Job Discussion Forums

[Tom Riggle]

This is my first post in this site. Hopefully this is the appropriate place!

By way of introduction, my wife and I moved two months ago here to
Tampa from Del Rio, Texas. I was a teacher for eight years at a
private school. Apparently I fell out of favor with the principal. Either because of my 1. disagreements on her (lack of) discipline or 2. my lack of "proper" patriotism I was forced out of this school.

I thought I would be a sub here in Florida, but we (my wife and I) are finding employment here much harder than we expected.

That is when I really started to thinking of the ESL option. Does anyone here have any advice? Here are my qualifications/drawbacks:

I am 58 years old
BA degree. Major in Bible, minor in German
Almost 10 years teaching experience (two different schools, both private). About as many years substituting experience.
No teaching certificate
Born in Germany, fluent speaker. Well, a little rust that could be
knocked off with a little diligent restudy. I also speak Spanish reasonably well. I am growing in my skills with Hindi. But I feel that I have enough gray matter left that I can learn any new language.

My wife and I have traveled extensively through Mexico, and also
several times further south: Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador.
I have pictures of all these trips at our Flickr site linked below.

We are interested in the following possibilities: Korea, China, India (probably no need for English taught here), Indonesia, Central or South America. Oh, and Germany.

Any help along these lines is appreciated. Or should I be posting this
on a certain sub-forum here?

Tom Riggle
http://www.flickr.com/photos/asterisktom/

[spiral78]

What subject(s) have you taught? This is unclear to me from your post.

If I understand correctly, you have no qualifications or experience specifically with teaching language. If this is the case, it's helpful to know that teaching core subjects does not relate very directly to language teaching.

I myself began with a BEd. and some experience teaching core subjects, and I've worked on hiring committees from which we've evaluated candidates who want to switch over from other subjects to language teaching. You would likely need some language-specific qualification; at least a CELTA or equivalent. These are on-month courses which present the bare basics of approaches and methods used in language classrooms, and offer supervised practice teaching with feedback.

For the market in Germany (I have been based in Europe for some years, so I can speak for this segment of your list) you would definitely need the CELTA or equivalent. You would then be qualified for entry-level jobs. These pay essentially subsistence level, and would not support your wife, who would need equivalent qualifications to also land an entry-level position. Given time, local contacts, and reputation, it's possible for such jobs to develop into something better than bare minimum, but this takes considerable commitment and time - it's not a given.

Some of the job markets you name may not insist on specific qualifications. I'm sure others will chime in soon to comment. Meanwhile, you could try the very active Korea and China boards below (I think they require separate registration). There is also a general Latin America board that may be helpful as well.

Post script: I am not very sure how your past travels might be relevant to your job search; it's not normally something one would include on a resume, and I am not sure how it relates to your quest for information here, either.

[Tom Riggle]

[Glenski]

How can you have taught for 8 years in a private school with no teaching certificate? If you had such a cert/license, you would be a good candidate for international schools.

You were born in Germany, you say. What is your nationality now?

[spiral78]

Mr. Riggle, please forgive me. I would like to use your thread just a bit to belabour what is actually a relatively minor point (that of the value of travel).
The reason I want to do this is partially because I am unsure whether I was actually clear about this point in my earlier post, but also because we have a few regulars here who are prone to give advice regarding places they've spent very little time in (less than one contract period). This obviously leads to a degree of misinformation that is avoidable.

[tttompatz]

OP:

You have several things working for you and MANY things working against you (depending on where on the planet you want to work).


1st, visa issues; your country of passport may be an issue (are you American or German (or best case, dual)). If you only have your EU passport/German citizenship then Europe is at least an option for you but most of Asia is off the table. If you hold a US passport then Asia and the Americas are pretty much your search ground. If you are dual, then pick a continent for better advice.

Your lack of a teaching license means that the international schools are (for the most part) off your radar. This leaves local schools (with equally "local" (read low) wages or language academies. If you want to consider language academies then you will need to look seriously at a TEFL/TESOL certification (30 days, full time - 120 hours).

Ageism IS a factor and at 58 you are facing an uphill battle in the ESL field. A LARGE number of entry level jobs don't want older folks. They want those nice, young faces, fresh out of college (and in a lot of countries, discrimination on the basis of age and/or race is perfectly acceptable and legal).

In the larger (ESL/EFL) markets (like China) the cutoff age (mandatory retirement) is 60-62. You may never recover your relocation costs. In places like Korea (another large market for EFL teachers) you are already past the age of employability.

Money IS an issue. Relocating abroad for a "few years" is not a cheap exercise and at 58 and with a wife in tow I suspect that "living like a 22 year old, recent grad, back-packer" is not on your list of options.

With the current outflow of teachers from the US (mostly as economic refugees after the cutbacks in the US education systems) the competition for the better jobs is getting pretty stiff and at the entry level there are 10's of thousands of new grads and redundant teachers looking abroad for some chance to begin paying off their student loans or not losing their house.

Sorry for potentially breaking your bubble and I certainly wish you good luck in your job search but I wouldn't be pinning my economic livelihood on entering EFL (it is NOT the same as English language arts) as a newbie at 58.

.

[Tom Riggle]

[Tom Riggle]

[Tom Riggle]

[Zero]

I'd head for China or Mexico. Probably Mexico since China gets persnickety once you hit the big 6-0.

[ancient_dweller]

ive come across a lot of older teachers in Moscow. In fact, they seem to quite respect age.

your problem would be - Russia is not america. The amount of yanks i meet that want me to agree with them about how rude/miserable Russians are. Nooo, they just don't like loud americans!

[Isla Guapa]

Tom, I suggest you post a query on the Mexico board, where I think you'd be able to find work; your age shouldn't be a problem. You might even find work teaching German at the Goethe Institute in Mexico City!

[rtm]

[Glenski]

I asked about nationality because I think you cannot teach in Germany (and most parts of Europe) if you are American, except under extremely rare circumstances. Eastern Europe is an exception, but you haven't expressed a desire to teach there.

There have been quite a few posts on the Newbie or General forum regarding ageism and where to go when one passes a certain age. I suggest doing a search for them to learn more about the situation.

Having taught 8-10 years of junior high English should give you a leg up on some candidates, even for ESL jobs despite your teaching (probably) being solely to native English speakers. Emphasize it as best as you can. Obviously, international schools are out.

Visit the country-specific forums to learn about specific options.

[Tom Riggle]