Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello!
I would like to teach ESL. I have a masters in linguistics, but still need to be certified. I need just a few more courses, methods of teaching being one of those courses. Because I have been a stay at home mom for a long time, and have not been in the classroom, I am at the same time excited and nervous. I did, however, do volunteer work teaching (the Laubach method) many years ago, and loved it. I am not sure if I want to work with adults or children. Since my Spanish is rusty, I am wondering if I need to take some refresher classes? I live in Southern California.
I have been reading the posts for a while, and thought I'd finally join in.

If you've tried it for a while, then you'll probably be OK at it. You don't need extra certification unless you are going to public school, in which case, it's not a very good situation. I'm sure you can find an IEP (intensive English program) near you, who would generally find your MA more valuable than a teaching certificate.

Thanks for your reply. I did call our local adult education/community college, and they do require teachers to be certified. Maybe there are other programs, guess I'll have to do some research. One more question for anyone out there- would it be helpful to take some sort of teaching methods class? Or have most of you just "jumped right in" to teaching ESL?
Thanks again.

For community college, the baseline is a master's degree. I'm sure you could teach linguistics courses there.

Try "language school" in the phone book for your area.

I was thrown in, although I did have 2 years of tutoring at the time.