TEFL

[herrbert]

Hi Guys,

I have a question concerning TEFL. I find it an interesting concept to travel, ans to stay in a country for a while, and work there. As I have an education that is a kind of a strange one, or let me rephrase that to there is not much use for in other countries, I was thinking to get a TEFL. As a non native speaker I need a CAE or a similar certificate, but that won't be the problem.

Is TEFL, really accepted worldwide, or are there countries, where they don't accept it, and is it really necessary to have this degree? (I know in Spain, you need degrees for everything, but how is the situation in other countries?).

I am asking know, because I need to sign up in February for a CAE-exam, or I need to find out if TEFL will accept my 'normal' school degrees as a similar to CAE-degree.

If anyone has experience in this matter, please feel free to respond, also if you can tell me more about what to expect teaching English in other countries or other jobs, like being a tour-guide abroad.

[pointofnoreturn]

Several of my friends are doing the "teaching english in a foregin country" thing, most noticeably in Asia. They enjoy it tremodously and said it's worth it. You have to take a special course to get accredited to do this and you are provided with a job (in some cases you have to find your own). You're not really paid so much but in Asia, it's a bit cheaper to live modestly and it's just more about experiencing the culture.

One of my friends who is doing this.... she didn't finish high school but got her degree at 20 years old at an Adult High School. She did not go to college or university but instead enrolled in a TEFL course and immediately got a job in China. Her dad's done some business there and she had been there a time or two so she knew a little bit of the language. I believe she spent a few months there and then returned to Canada. At the moment, she's over there again living with her Canadian boyfriend and teaching there as well.

The moral is... she didn't have a college or university degree and she finished high school 2 years later than expected so I guess if you know enough English (and I believe you really do), you can do this!

What's this about your degree? I'm quite curious!

[herrbert]

Thanks for the compliments ...

I have a degree as a Music Manager. (I always find it hard to tell someone, the level of this education, because the schoolsystems are different in every country. I think you could compare it to a College degree)

I haven't used it for a while, and I had 'normal' jobs, but I am returning to the music industry, trying to make a business on my own. As this is a kind of job I can do as long I can have a telephone and internet, it would be possible to go away for a couple of months.

[pointofnoreturn]

I've never actually heard of that LOL! It sounds really interesting though! I get what you mean about it being a college degree. Our schools in Canada are a bit weird. If you don't want to go to university, you can just simply graduate in gr. 12 (at 18 years old) and go to college if you want (for applied studies like veterinary technician, hairdresser, travel agent, electrician, radio and broadcasting, that sort of thing). If you did want to go to university, you'd have to take Grade 13 (OAC) in order to go. But now they've dropped that and divided up the grade 11 and grade 12 courses into "Applied" and "Advanced" levels for all students to graduate in grade 12.

I'm actually in my 4th year of my Honours BSc. Biology and I find it odd because it was just last March that I decided to pursue a career in Special Education in high school teaching. So have applied to about 10 universities and will wait for a final response on April 2, 2007 on whether I get in or not. If I don't get in, I'll just take a year off and work and then go for my Masters of Science in Ornithology at the University of Birmingham in the UK and try for a career in bird conservation and research (my other passion).

Have you thought about attending a TEFL seminar? I believe they host those at a lot of universities for interested people, regardless of what their background is.

[madamtrashheap]

Herrbert, I've had two friends teach English in China and Japan, one of whom did it through completing a TEFL course, and anther one in Turkey. The advantage of a TEFL certification is that you can use job resources worldwide that are affiliated with the qualification and be able to work in reputable places as TEFL courses are recognised as being of high standards throughout the world. If you have the chance, and it's something you want to pursue then go for it! Are you thinking of teaching in Spain, or somewhere else?

[herrbert]

Spain would be an obvious place indeed, but in my opinion it would come in very handy in a lot of places, if I can combine work and travel.

Attending a seminar is a good idea. I will do that.

@ Pointofnoreturn: I hope you will get into one of the universities, and be able to follow you dreams.

[BigRay]

A while back I decided to do this and moved to Prague. I got a TEFL certificate through a one-month course and proceeded to teach. Here are some pointers based on my experience:

Most reputable schools or language institutions will require TEFL certification. However, not all certificates are equal. The Cambridge or Trinity Certificates are the "premium" certificates. Schools that give these certificates have met certain criteria and generally train their teachers to a certain level. If you get a TEFL certificate from one place that may be fairly well known in the home country, it might not be recognized by a potential employer in another country.

It is worth noting at this point that a lot of people travel and teach for a year and then stop. If you have over a year experience teaching, many places will not care what kind of certificate you have (or even ask).

In regards to jobs, many places prefer to hire native English speakers as their English teachers. The schools or language centers charge as much as they can to their students, and students are willing to pay or not depending on how they feel about the education. From a business perspective, it just looks better to have native speakers teaching their own language. I mention this because I worked in a language school teaching in businesses and we had some Czech teachers of English on our staff. Businesses didn't seem to like this as much, and the Czech teachers also received lower pay than the native English speakers, even though their spoken English was perfect, and I'm guessing they knew the grammar much better than many natives, as they had to study it closely to learn it.

The last thing to keep aware of is that this can be a particularly shady business. Do your research on potential employers (and even certification schools, other than Trinity or Cambridge ones) and make sure they are legitimate businesses before committing to anything.

All that said, my favorite part about teaching was summer vacation!

Good luck,
Ray

[herrbert]

thanks Ray.

I will keep these things in mind.

[davidva]

I have also thought about this. Is it necessary to know the language of those whom you are teaching, and if so, how much of the language?

Also, don't you have to save up enough money to support yourself while you are going through the classes and finding a job?

[BigRay]

It is not necessary to know the local language to teach English. I was worried about this also before I started. The TEFL course I took did a great job of showing howyou can teach a language without knowing the local language. We also had 4 one hour "survival Czech" lessons taught entirely in Czech to show how it could be done. Further, I never taught absolute beginners, and always had students that had at least some English.

The course I took was a full month, all day, Monday through Friday. It was more intensive than I anticipated. During this time, you will need money to support yourself. In addition, getting a job doesn't always mean full time right away. It was common to start slowly and build your schedule and fill up your free slots over time, so it might be another month or two before teaching full time.