Has anyone any experience of teaching English abroad and courses to take?

I’m thinking about Europe, probably France, and hopefully as a tutor to individuals or small groups, at least initially as I’ve never been the most confident person, hopefully that is something I can build on.

Googling TEFL and CELTA just comes up with thousands of results, some of which are bound to be of no use apart from taking money from me.

I’m in full time work, I know the CELTA courses are a month full time. I’m not sure if anything is possible part time

Bump for the daytime crowd

Can’t really help other than to say that my other half did a month-long CELTA course in Valencia a few years back. It was very hard work and pretty intense, but she did have a laugh with other students doing the same course and she did get the qualification. She stayed on afterwards and did 6 months of (low) paid teaching. When we occasionally have chats about the possibility of moving abroad, she says teaching English isn’t something she’d want to do. Soz not to be more help and good luck with whatever you decide.

Hi Jools, I was a an english teacher in Barca for a couple of years. I did my TESOL at Islington College, took nine months, once a week. From what i recall TEFL doesnt exist, its not a qualification, its a catch all term for the various qualifications you can get.

Basically, its depends entirely where you want to work as to what qualification you need, if indeed you do need one. I have friends who got a job in japan simply because they are english , with a southern england accent… However most major cities are competetive, and you will work for pittance. It is however a brilliant experience that i would recommend to anyone.

CELTA is the onlyTEFL cert generally recognised. You don’t really need one in Spain, France I’m not sure. Didn’t see many TEFL jobs in France advertised.
In Spain at least, experience is king, plenty of people teaching without any qualifications (I did it for 10 years). It’s all about getting your first job, if you go somewhere off the beaten track then you’ll find an academy willing to hire you. (try the Basque country!)
If you want the lucrative oral examining then you’ll need a CELTA.

You can get a CELTA equivalent through on-line and weekend stuff. My girlfriend did this one…

http://www.i-to-i.com/tefl-courses/professional-tefl-certificate-140-hours-preview

No experience of this but you can also teach in the UK, as another possible option.

I had a language teaching business (amongst other things) in France for ten profitable years having worked as a TEFL teacher in Spain and France. I employed people for their degree first, a TEFL certificate was a minor plus, a PGCE a plus and a PGCE with EFL a plus plus. A degree in engineering, geology or business studies is a lot more use than a TEFL certificate to language schools in France where the lucrative business is with companies.

Try applying now and see how you get on, we used to advertise in the Times Educational Supplement and get hundreds of CVs for every job (so don’t expect to hear unless it’s for an interview). If you do hear they are quite likely to say “can you start next Monday?”.

The two main ones are the CELTA run by Cambridge and the CertTESOL run by Trinity. I did the latter intensively (one month full-time), and later the Diploma online (2 years). The College I work for offers the CELTA as an evening course (twice a week for six months).

They’re very similar, with the Trinity courses placing more emphasis on the performative aspects of language, ie pronunciation. The CELTA is slightly better known.

If you haven’t taught English before I’d recommend doing a course with as much tutor and peer contact as possible. The grammar can be a sod if you weren’t taught it at school and it’s good having folk to work it out with.

I still have a language school in Germany. The CELTA certificate is good to have and an accredited one even better (there are a lot of sharks in the TEFL business and some courses are cheap for a reason). The Cambridge certificate is a good one for example. AFAIK in most of Europe most language schools employ teachers on a free-lance basis though some of the bigger companies (eg Berlitz) do employ people on full-time contracts. Most European language schools concentrate on the corporate market as it is the most lucrative so you can expect to start work very early in the morning with a long break in the middle of the day and then teach again in the evening. As Edukator said a degree is possibly more important (a necessity if you want to teach in Asia).

There are plenty of distance CELTA courses available which you can do over 6 months but the most common is the 1 month intensive course and it really is intense! If you do it in the UK it will set you back in the region of 1000-1500 pounds.

If you want to teach in Europe don’t expect to get rich as the major cities are all oversubscribed and the industry is mainly geared for young people taking a year out and being able to live in a different country. You can earn more money by doing private lessons on the side but you ´will have to have a good command of the local language and be prepared to have a massively fluctuating monthly income. Also a lot of schools close over the summer so you will be without work… a lot of teachers then head back to the UK and teach in summer schools.

I would recommend to most people to have a look at teaching in Asia such as China or Japan. The pay and conditions are generally better (a lot of schools take you on full time and will sort out your visa and pay for your flight out, which you then pay back from your wages) but you will almost certaínly be teaching children.

As Edukator said you could try writing now for jobs but TBH in our case we only consider people who are actually in the country. HTH.

Edukator – Troll
I had a language teaching business (amongst other things) in France for ten profitable years having worked as a TEFL teacher in Spain and France. I employed people for their degree first, a TEFL certificate was a minor plus, a PGCE a plus and a PGCE with EFL a plus plus. A degree in engineering, geology or business studies is a lot more use than a TEFL certificate to language schools in France where the lucrative business is with companies.

I’m up to HNC level in civil engineering, and also have a degree in psychology, although not a good grade

I would like to work in Europe for a few years, and I thought teaching english would be the best way to get employment until my French improves enough to look at getting an engineering job

I reckon you stand as much chance of getting an engineering job in France without speaking reasonable French as a TEFL job (not much chance). I used to have a chat on the phone with candidates for TEFL jobs to make sure they could speak excellent English, and enough French to cope with living and working in France. I’d normally suggest the oil sector but most of the American companies with operations in France are laying off at present.