TEFL teaching Question

[luciemule]

Hi - I'm thinking about doing a TEFL or TESOL course but rather than teaching english aborad, I'd like to teach non-native residents in the UK. Does anyone on here do this job and if so, tell me more about it. I'm currently waiting for an online TEFL company to get back to me but thought I'd ask if anyone has first hand info. I live very near to a large asian and polish community and my local city college provides course for non-native people who want to learn english. I'm also thinking that there would be a need for TEFL teachers for those non-natives having to learn english to become British citizens?

Wouldn't do a purely online course for that. There is a market but you need a min of a CELTA or Trinity TESOL.

Best route is to cntact your local council and ask if they need ESOL teachers and what quals they're looking for. Some councils want a PGCE FE.

I've not done it but others from my course were training to do it and I've kept in touch with some of them. What do you want to know?

Thanks FA - just really wanted to know if I could teach ESL in the UK without a PGCE and the way to go about it. I think your idea about going to the local council first and asking what quals they require etc is a good one. I did just read on the Direct Gov site the two quals you mention above. Are they types of TEFL then and so do some TEFL courses not carry the same weight as others?
I found an online one for about £200 and that's really the most I would want to fork out - unless of course, I had a job already lined up.

I did it in the UK for 10 years. Agree with what frakkin says. You'll need a minimum of the CELTA and in many cases a diploma or MA in TESOL. I taught at SOAS in London and all the teachers there had MAs. Obviously if you're teaching on a voluntary basis you might not require such advanced quals.

Have you got any teaching experience in another field? If not, I'd really recommend that any course you do includes an element of classroom teaching practice too.

If you have any specific questions I'd be happy to try and answer them (haven't taught for 9 years now though)

You would probably need to be formally taken on by a FE provider - some councisl subcontract their provision rather than run courses themselves, others may have designated projects for speciific areas - as increasingly the courses are required to be accredited and lead to a recognised qualification. I think it is ESOL rather than EFL in relation to the citizenship requirement. However there are also cutbacks in FE/Adult Ed funding anticipated so you might find it hard to get taken on right now and even then it may only be sessional work , so not a steady income. Agree you may need a teaching qualification in addition (PGCE, Cert ed., PTTLLS for example)

Online ones often don't include teaching practice, their accreditation isn't all that great and I would honestly only recommend them to someone wanting a gap year teachng abroad and even then only a company such as i-to-I who help students get placements in exotic places. To teach in the UK you definitely need one of the better regarded quals.

TESOL and TEFL are broadly the same thing and another term is TEAL. It's all teaching English as an additional language, possibly from scratch. The differences are really in the exams you prepare for. As an EFL teacher I teach to the TOEIC, Cambridge and TOEFL syllabi. You probably wouldn't need to do that if you were in the UK.

Interesting that you now need an MA to teach in the UK. I must put that on my list of things to do if we cone back.

Oh - was hoping not to have to do an MA. Have looked up about CELTA though and seems good. I'm about to phone my local city council to ask if they can give me more info about routes in and requirements.

When I did my CELTA a loooong time ago the gold standard in the UK was the RSA cert, with the Trinity cert coming some way behind. No other certificates were recognised as being worth the paper they were written on. I believe the same is true now of many online courses. A decent course needs to be one month full-time or the equivalent part-time, with lots of practical teaching experience mixed in with the theory.

I did my CELTA at a private language school in London, and most of the teachers there just had the CELTA, with a few having the MA. I believe a diploma or MA is what you aim for only if you want to go the director of studies route. I don't see how a PGCE is relevant to teaching a second language to adults - they're two very different skills.

There are now specialised PGCEs in non-compulsory education or FE which I think have ESOL options. Agree a PGCE in primary or scondary English will be as much use as a chocolate teapot but the FE qualifications are aimed specifically at teaching adults.

I agree the practical teaching is absolutely essential and the 'weekend' courses don't have the same level of teaching as the CELTA. For one thing you're not teaching real students!

I plan to do my DELTA so I could go for DoS jobs if I wanted.

City council is the way to go to find out what they're after but honestly most online courses just aren't worth it.

okay - I'm convinced about the online course and it was actually a friend who was living in Italy with not to do who told me to do an online course but she wasn't sure about regs/quals in the UK.
Last night, I found a paper for Peterborough referring to one specific area (non english speaking where there was a big gap when it came to qualified ESOL teachers so will call them in a minute to ask more.

Midnight - have just come across a Cambridge interview paper and I'm wondering whether my english grammar is up to it! Does the course teach you everything you pretty much need to teach to adults?
I rang the council and they were completely useless and then I called the adult ed college and they said I would just have to do the CELTA and then find a job. She didn't know of any city programmes or anything. Sounded all a bit vague really.

It helps, I think, if you've learned a foreign language yourself, because then you'll have an idea about the nuts and bolts of language. You do need to know your grammar, but they cover a lot of it on the CELTA (or at least that is my recollection - was a looooong time ago now for me). You also pick up quite a lot as you go on and get experience too of course but it will hepl if you know the difference between an adjective and an adverb!

In all this of course, one shouldn't forget that it can be a really rewarding job too. You meet people from so many varied backgrounds and with such different life experiences and the vast majority of them are lovely. I've taught exiled Tibetans, people from the Faroe Islands, Nigerian priests, you name it, in my time. It ca be very wonderful.

The pay's a bit shit though.

Thanks Midnight. I actually have French and German A-level so have a good foundation of grammar, however my english grammar is probably worse than my french and german grammar! I'm 32 and when I was at school, they were the years when teaching pupils english grammar kind of went out the window! I remember our German A-level teacher raising his brow and deciding to teach us english grammar lessons for the first couple of weeks.

Oh yes, me too luciemule. I'm 43, so went through much the same, but my first degree was in French and I do think that helps a lot. I'm sure that a good grasp of French and German, although obviously very different, gives you an understanding of how languages (in general terms) work, which is the key thing. A book like 'Practical English Usage' (OUP, can't remember the author) is very handy to have as well. And it would probably help to have a copy of something like Raymond Murphy's English Grammar in Use, which covers the key grammatical areas that are taught in general English courses.

Great book tips thanks. Might give the Careers Advice Service a call because I've just found out that it would be a cert.TESOL I would (or a CELTA) to teach immmigrants through government schemes etc. There are quite a few acronyms and acronyms that can sometimes mean the same but other times mean something additional etc. Am slightly worried as to how much a CELTA etc would cost.

I'm not too bothered about the pay but how shit is shit midnight? DH just keeps saying that I need to contribute to the household but says that it doesn't have to be mega money! I love learning new skills and I thought that if it wasn't too expensive, even if I did the cert and then couldn't find a job, then I'll still have it and will have learnt something new.

I have just looked at the Cambridge ESOL site and having read through the entire course syllabus, I think that perhaps this might not be the best time to take on this course. The amount of work is quite immense and I'm not sure I'm up to it (both with 2 little children and also intellectually!). Will have a think and see what DH thinks.

Hi there Luciemule - not sure if this really helps but I also worked in TEFL (a couple of years ago admittedly) and I agree with much of what has already been said.

I started out working abroad with a CELTA certificate (I did the month long course to get it) and then I did a Diploma on top of that - both were UCLES accredited, which was the main accreditation body at the time I was in the industry.

When I came back to work in the UK (after four years abroad) I worked both in university and Higher Education and yes, many of the staff had MAs in TEFL, but the most important thing was they had ALL worked abroad - some for many years.

I later became a CELTA teacher trainer and I was always very honest with students who did the course about the job prospects in the UK - slim to zero at the time, unless you had some experience of working abroad. That might have changed now with the influx of EU immigrants - I honestly don't know!

I'm afraid I agree with midnight express about the pay - unless you are very lucky and get a full time job in the academic sector the pay is pants - its the reason I left the industry.

On the flip side - it can be a very very satisfying and interesting job - and I think you are doing a VERY wise thing by checking out all the job prospects etc before starting the course. Which makes me think you are clearly a very smart person who will do well whatever you decide to do!

Hijack

knicker (fab name) was it the DELTA you did? How was it? I've heard it's really tough and intense.

Thanks everyone - MN is really cool when you're researching stuff - people laugh when I tell them I go on MN but I know how fab it is, especially for getting varied opinions about anything.
Have thought long and hard since yesterday and with the added poor job prosects, I'm now thinking I might so the new teaching assistant certificate with the OU in October. I was (a couple of years ago) going to do the GTP but couldn't due to DHs work commitments in the forces, however since then, have worked for 1.5 yrs as a voluntary TA with yr3/4 class and loved it soooooo much. Think that will get me a job more easily and it's something I love.
Thanks for all your replies.