Teaching

[Rhubarb]

Following on from the 'travelling in Europe' thread, does anyone know where I can do a TEFL course part time? I want to move somewhere like France for a short while and earn a crust whilst dh minds the baby for a change. Teaching is one way I could find work, but our University only does these courses full-time and the Open University costs a bomb. I will already be doing a 'teaching assistant for special needs' course in September, so that is a job to fall back on when/if we decide to return to England. (all this is up in the air yet) Will this do if I wanted to do private teaching in France? And how easy is it to get a teaching job over there?

Thanks guys.

Glad you liked my suggestion! Any teaching course helps with TEFL (anywhere), but schools affilited to the British Council always require a TEFL cert (you should check how many affiliated / unaffiliated schools there are where you're going). If you can get away without a cert, then most universities and tech colleges run "taster" courses which I'd definately recommend as there are many aspects of teaching TEFL which are not like other teaching. Don't know where you are, but Northbrook college in Worthing does p/t courses for about £500 (where I did mine) - I think there are other colleges that do the same but not universities as you've found out.

Go to www.trinitycollege.co.uk and click on tesol and then cert and you'll see a link to all the providers in the UK. Or for the Cambridge Cert, go to www.cambridge-efl.org/teaching/centres/index.cfm

(both certificates are recognised by the British council and both are roughly the same. Apparantly the Cambridge one has a slightly higher grammar content)

Also look in the Guardian on a Tuesday and you'll see lots of ads for TEFL jobs abroad (and for training providers). Alternatively the colleges where they teach the tefl courses will be able to advise you on jobs in particular areas (or there are many recruitment agencies online, most will only take tefl cert holders though).

Theres lots of info on the british council site
www.britishcouncil.org and also
www.learnenglish.org.uk has ideas for teachers. Here in Greece English language teaching is big buisness.All children do either private lessons or go to private language schools as well as the 2 hours per week at normal school.Private lessons in someones home are far more lucrative but obviously its harder to find the lessons in the first place when you are new to an area.The language schools don't pay so well and I would imagine thats the same everywhere.
If you are a specialist in any subject you can teach adults - medical english, buisness english spring to mind.Can't really comment at all about other countries but if you have any other questions I'll try to help.

Great advice! Thanks so much! Lucy I'm in Preston so Worthing wouldn't be an option, but thanks anyway! I do think there would be more money in private teaching, but GRMUM said, that would be hard as I would be new to the area. Is it possible that I could work behind a bar first, or waitressing, get used to the area and brush up on my language first? If I was thinking of Spain, Greece or Italy, (as that is where you are all from I take it!) how much do those kind of jobs pay? Could I get cheap digs for me, dh and dd whilst doing this? I would like to do a taster course though, I have taught English privately before, but only Literature, I've never taught language so wouldn't really know where to begin. Could I get any tapes to help me, so that I didn't have to do a course? It's just that we are short of cash and so anything I do manage to save will be used for airflights, accommodation deposit and some income to live on just to get us started. So £500 is quite a lot of money for us.

Thanks.

funny you should bring this up rhuby, today i was talking to a mum in the parent and toddler group at work and she mentioned her husband was doin tefl, course with her southern accent i thought she said tefal, and i wondered what he actually did whith those frying pans! so i had to ask her, course she thought it highly amusing!

LOL Custdie!!