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What ESOL qualification is the best?

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Okay... So lets say I do a degree in Economics... What should I do my PGCE in? This is my problem. :s-smilie:

Well, economics would be the obvious choice, although it limits you to sixth form only. Your PGCE needs to be pretty closely related to your degree.

My advice would be to take it one step at a time and get your degree sorted first. I'm not really sure what you want to do, and I wonder if you are either. Choose a degree you will enjoy and succeed at and take it from there.

Reply 41

Shelly_x

Original post by >Username<

Thanks for this. Here's the problem though... I plan to do a degree in Economics. However, I want to teach ESOL. I have been told that I cannot specialise in ESOL because my degree is in Economics, however others have said I can.

I can't do a degree in English because I don't have an A-level in English... Also, I'm not that interested in it anyway. However, I am interested in ESOL. Therefore, when it comes to doing my PGCE... What should I specialise in?

Do you want to teach primary or secondary? They are both very different. You could teach maths with an economics degree. You would still encounter kids with EAL needs. Would you be interested in a lingustics or language degree? That would be useful for esol and you could specialise in English.

Reply 42

>Username<

Original post by carnationlilyrose

Original post by Shelly_x

I actually want to teach adults... Tbh, I've never looked into a linguistics/language degree as I never did any A-levels related to them degrees so it was never an option. I don't really think I am interested in that tbh.

Is it possible to an an Economics degree but still teach English as a second language?

Reply 43

Justpin

Original post by >Username<

So, what you're saying is there are very few jobs what I want to do? Do you think it's worth going into teaching then?

If you are talking about ESOL then pretty much.

Take Manchester as a case study for instance, Manchester is a good example because this is one of the cities which has had the most migrants outside London.

Off my head there are a number of well paying ESOL teaching jobs.

Look at most of the colleges around Manchester, say Bolton, Bury, OIdham even as far as Blackburn, Preston and Wigan. Their ESOL departments have shrunk considerably over time with YoY cuts.

While some such as Salford have been able to resist these budget cuts they succumbed in March and let go of 17 teachers 17 extremely good teachers. Other places like Manchester College rely on temps, the adult education services are being merged into the colleges.

Salford for instance had a separate adult education service, they merged with Salford college resulting in almost all the Salford Adult Ed service getting P45'd. Manchester College is merging with Man Adult Ed soon. Man Adult Ed has reduced in size considerably as well with many sites closing.

Their base of ops in Crumpsall used to fill All three floors , now the use 1.5 floors. Right now 3-4 ESOL teachers per college is normal with agency staff filling the gaps. Bolton when I worked there had:

Dan, Pam, Deb, Neil, Me, Sarah, Natalie, John and Raz. Today the department is:

Natalie, Pam and Neil + one 0.4 fractional everybody was fighting over on Monday when they were interviewing.

So ESOL is shrinking quickly, some places are gaming the funding (read the wolf report conclusions) by forcing everybody who does ESOL to do maths and using the Maths funds to pay for ESOL. They will get Phds in Maths to do E1+E2+E3+L1+L2 maths to game some extra funding. This will not last.

So what has filled the gap?

Volunteer projects ~ Manchester for instance put in a group bid for the Talk English project. They won it too, whereby retired people are encouraged to become ESOL talk buddies, this is supposed to replace pre-entry (which isn't supposed to exist anymore) and Entry 1 classes.

Private schools of... varying quality which pay minimum wage, don't result in qualifications and use volunteers. You can split these schools into two groups, ones which are run by teachers such as Communicate/Essential/Accord (they pay decent rates) and schools which are run by business men (stereotyping but it is usually men)
Berlitz for example, EF ~ English first min wage employers while the teachers who are employed may try to give the learners a good education it is next to impossible.

The bad schools outnumber the good schools by a considerable margin, (it is not so clear cut for example Community revival is run by a business man a very wealthy one, but he pays an OK rate and his students actually learn and pass exams).

Teaching in general however, I'd note there are NO shortages no matter what the government says in ANY SUBJECTS, whenever there is said to be a shortage it just means they want to reduce wages.

16+ education has it worst tbh government funding cuts which are supposed to be supplanted by learners taking out loans. The fact that pay scales are gone and zero hour contracts in colleges are normal these days. Most colleges are run by ex business CEOs these days, look at Manchester College or Salford, all ex corporate.

Primary and secondary is safer, in terms of pay scales, pension rights and job security, but I think the culture contained within colleges and tertiary education will trickle down sooner or later.

There is a good reason why many teachers quit in their first year and few last more than 5 years. I am currently finishing my 3rd turbulent year of teaching, I am giving thoughts to opening a school as budget cuts forced my last public funded job to vanish and they went to a scum bag school.Running it on a bounty system whereby every person you get to pass the exam you can claim £320.

My sister a DELTA, MA, CELTA, PGCE ESOL teacher had to leave the country to find a decent job and thinks this will be her last year.

Reply 44

Justpin

Original post by >Username<

I have heard I can do an Economics degree then specialise in ESOL PGCE... Is this correct?

The truth is I know what I want - teach adults English as a second language. The whole degree/Economics thing is simply a back up plan.

I actually want to teach adults... Tbh, I've never looked into a linguistics/language degree as I never did any A-levels related to them degrees so it was never an option. I don't really think I am interested in that tbh.

Is it possible to an an Economics degree but still teach English as a second language?

Your plan reflects mine.

I have an economics/accountancy degree (and ACCA qualification), I did a PGCE with a literacy specialisation with an added couple of modules for ESOL as the lines between literacy and ESOL are very close. I also teach maths.

It's not a bad plan, as I used my accountancy degree to teach AATs at a local college, also even though I do not have a maths qualification or specialism, colleges are generally confident of my abilities (even though accountancy is nowt to do with maths I'm serious!) to allow me to teach maths.

I've found it really tough to make ends meet the past year as teaching adults has a funny route in. It is incredibly rare to get a full time job off the bat. What happens if they take you on as agency cover staff (0h contract), some weeks are busy some are not.

If you're good they then give you a low fractional like a 0.2, for a couple of terms (thats £4400 a year I had to do a job on top of my teaching job and burned my savings). Which goes up to 0.4 then 0.6 over time.

A certain adult education service in the north does not advertise, they take on agency staff as cover. With this arrangement you are considered external. Any additional hours which crop up are offered to internal staff first. If you manage to survive 6 months as 0hours wait by the phone each morning, they will bump you onto a 0.2 contract as an hourly paid member of staff with the same class each week. But you get contacted first if they need cover before the agency staff.

You are still not entitled to training or support at this stage. If you survive as an hourly for 6 months you get put onto tier C staff, where you take the same class every week and then it gradually gets bumped up to tier B if you survive.

I just got out of Tier C staff and was about to be moved into Tier B. This has been frozen because they expect lower enrolments in September. So I'm sat here and I don't know if I have a job until August 28th meaning all the kerfuffle above has been a waste of time if I don't get asked to come back.

What ESOL qualification is the best?

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