Temat: to all you English teachers out there - please help!
Magdalena Natalia Wiśniowska:
oh, and I can only make it during the weekends (I've got a full-time job).
Hi,
I completed the CELTA course in Krakow last year. This is a 4 week full-time intense course. Maybe there is a weekend version of this out there but that would translate into at least 17 weekends. There are other alternatives such as the basic TEFL which is a single weekend course but I suspect that the quality of this is not as high as the CELTA and certainly not as highly regarded.
The school advised me that there is no real formal requirement for entry into the CELTA course other than proving, through interview, that you have a command of the language that is high enough for teaching and you are able to analyse the language to a certain extent. Remember that most natives entering this course have no clue about grammar - you can learn that later. If you've completed American school exams it sounds like you might be able to squeeze into that category of native speaker.
Also, it's worth noting that many highly qualified Polish native teachers of English have language skills that, well, lets just say, I felt like offering them some lessons on basic pronunciation skills. Of course, they know grammar theory well, but they drop articles all over the place and can't pronounce 'th' or 'th' - interdentals I believe are taught as 'd' in Polish schools. This is a pronunciation problem I have a 100% success rate in fixing, usually within a few minutes. Thankfully, this observation of language skills only applies to about half the teachers I've met and the other half are of an exceptionally high quality :) The one who introduced me to this forum is fantastic - I thought she had grown up in England!
There are some schools out there who employ 'native speakers' with no qualifications or experience whatsoever. Some offer their own training course, others us the calum or berlitz method and appear to require nothing more than a native accent and ability to take orders and work lots of hours without pay (I read a contract a few months ago and didn't stop running when I realised I was expected to work a _lot_ of hours without pay).
Looking beyond the qualification, it's worth looking at what jobs are out there. Many schools will only employ Poles if they have the degress but will emply natives just because they are native. It seems to be a kudos thing that students expect. The salaries are not great but better than the receptionist. Also, I'd advise working for a school that is owned by a british native rather than a large chain of McSchools. Not to say that any particular shools or types of schools are bad, but these smaller schools appear to recognise that employees are a company's greatest comodity. Something that Polish companies haven't cottoned on to yet.
In the meantime, you may like to obtain a copy of the Bible of teaching, otherwise known as "Teaching English" by Jim Scrivner. I read this cover-to-cover before taking the CELTA and it was the best move I made. I also got in about 4 hours of TEFL observation at a local college who allowed me to observe lessons from the back of the room. This was a great experience.
One last thing; you might start to search the internet and find various forums and websites telling about all the problems teachers have experienced with various schools. Whilst I'm sure that many of these stories are true, it's worth noting that people only seem to write their bad experiences and for each teacher with a problem, there may be another 10 who loved their work there. Also, I suspect some of the complainants were possibly not fully justified in their observations. Just saying, take the opinions you see on the forums with a pinch of salt.
I am sure there are more ways to get into teaching, this is all that I know for now...
Whatever you decide, good luck.
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