TEFL - any experts about?

[CallMeBarbara]

Thinking of the next adventure in my life/ career as a soon to be empty nester…

I’m looking for a reputable TEFL course either in the Brighton area or, if that’s unavailable, abroad.

I’ve been a primary teacher for over 20 years; I have a degree and PGCE.

I think that I’ve managed to establish that celta and tesol are the best qualifications but can’t find anything locally.

What would be the best all round course type for someone who wants to work with children and adults, either online or abroad?

I quite like the idea of training abroad but as I’m 50 I worry about being on a course with only gap year students!

On the issue of age, does anyone think it’s be hard to find work as an older teacher? I think I read somewhere that there can be age discrimination… ( I’m not an old 50, ifswim and have DDs 18 and 21 to keep me on my toes 😆)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Where do you want to go? Because if it's Korea you can go without a course on the basis of your degree.

And I think China and Thailand you could get work in as you're a teacher. Perhaps Japan need a qualification but instead of seeking to spend on a qualification I'd instead be approaching agencies who get work where you want, and ask them if you can get a job as you're already a teacher.

TESOL is the best because then you can teach people here too and make a good amount of money, but again you could easily get a job doing that anyway as you're a teacher.

TEFL you can do online for a few hundred I believe.

why the tears?!

@CallMeBarbara i did the 4 week course and it was very very intensive. It was also absolutely brilliant and i am so glad i did it. I think those with teaching backgrounds handle it better.

The really really brilliant thing is the actual teaching that you do. It is really most excellent. (we had a beginner group and an experienced group and taught each for 2 weeks)

And where are my "classmates now"? One teaches full time. A mixture of language school, private lessons and corporate things. One is self-employed and only teaches in businesses, various levels, but she is doing very well. One did it to get promotion in an International school, has now left and set up her own English teaching school with a friend. (Middle eastern country). One plays sport at quite a high level, so she teaches students (mostly in Asia) online and makes enough doing that for 25-30 hours a week to fund her life.

And me? Stepped right away from it. But may go back now i'm winding down towards retirement.

What I did love about the CELTA course is that it was really heavily based on pedagogic theory and didn't have all the politics and public policy shit attached to it that primary teaching has (I assume from the outside, I'm not a teacher), so I did feel like I was immersed in something I believed was good while I was doing it. In my experience that's quite a rarity for any training!

These people offer training near me. Would any of their courses be sufficient? Can’t really get my head around how an online course would win terms of teaching practice.

Thank you so much for all your input, folks. So interesting. I’m reading each post carefully even though I’m not acknowledging you all individually :)

Any thoughts on the online teaching from a skills perspective? Would this impact the type of course I could choose?

I loved the CELTA, one of the best things I've ever done but yes I did cry!! I did a 12 week in person one. I imagine the 4 week FT one is even tougher.

One of my friends was doing a PGCE at the same time and I mentioned this to the tutor and she said PGCE is nothing compared to CELTA. (I have no done PGCE so no idea if she was joking/exaggerating!)

It's very intense, very critical, all eyes on you (think observation turned up to 11), lots of direct feedback, steep learning curve. You have room for basically 1-2 fuck ups over the course and no more. It was brilliant and I learned so much. But I had no prior classroom experience - I'm not sure what it would give you, except for specific pointers about TEFL, which were handy, things I have forgotten/which became normal such as how to give instructions in an accessible way to people with low level language, how to deal with people speaking in their own language in class, how to teach pronunciation and truly check understanding. Also to leave a longer gap than you would expect because it takes people longer to formulate a response when they have to hear your question, process/translate it, understand it, think about it, formulate a response, translate their response, think about the correct wording, build up courage to give response. This all takes much longer than student hearing question, processing, having an idea and expressing it (all in native/fluent language, without fear of being mocked for accent). But I wonder if this is stuff you could learn from books rather than a course. As you already have a teaching qualification + native speaker status likely that is what schools will care about. CELTA doesn't teach grammar, but a good CELTA teacher will include several scare points about grammar throughout the course because to teach TEFL you need to be able to explain grammar, but you kind of have to just study it on your own time.

Am also a huge fan of the whole CELTA concept. The idea that Teacher Talking Time be kept at a minimum is a real eye opener.

And the lesson we had on how to get people speaking a few words of a language, even when nobody in the room has a common language was absolutely stunning (we learned a sentence of Scots-Gaelic - bloody amazing). In fact, our first day, pre course (so the admin/induction/what to expect part) also spent time teaching us Dutch. In 2 hours.

OP, I'm at a similar life stage and am also daydreaming about living in Asia teaching English for a year or two!

I've found a sub on reddit called r/tefl really useful, if you ask questions on there you should get some helpful answers. I'm no expert myself, but having been lurking there for a bit ,CELTA courses tend to be recommended the most, and Vietnam seems to have a very good reputation as a country to base yourself in, both regarding salary and also the amount of jobs available.

Is it likely to be so tough for me with 25 years experience

Teaching EFL to highly motivated pupils paying for the privilege of learning I'd highly likely to be easily within your capabilities.

The first issue is more likely to be that the market is crowded esp in the uk, with less experienced people who can live with lower rates for a few years.

The second is that there is nowhere for your career to progress.

That combination means that it might not be commercially viable for you.
Good luck.

I used to teach secondary art and when I was 27, pre kids, (I'm now 53), I did a CELTA course at International House in Krakow, Poland. I was then offered a job with IH and stayed in Poland for a year. After that I found another job in Japan where I stayed for 2 years. The people who had previously taught found the intensive CELTA much less challenging than those who had never taught. But it was still a lot of work in those 4 weeks. Go for it if that's what you want to do and if you do the CELTA in a country you want to work in, it might make finding a job there easier.

If you want to do your CELTA abroad, look into International House which is a franchise. I did my CELTA with them in London and it was excellent, the tutors were all “big names” in Tefl (published textbook authors etc) and the course very well done. There is an International House in Paris and Barcelona and most cities, and they have a lot of internal job offers for their graduates around the world.

Regarding your questions, in both my jobs abroad, while most people were younger, there were some slightly older teachers too, some who had made a long term career from travelling the world. I think in Japan your life experience could be considered positively. I wouldn't do a CELTA course online, the teaching practice and group discussions were the most useful aspects.

Pre-war it used to be relatively cheap, even including living expenses, to do the CELTA at IH in Moscow. Now, not so much.

When i left my job and told my Vietnamese colleague that i was going to do a CELTA the first thing she said was "you can make a fortune teaching Vietnamese people English online". A friend of mine went to Korea to teach English in one of the factories there, she had a fantastic time. I have often wistfully thought of doing that.

A PGCE and QT status are great assets to have, and would be sufficient in many places. A one month CELTA on top wouldn't hurt if you feel like it - you'd probably get a good response anyway without one.

The far East used to be great, and I hear good reports about China. There's also the middle East if you can handle the heat. I did it for years and it was great. Don't expect equal treatment to domestic staff, because you won't get it.

One thing to bear in mind is that the ESOL market is very saturated, and you can find online teachers for £5 per hour, so it can be a race to the bottom. If you want to go to Asia you could get a good job, but if you're just hoping to do online work then I'd say it's not worth it. For the larger online companies I'm sorry to say that I do think your age could go against you.

Agreed, you could get £25 instead, an hour doing online primary Maths and English teaching. I think the CELTA is only really worthwhile if you want to teach abroad. Even UK jobs such as TEFL summer schools are very poorly paid for a lot of work. You could also look at primary international schools, unless you are wanting to move into TEFL for a change of scene.

The website you link to @CallMeBarbara doesn't specify CELTA from what I can see. It does mention a level 5 qualification which is monitored by ofqual but I'd imagine if it were CELTA it would say so. CELTA is level 5.

Be careful about anything that isn't at least the equivalent of a level 5 qualification as it wouldn't be recognised by any school/organisation which insists on CELTA/equivalent. It's a British Council requirement that teachers have this and, frankly, no school worth working for anywhere won't ask for you to have it.

CELTA is expensive, it's an investment. Lots of the courses offered on that website look a little bit too cheap to be true tbh.

We employ non CELTA teachers in the summer simply because post Brexit the market is far from saturated with qualified TEFL teachers. It's only been last summer and this that we've taken people with "only" PGCE and introductory qualifications. (And because where I work is a school accredited by the British Council, who inspect every 3 years, any non level 5 qualified teacher has to have a rationale written to explain why they're being employed.)

University summer courses, run by universities themselves, not outside organisations renting the space pay very well. I last worked on a university summer EFL course in 2003 and was on £28 an hour. Twenty years ago.

My experience may be out of date as it was 15+ years ago. I held ESL/TEFL teaching posts in the UK, Spain and Belgium before starting my PGCE. I found it really easy to get work and only had a basic TEFL certificate I gained when volunteering in Kenya.

In the UK I found many people worked for a training provider to gain a bit of experience before they moved onto working in universities. You may be able to work for uni’s as soon as you’ve completed your training. Keep an eye on jobs.ac.uk

Unis still pay very well for Pre-sessionals but prefer MA/DELTA though sometimes take experience. I worked with a couple of teachers who didn't have CELTA but had PGCE.
@CallMeBarbara I'd be wary of the courses you linked to and would want to see who they are accredited with. Many years ago before I really knew much about the value of CELTA/Trinity I did an online 'Advanced Diploma in Tefl'. It.was interesting from what I remember but not worth nothing in terms of job hunting.

If you really do fancy a trip to Asia why not look at courses offered by the British Council / International House in the countries you fancy amd do a part time course while volunteering (depending on visa situation). Or do the full time and then stay on the bit long to work

There are also short courses you can do - especially if wanting to work with YLs or online. Again, look at International House or NILE

Another option would be to take in fee paying language students linked to a local language school. You'd be expected to provide breakfast and dinner and spend time talking to them in the evenings.

@CallMeBarbara I did my CELTA at the Intensive School of English, Hove in 2013. It was a nice experience and I got a job in Saudi Arabia (as an English Instructor at a university) immediately after I received my certificate.

Agreed, I've just looked at the accreditation organisations on the website and whilst they're legit in themselves, they are all in the sector of further/adult education, distance/online education providers etc. None mention classroom teaching.
Interesting that TEFL.org itself advises a Celta to those wanting to make a career out of TEFL/already have experience but their other courses for those with no experience who maybe only want to dip their toes into a bit of TEFL- which is personally the group of people who I'd say should be doing a CELTA!

With a strong foreign language background (so the grammar aspects came easily) I did a CELTA in my 30s, when Living in the Middle East, with the British Council - who wanted to recruit local teachers. (Cheaper than bringing them in!). Most of the students were young males, sent by their various government employers, so generally well motivated.

It was an excellent course, spread over 3 months. (I had young children at the time.). One aspect I particularly valued was observing experienced teachers in the classroom.

As a fairly new graduate, a dd (a very able linguist) did a month long intensive CELTA in London before going travelling overseas, largely in Australia and SE Asia.

She found it much more demanding that she’d expected - having hoped to swan through it and still go out partying every other night. A very rude awakening! But she came out with a distinction (more than I managed) and found plenty of reasonably paid employment during her 2-3 years away.

This was all quite a while ago now though.

I do remember her saying that her MA (in a non-language related field) helped rather more than she’d expected in the job hunting.

No advice but just to say I did mine 27 years ago - and yes, it was the hardest thing I ever did, mine was a 6 week course at Liverpool Uni - and it was the best decision ever!!

I'm still teaching English but ESOL for the last 18 years.

You will not regret it.

I'm just 50 and would like to go abroad again when the DDs are doing their own thing......

Can't really add much to all the excellent advice given. But wanted to address your concerns about being 50. My dad took early retirement from FE aged 55, did his TESOL and then he and my mum went to live/work in Portugal for 8 years. My dad worked for the British Council there. I was the other side of the world at that time, working for the BC in SE Asia, having done the TESOL straight out of uni about 6 years before him.

So no, don't let your age put you off. There are plenty of non-gap-year teachers about.

Good luck.