Becoming an English language teacher for foreign students
There are a lot of different ways of getting into English teaching.
When I started I did a TEFL course with International House in London (they also have schools in Barcelona, Budapest and many other areas of the world) Now a lot people do a CELTA course >> see link it’s not very taxing on your brain, or your pocket, but helps you to
- get an idea of how people learn languages,
- how to introduce new vocabulary and
- grammar points and
- how to structure a lesson.
I think that you can even do some courses partly online but there is an element of teaching practise.
With the CELTA course basically you get to find out if you are cut out for teaching and a lot of schools will be satisfied with this qualification.
If you then decide that you want to make a career of English teaching there are lots of other types of courses that you could consider:
- English for young children – very rewarding seeing very young children learn easily because nobody has told them it’s difficult!
- Business English
- English for specific purposes – medicine, engineering, catering etc
- English for exam preparation
How easy is it to find work as an English teacher?
There is still a great demand for English despite the “crisis”, in fact I’ve probably got more work this year than last year 🙂
- If you are a native speaker
- have some qualification
- have reasonable presence
- and especially if you can demonstrate that you are not going to disappear in 2 months time!
it shouldn’t be too difficult to find work.
Sometimes it’s difficult to get enough work to live on at the beginning but if you show that you don’t mind working a bit in morning, midday and evening (basically when students don’t work or study) I’m certain you will find work.
These articles might give you some food for thought:
How we learn a language >> here
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