doing their required placement as free labour, then hire them at the end of their placement, then fire them just before the next placement period is about to come along).
Anyway, yeah, that's what the OP is talking about. She doesn't have a degree. She doesn't have a university or very likely Ontario college certificate in TESL either, because without a degree, she wouldn't have met the prerequisite to get in (I'm not sure if it's still the case, but at least one Ontario college was allowing people with a college diploma into their TESL post-grad, but they were told and would read in the course descriptions that without a degree, they wouldn't be able to get into the governing bodies for language teachers in Ontario, blocking them from most jobs that anyone would want, and that they would furthermore not be able to work overseas in many countries either).
One thing that makes the term 'college' in Ontario more confusing is that university campuses, and the buildings on them for large campuses, are often called 'colleges' as well. York University is one really large campus [and one smaller, bilingual one] and there are many colleges on that one campus- students have to be affiliated with a particular college, that has a speciality, and offers some first-year courses that are available only to York students affiliated with that particular college. The college is generally set up for a specific type of major [Winters College is where most people in the Fine Arts Faculty are affiliated, Stong has a lot of Phys Ed majors. But because the first year Winters Creative Writing courses always fill up really early, some people in Fine Arts or English end up affiliated with Stong, because they have a non-fiction writing class. You usually cannot change affiliation after choosing it).
And then, of course, there are private training centres that might be called a 'college' as well. Recently there has been a crack-down on them because many of them aren't real schools at all, they're just diploma mills that get put under the umbrella of 'career college'. Some are legitimate (bar tending schools, hair dressing schools etc) but many aren't (there are many language teaching, 'Aunt Sally's Worldwide TESOL College' types of things in Canada). |
I said "one wonders what a 'collage diploma' is," (as in the title of the thread), not what a "college diploma" is.
In the States a four-year degree is a four-year degree regardless of whether it came from a "college" (e.g. Buffalo State College www.buffalostate.edu) or a "university" (e.g. State University of New York at Buffalo www.buffalo.edu); for that matter, even a two-year degree is the same regardless of whether it's from a "college" or a "university." |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: Female 25, Never traveled alone, Collage Diploma and TES |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
In the States a four-year degree is a four-year degree regardless of whether it came from a "college" (e.g. Buffalo State College www.buffalostate.edu) or a "university" (e.g. State University of New York at Buffalo www.buffalo.edu); for that matter, even a two-year degree is the same regardless of whether it's from a "college" or a "university." |
Yep, but that's not the situation in Canada. |
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santi84
Joined: 14 Mar 2008
Posts: 1317
Location: under da sea
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Just to add to the confusion, colleges in British Columbia award (4 year) degrees. I spent about 7 years (part-time) doing my degree at a local college, only to graduate from a "university" when it became one in the 8th year  Quite a few colleges in British Columbia have full 4 year degrees.
I didn't even know Canada had two year colleges until I started exploring work in Quebec (CEGEP system). |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| naturegirl321 wrote: |
| There's a poster here who loves Cambodia as well, khermit. Try PMing him. I just went there on vacation and I can say that while it's a lovely country, don't expect to be able to save much money. Sure, you'll learn well and have a good time, but you won't be lining your pockets. |
Haha, I don't think Khmerhit has lived in Cambodia in over 8 years, so his info might be very outdated.
U came to Cambodia and didn't hit me up?!?! Now I'm upset ;-]
So, AMANDA, is that a bachelors degree or what?!?! That makes a huge difference on your options..... |
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