Job post-modern languages degree - TEFL?

[quesusto]

DS has recently graduated with a first class honours modern languages degree from a good university. He wants to stay in his uni town for the time being and will share a flat with a friend for a year.

Ideally he would like a job where he uses his languages or at least the cultural understanding skills he has gained from his degree. He is not interested in business and is not motivated by making lots of money, just would like a decent-ish salary to be able to live. He is currently working in a minimum wage retail job but this is only a temporary plan.

He has also been volunteering with a charity that works with refugees and asylum seekers and really enjoys that for the cultural side of things - he loves different countries and cultures. However he has been finding it difficult to find any paid employment in this area. He has been wondering about doing a TEFL qualification (CELTA or TESOL) and teaching English to refugees. Would this be feasible? How would he get into this and how would it be paid? Could he start a business?

Can anyone think of any other possible options? He is a bit stressed not knowing what direction to take.

I don't know much about teaching refugees, but there are often jobs involving TEFL in private boarding schools which often have large numbers of Chinese students. He could perhaps also teach the languages he studied at university in this kind of setting. However it is often easier to get a TEFL job abroad and pay and conditions are often better overseas.

Any particular language or culture? Sorry, showing my ignorance of modern languages degrees.

Translation, interpreting and localization are growth areas. Feel free to pm me if it's something he might to look into.

Would he consider immigration law? He'd have to train as a lawyer (2 years) and then do another 2 year training. He'd be able to use his brains (he is clearly very bright), language skills and cultural sensitivity to be a big help to people.

He should go his careers service
He has a first
He is clever enough to research and work it out

Something like the British Council or civil service abroad if he wants to travel? GCHQ? BBC World service? Or teaching his languages either in school (need a PGCE unless in private school) or adults? Take out a franchise with Language for Fun to teach French/ Spanish/ Italian to adult group classes?

I'm an MFL graduate and these are some of the things me and my fellow graduates have done since.

Post grad courses to get a skill for occupation like interpretation translation pgce
Law
Graduate trainee schemes
Etc

Why waste all that money studying for a degree? I did tefl ages ago - not sure you have to have a degree for it. I’d tell him to aim higher..

TEFL can be a great little career- it’s one of the first things I did after my degree and I made an OK living. I fully intended to travel with it but was inundated with work in the UK so travelled for other reasons/jobs instead.

He could do the CELTA first to see if he likes it as a starting point to get regular work (and at around £1k and 4 weeks’ commitment it’s not too much), then later on do the DELTA, which is the next level up and more responsibility and money for him etc.

Apart from students regularly cancelling or changing lesson times at the last minute (which drove me nuts tbh), I really enjoyed this as a start to my teaching career. It made me a better teacher, I adore many of my students and I have recently restarted with a couple of students recently.

Ignore my many typos, please!

Forgot to add that the intensive 4 week course I did was utterly exhausting and nearly broke me (even harder than drama school and PGCE) but I was delighted to pass and then work successfully pretty much straight away. I highly recommend the course.

Has he considered interpreting, possibly with a focus on interpreting for refugees, if he has/learns the right languages? Or translation, if he prefers written work - there will be translation agencies around, though the pay usually isn't brilliant. If he wants to try it out/get some experience while he's looking for paid work, the UN online volunteer scheme used to look for translators, they might still - www.unv.org/become-online-volunteer

Does he actually like teaching? If not, I wouldn't go down the TEFL route. If he's not sure, maybe look at tutoring kids studying languages (or English as a foreign language) and see how that goes?

The fast stream used to be the sort of option that was good for language graduates (particularly the FCO, but not only), but that might be more complicated these days. It used to be quite a long application process, though, so if it might be of interest, he should look into it sooner rather than later. GCHQ is also a potential option for people good at languages, especially less commonly studied ones. A less secretive option that might also be worth looking into is the BBC - monitoring.bbc.co.uk/ for example. The British Council has had budget cuts recently, I think, but also used to have interesting jobs.

If he has EU nationality, the European institutions sometimes specifically hire translators and interpreters, as well as generalists - might be a good option to consider, if he's eligible. The UN similarly - they aren't just peacekeepers and development specialists, they have a fair number of linguists on staff too.

What languages did he study? There might be language specific options et could suggest.

@westcountryfaithful
Why waste all that money studying for a degree? I did tefl ages ago - not sure you have to have a degree for it. I’d tell him to aim higher..

What an ignorant post! EFL teaching has been my career most of my working life. I have made a good living from it and I work with other people who love it and earn well. It's a pretty good career and of COURSE you need a degree! The vast majority of EFL teachers are better qualified than UK school teachers. They have MAs and DELTAs (the qualification after CELTA).
.

I suspect that when you 'did TEFL ages ago' that you did a weekend course, not a proper qualification and even if you worked for a short time you have no idea of what the field entails. I am also a researcher and trainer in the field of teacher development. I have worked with both ELT and mainstream education and I can honestly say that teachers in ELT work as hard, are at least as well qualified and have as many opportunities.

I concur, @Horological , if you see my post above yours. CELTA has possible been the best thing I’ve done for my past career in education and I’ll be using it again shortly.

@Horological If you don't mind, is it possible to message you about CELTA. I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm about to start a CELTA and would love to hear more about DELTA and job opportunities for private teaching and class teaching.

@NellesVilla I'm happy to hear that. CELTA is a great qualification. I am a trainer for both CELTA and PGCE courses and CELTA compares really well.

@TheWelshposter please do message me. I would be happy to discuss.

@quesusto sorry to derail your thread a bit.
There are lots of things your son could do with an MFL degree and a proper EFL qualification like CELTA. eg:
-Start off in a private school doing summer courses/short courses to see if he likes it. If he does, he can stay in a private school in the UK or abroad teaching all year around. The great thing about ELT is that you can quickly get into being an assistant director of studies or director of studies or working as a teacher trainer. These are opportunities that are difficult to get to quickly in the UK state system. Most permanent good jobs in this field ask for DELTA (diploma you do after some post CELTA experience) and/or MA in Applied Linguistics or ELT which he can do after some experience
-There are lots of spin off jobs after a little experience like working in ELT publishing or materials development. Some people also go into the business side of ELT by becoming agents or starting schools of their own
-After some experience and an MA/PhD there is plenty of work at universities in
the UK or abroad. This could be teaching pre sessional ie. preparation courses in English for students wanting to study at university in an English speaking country or in one of the very many countries which use English as a medium of instruction for degrees of all kinds. OR he could teach on English language degree courses or applied linguistics
-If your son wants to teach ELT in the state sector in the UK he could work in a college of further education teaching ESOL to refugees or asylum seekers. This work is quite well paid and there are permanent positions. Sadly, there is very little permanent paid work in EAL (English as an additional language for children in schools).
-There are also lots and lots of opportunities to teach abroad in private and state schools, with adults and children. The days where just being a native speaker was enough to qualify you are long gone thank goodness, but if he is prepared to do the training there are lots of possibilities.

ELT is a really interesting and rewarding field of education and it can also provide a proper career structure and good pay.