Planning to re-train next year

[Dappy777]

I'm planning to re-train in TEFL. I would have preferred to do it face to face but can only find online courses. Last year, I did the basic 120 hour online course, which enabled me to teach on Preply. Now I need to get a CELTA.

Just a few questions for anyone who works in this field (or anyone else):

• Is it worth it? It's a lot of time and money. Plus I don't want to teach abroad, just online or in a language school in the UK.
• Am I too old (at 49)?
• Is AI going to wipe out such jobs?
• Will doing a CELTA enable me to work for an online company? I don't mean Preply or Italki, I mean an actual employer who runs an online school. Do such things even exist?

I did CELTA some years ago. It enables you to teach for any language school or to teach privately. Depending on where you live, there might be a call for private lessons. I’m not sure about online teaching but there are certainly a lot of language schools about where I live.

Hi. Thankyou for your reply. Could I ask who you did the CELTA course with?
Did you/do you teach English as a foreign language for a living?

People have really put me off. The general verdict seems to be that you can't earn much in language schools. Someone told me that the UK language schools never recovered from Covid and that demand is falling.

Also, I'd assumed there would be more work online. Again, people have told me not to bother getting a CELTA because that's not the case. If I ran a language school in, say, Spain or China, surely it would be in my interests to employ people to teach students online rather than in a physical building that I have to heat and rent. You'd think the trend would be away from physical schools. What I'd really like would be to get the CELTA and then find a job working for an online language school. Is that realistic? (I don't mean Italki and Preply. You can teach on them with a 120 hour online course.)

I have simuliar questions so bumping!

You can also teach ESOL to adults in your local adult ed centre. I love it for many reasons but it is often frustrating and definitely not an option to earn good money. Your age is absolutely not a barrier. You can pm me if you would like further info on my experience!