Careers involving TEFL

I am currently going through a phase of not knowing what degree to choose to do when I go to University in 2005. I applied to do medicine in 2004, but got 4 rejections so decided to take a gap year and try again for 2005. After a lot of thought, I'm not really sure if medicine is the right career for me. It's hard to explain why I'm thinking that, but I would like to know what other options are available to me so I can weigh up pros and cons. An area that interests me greatly is TEFL. In my gap year, I am going to China to teach English. I decided to do that for my gap year as I really wanted to go to China, and that is what there was available there. After deciding to do TEFL in China, I started thinking about how much I was looking forward to it and how exciting (and obviously terrifying!) it's going to be! As I am now unsure of what degree to do, I was thinking to myself "Why not do a degree that has TEFL in it!" I found that at quite a few unis, there are options to do "TESOL with Linguistics" or "TESOL with French" etc etc. Has anybody done any degree that involves TESOL, and if so, is it worth doing? After doing a degree with TESOL, what are the job prospects like? Is it easy for someone with a degree in TESOL & French to get a job teaching English in foreign countries? Is there job security? Is it a well paid profession? Do you stay in one country for a long period of time, or move round every so often to a new school/country? I have so many questions I want answering and I would really love to speak to someone who has either done a degree with TESOL or is a full time TEFL teacher abroad.

Hope someone out there can help me! I want to know what I'm letting myself in for if I go for the TEFL career.

Reply 1

ThunderCat8

Surely someone on these forums has taken a degree with TESOL in it, or is currently a full-time TEFL teacher.

Please reply, I really need some advice. :redface:

Reply 2

erk

i need this information too!!!.. id like to teach english abroad, but dont have a clue how to go about it? uni? eetc etc?

Reply 3

babyballerina

One of my friends from school did this at either Newcastle or Northumbria (Somewhere in Newcastle anyway!). I lost touch with her when we went to uni and then i met her in the street when I went home for the holidays. Since graduating she has spent and year in Poland, 6 months in Hungary and 6 months in Italy. She found it very easy to find a basic teaching job. A lot of them offer free or subsidised accommodation. However, the contract is usually for an entire academic year in a foreign country. She doesn't speak the language most of the time so i think it has been a bit lonely. Now she is how she has lots of expereince but is finding it hard to get a full time position in the UK. She would like to teach English in a language school here, so she can have a secure job with prospects. However, most teachers in these schools appear to have been English teachers in normal UK schools so my friend was thinking of taking a PGCE when I last saw her at Easter. Either that or going abroad again to get more experience.

So in conclusion, this person found it easy to get work in Europe but it was short term and badly paid. getting a long term position in the UK is proving more challenging. (her time abroad sounded like a blast though!) i will e-mail her and see if I can find out what she is doing now.