Job Discussion Forums

[Jbhughes]

I teach in a language mill in Vietnam. I realise my job doesn't involve great pay or prospects but I really enjoy doing what I do. As a 20-something single the lack of employee benefits really isn't a problem to me now. However, one day I will have to grow up and probably will want to get married and have a family and things like job security, pay and prospects are going to become more important.

The sensible thing at this point would be to get better qualifications and experience to allow myself to move into better positions and out of this type of school.

Right now I'm wondering if I would actually enjoy the types of teaching involved with better jobs.


What are the rungs on the ladder from here?
i.e. What types of teaching environment does one progress through after the dodgy language mills?
How do these teaching environments differ from your average language mill?

I'm not asking about employee benefits.

I'm also not asking which qualifications I should study for - there is plenty of information here already to help me with that.

A reference point for comparison could be a CELTA classroom.

[spiral78]

For what it's worth, I'll throw in my perspective here, but I think you'll find 'reality' only in the perspectives of many teachers - and your own ideas and goals.

Right now I'm wondering if I would actually enjoy the types of teaching involved with better jobs.

I've never taught in a 'language mill,' or in Asia, where I understand students and teaching are very different from the European students I know well - and the Canadian immigrant students I know a bit.

But I can tell you about my jobs, with a related MA, teaching at a university in Canada and another one in Europe (these are jobs for grown-ups with actual benefits and stuff).

The things I like about working on this level include designing and piloting curriculum (and having other teachers work with my materials and giving feedback on it. I like working to provide professional development to other teachers, and learning from others with specialities as well. I like writing for publication, and giving workshops at conferences.

Still, most of all, I like working with students - but with a caveat - I have been teaching for a long time in environments where English is taken quite seriously. It's not just for grades - failing one of our classes can mean losing one's place at the uni. The students, from first year to post grad, are quite serious about what we are doing together.

I also work with business professionals - that's very rewarding, and also involves materials design.


What are the rungs on the ladder from here?
i.e. What types of teaching environment does one progress through after the dodgy language mills?
How do these teaching environments differ from your average language mill?

Well, a CELTA is still just a newbie-level qual, but it gives you a much better idea of what you're doing. If you really think that you love the job, I'd suggest a CELTA or equivalent as a next step. If you still like the job after this step, consider a related MA. You could also consider where and what kind of students you like working with - and make some target goals related to that.

[Jbhughes]

Thankyou for your reply Spiral78.

Apologies, I should have been clearer in my post - when I wrote:

"A reference point for comparison could be a CELTA classroom."

I actually meant that I have a CELTA and teach in 'CELTA-esque' classrooms now.

I suppose my line of thought is more along the lines of:

How different is the CELTA classroom to teaching in a university or whatever other TEFL/TESOL/TESL/<insert acronyms ad infinitum> teaching environments there are?

And what are these other environments?

I'm solely interested in teaching adults.

I realise my questions are quite vague and incredibly broad - but I honestly haven't got a clue what it would be like to teach outside of the type of language institute I teach in at the moment.

thanks again Spiral78 - I do agree that many perspectives about people's experiences will more than likely be necessary to guide my thoughts and your perspective definitely was helpful.

[Teacher in Rome]

I agree with what Spiral has said.

I think that teaching is what you make of it. I've seen a lot of teachers do it just for a year or so, and I've also seen a lot of career teachers, working in different environments:

- DOS
- corporate training
- writing materials / designing curriculum
- teacher training
- involvement in blended learning / e-learning

And of course, that's before you take into account all the interpersonal and management skills that help you with many more careers besides.

But what makes teaching so exciting now is the huge potential to make your own opportunities via social networking groups such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Share / develop new teaching ideas / materials; develop contacts (useful for moving on and up, career wise); and staying ahead of new technologies, trends, etc. Through giving us the possibility of creating our own professional groups, teachers are now a lot less dependent on a dodgy employer. There's a lot more transparency, a lot more impartial advice, and of couse, a lot more support from other teachers.

[Glenski]

[Perilla]

If you want to reach the best university jobs, focus on getting a PhD as soon as you can. The sooner you get it the more value you'll get from it. I'd also advise you to side-step out of TEFL and into linguistics or English literature. Many unis thesedays have an "English Centre", which act as a sort of ghetto for the EFL teachers, and where they're kept as second class citizens, usually on poor rates of pay and/or terms compared to the "proper" uni faculties.

[naturegirl321]

[spiral78]

I've heard that PhD make some of the worse teachers. Not saying that everyone with a PhD is a bad teacher.

People who've been hired to teach with PhDs in something unrelated, and who have minimal to zero teacher training, tend to be awful teachers.

Teachers with solid training (related MA and PhD, and earlier training in situations where they are supervised and get feedback) tend to be great teachers.

[Jbhughes]

[riverboat]

I've recently climbed from bottom rung to second-bottom rung of the ladder I guess. My first job was in a language school in Paris, and like the vast majority of English teachers here, I was employed on an hourly-paid basis teaching English (mostly business English) to working adults. Basically the school is kind of like an agency, in that most of the time its sending you out to teach people in their offices either individually or in small groups. The hourly pay wasn't too bad, and I liked the teaching, but the main downside was the complete lack of stability - the amount of hours available varied wildly month to month. And of course, you have to be available 8am to 8pm and willing to be running all over Paris in order to clock up something approaching a decent amount of hours.

Anyway, I got very lucky when after a year I was offered a full-time salaried contract in the same school, which still isn't amazingly well paid but the stability is great. The teaching remains the same (small groups, individuals) but I have less running around all over the place now as I also have some responsibilities for inducting new teachers and helping with planning/programming/testing/making materials which I really enjoy. And the hours are slightly better, in that I do sometimes have to start early and finish late, but this happens much more rarely now.

I thought I'd say all this because, like you, I've been thinking about what the next rung of the ladder would be for me. And I guess it would be to try to get into university teaching but the thing is that really doesn't appeal to me that much...I love teaching individuals and small groups, and above all the fact that the business people I teach are generally motivated to learn because they NEED English for their job/career right now, not at some hypothetical point in the future. From what I hear of a lot of university teaching here, the huge groups and general lack of student motivation aren't particularly enticing to me...even though it would be much better paid and would reduce the amount of evenings I had to work.

I've basically decided to take things one step at a time and wait and see how I feel in another year or two...but its really interesting to read about other peoples' experience in various university positions.

[Perilla]

[naturegirl321]