Job Discussion Forums

[jadoaus]

I wish to teach in the Middle East. I have a about 6months teaching experience and plan to do a CELTA. I'd like to work for a serious employer like the British Council or Amideast. BC would be better for me as I have the passport

I have searched, and know that I have not the required experience for the BC or for any reliable work in the Middle East in general even with the CELTA

I have, however, found a few threads that indicated (mostly on the Egypt forum) that if you do your CELTA with the BC (only organisation you can do it with in Egypt, far as I can tell), they will assist you in finding a job after (along with the usual networking, contacts gained etc.), even though you yourself will not have at that stage the necesairy +2 years experience to work directly for the BC (seems like sometimes they have jobs asking for less experience, but not many and not often).

My question is, would I be better off doing a CELTA direct with the BC somewhere like Eqypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, UAE, banking on being able to get a reasonable position somewhere else very soon after...or should I just do the CELTA here (in the UK) and get the two years experience somewhere else (Korea probably) before applying directly to the BC.

The latter would save me money, and be more predictable. But I would obviously prefer to get to the ME sooner rather than later.

Thanks in advance for any help

[veiledsentiments]

[jadoaus]

Thank you for the advice VS. I listed those Gulf countries as the BC offers CELTA in them all, but I didn't think about the visas.

From some of your other posts it seems that teaching in Egypt with just the CELTA is do-able but involves a lot of hustle, as you put it.

Hmm...

[veiledsentiments]

It is rather similar to teaching ESL in the US actually, since you usually start out doing part-time at more than one place. Then hopefully as they get to know you, they assign you more classes. In Egypt, you also start to make contacts for private students.

I was working on my MA and teaching at AUC on the usual miserly Fellowship student stipend. But even being that busy, by the end of the first academic year, all of my bills were easily paid with my private lessons. I was also able to pay for two trips to Jordan and one to Turkey the next year... only being so busy with my thesis kept it from being more.

That is what I mean by being able to live quite well with a bit of hustle.

VS
(I'd say that it is a combo of visas and costs that will keep you from heading to the Gulf for a CELTA - and it might be possible to do it with a tourist visa, but I expect that your costs would be at least double...)