Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gajackson1]

Ummmm, not sure exactly where to start this; I'm afraid it will wind up like one of IWG's posts, but without all the extra punctuation.

I came over here with a little public school teaching exp. under my belt, and I brought with me everything I saved from my student teaching that I thought could/would be useful.

Teaching was my initial job, but that quickly expanded into lots of other things - materials production, teacher classes, cirriculum & evaluation development.

A lot of different job opportunities opened up from there; when I left Changwon, I came up to Sanbon to work for a sort of 'international school.' And, after settling in, a whole bunch of new opportunities opened - including company jobs and other things.

2 years agao, Christina & I decided that it would be good for us both to do a residency-based CELTA or TEFL course. We finally settled on the TEFL, got a housesitter, and left for almost 2 months.

We worked our butts off in our classes - study mornings, work/practice afternoons, and then she & I would study in our room in the evening. For her, it was hard because a lot of it was new to her. (She loves to read, but we all know academic stuff - esp. grammar - is different!). For me, it was as someone mentioned before - the TEFL acquisition/teaching philosophy, based on Harmer's E/S/A approach, was hard to use/apply - I had to set aside/unlearn some of my long-standing habits.

If I take the job in Brunei this summer, I will (by my understanding) have the opportunity to earn a ICELT while there - which I would definitely do, and may look into the Cambridge TKT and/or CELTA/DELTA programs.

If you love teaching, and plan on making it into a career, then yes - you should be making efforts to update and improve your skills and knowledge base, I think.

Of course the financial and time considerations are an issue, and I do NOT think the fast/easy online-type stuff is generally a good way to go. I know if C & I had done the online TEFL, even working/stufdying together, we would NOT have gotten as much back out of it as we did actually going to classes each day, hitting the books, asking real-time questions, and working face-to-face with our classmates, students, trainers, and evaluators.

The mentions of augmentation 'food chain' are a little simplistic, but if that is how you think of it, then yes - there are steps you can make over time, with investment and effort. That could include teacher's certification, a MA, etc. But it can start with just looking at the teachers notes/guides, the Idea Cookbook, or looking for teachers who you like & respect & piicking their brains, too.

Best of luck, whatever you decide to do!

G.

[PRagic]

Excellent input. So if you now have your BA and that certification, you are higher up on the food chain. Congrats, but you'll still lose out on jobs to those with the MA, which was my point.

[bassexpander]

And a note to others reading this...

There are a lot of jobs out there -- not just uni jobs. Some public school jobs are really great. When I worked at a public school, I was only working between 10 and 4 (with a lot of breaks in between). At my uni, my hours can be all over the place, depending on the semester. The public school job had a lot of "off the books" vacation time, as well.

I love teaching high school (even more than university) so I am a bit biased. It's more important to find a job you love. I like my current job a lot, but might go back to a high school because:

1. The base pay is within 200,000 of my current pay.
2. The public job had over 1 million in built-in privates teaching the children of teachers.
3. I still had nearly 3 months of vacation, and it tended to be spread-out over the year (rather than in two large chunks). Some people might prefer chunks, but I liked getting a week off during non-peak flight times.
4. A lot less work to correct after hours.
5. If I really wanted to work my tail off, the set-in-stone hours would allow me more time to add on another job and increase my salary. Because my uni hours change each semester, this is difficult to commit to.


A uni job can be really nice, but depending on what you like, they are not the holy grail of ESL for everyone.

[Kimchieluver]

[tob55]

I would personally never go for a uni job because they could never offer me the same benefits I currently receive from my public high school.

About the other posters citing their reason to believe the various programs offer the same or similar training to a University degree in education. I have more than 27 years of public and private school teaching as a university trained educator with both a BA and M.Ed. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the career I chose to pursue and would do it all over again if I had the same opportunities. Teaching to me is much more than a job or a profession. It has been and will forever be a calling of sorts to me. I love what I do, and want to keep pursuing this career for 25 or more years until I decide it is time to retire.

People who want to fast track their qualifications often go for the short courses such as CELTA/DELTA/TEFL/TESL/TESOL etc., and there is nothing wrong with them, but they are short courses. Hardly what I would call advanced level courses that give you the background and foundation in education that is needed to get your teaching license in any country regardless of what people are saying.

At least in the USA and Canada, if you bring a certificate/diploma from one of these programs to your Provincial or State Department of Ed licensing agency and say I want to apply for a teaching license, they are honestly going to laugh at you, and question why you ever thought it possible to receive teaching licensure with a certificate or diploma from a short course program. The Educational agencies recognize these courses for what they are, and they are not the equivalent of teacher education training courses through a university.

It's okay to take them (short course certification) if you feel it enhances your skills as a professional, but please don't compare yourself to those who made the sacrifice of years of study to train and become professional educators. Also, just because you spent a few thousands dollars on a course you want to pump up doesn't make it more than it is. I know it isn't about the dollars, but people often feel inclined to justify why they spent thousands of dollars to take a short certification course, and then attempt to intimidate everyone into believing their training is somehow superior. There is no proof or justification that will satisfy, in the minds of educators who made the sacrifice to get real teacher training at University.

[agoodmouse]

[bassexpander]

You didn't answer the question I asked in my quote, mouse.

How many students were in your CELTA class? Or the average CELTA class? How many trainers per class (dedicated to just one class).

Let people do the math and they'll see what this course is about.

[Julius]

[agoodmouse]

[Dome Vans]

Tob55 wrote:

[hari seldon]

Since a lot of people take their Celta or TEFL courses in Thailand (where it costs less), I imagine the course providers there are scrambling to find new business since the Thai government recently announced a new requirement for a government-provided training course.

[agoodmouse]

[bassexpander]

Well, just to reiterate my position. I feel the CELTA is a good course, but it's just too expensive. To others who took it -- did you only have 6 per class? That's a very good student/teacher ratio, anyway.


Several people have asked, so I'd like to post these:


If you are in Korea, you can take the KEI-TEFL course, along with on-site teaching, for 525,000 won. Their 100+ hour certification is accepted at Korean public schools, and will get you the 100,000 to 200,000 per month raise that having a TEFL certification brings here. Anyone interested in this course can google it.

Another one to google is ITTT. ITTT's TEFL course is only $295 US. That will also work in Korea, if you plan to teach here.

[laogaiguk]

Mine had 10 people and two trainers, so it was usually 5 students to one trainer. It was very useful, and I'm glad I did it. It is actually useful for some Master degrees and education degrees in Canada and England too, though that isn't much of a consideration for many. My instructors were great, though I have heard they are sometimes crappy.

I can say I am glad I took it.

[agoodmouse]

In the same way I went into detail about my experience with the CELTA, and didn't merely just give two or three sentences of support for a TEFL course, I'll give you my experience of taking the KEI-TEFL course. I've been and will continue to be less than supportive about online TEFL courses as opposed to on-site TEFL courses, and therefore I don't have as many positive comments to share about the online KEI-TEFL as those who support it full-heartedly and, as I've gathered, care more about what a 100hr TEFL certificate will do for their paychecks/raises than their actual teaching progress. By all accounts, this is only what has been talked about in this thread, and it bothers me. Therefore, if others reading this could just keep things civil (as I believe I've so practiced in writing about the CELTA and now the KEI-TEFL), I'd believe in others' good intentions if I'm not branded as a planted CELTA poster or advertiser to Dave's ESL. Name calling doesn't show one has a reasoned argument, it actually shows an absence of one. This isn't an opinion of a course I didn't take and don't support whether because of its cost, or because I think the cost is worthwhile or not - this isn't conjecture on my part. It's my experience of the KEI-TEFL course.

Last year I took the KEI-TEFL course, too, and it did just what Bassexpander says completing the course will do (i.e. get you a raise, especially if you're a public schooler). My principal was a little wary (honestly) about an online TEFL course, but he called the tax or business office and found out they were registered. Apparently, he could've called other provincial education offices for affirmation, I've heard.

Course positives: Like nearly any online TEFL course, it is a fraction of the cost of almost any on-site TEFL. Course was just $200. More writing responses than I had expected from an online course. Interactive message boards to write opinion articles and, as as essay, an research article. Online administrator provided feedback on chapter tests. Wide range of topics related to theory and practicing teaching English. Good lesson planning chapters and tests requiring you to write out different lessons styles. Course was very accessible online was never down when I needed to log in.

Course negatives: Course needs a feedback component badly which requires an observer (or simply just a second pair of eyes) to give feedback on a lesson (at least two, I believe) you taught or have planned, along with reflections on how you can improve your lessons/teaching. This would require more work and thus really make the course seem like 100 hours. Overall course didn't honestly take 100 hours of actual work to complete (i.e. including reading the chapters, writing out responses to tests and message boards, finding teaching related URLS), but it needs to in order to seem worthwhile. Textbook chapters online were cursory, at best, on each subject related to English teaching and therefore not comprehensive enough to feel like I was actually learning a great deal. More spelling errors in the overall course than I was comfortable with; online administrator was more like a test grader than a tutor. No chapter on student error correction techniques (Tob55, who owns KEI-TEFL and has responded multiple times on this message thread, should add this) or eliciting student responses (i.e. to balance teacher talk time and student talk time). These are two important areas of teaching ESL/EFL.

A big point: Everyone should at some point in time take an on-site TEFL course that's at least 2 weeks, if not more, in length. I didn't know everything about teaching ESL, and still don't, but I feel on-site courses that provide comprehensive feedback and tutoring practice make you more aware of the counterproductive and productive details of your teaching. For example, the CELTA did this for me (and other CELTA people say the same), but my lesson plans turned in to KEI-TEFL were just approved and never came back with any comments as if I had planned them perfectly. Looking back I know they shouldn't have, as I learned so much more about how to carefully lesson plan properly stage my teaching in the CELTA course than I learned, or demonstrated, in the online KEI-TEFL course. Everything I've said doesn't merely express support or non-support based on the distinguishing criterion of a course's being on-site/online. To read me that way would be to miss the larger points. Also, I feel one can get away without learning a comprehensive knowledge of TEFL by taking KEI-TEFL. I feel it's impossible with the CELTA.