teaching overseas

[kwak76]

I'm thinking about teaching overseas.

Do you need to be a tesol certification to teach overseas. Some of the jobs that I looked at requires this?

[aelward]

The most respectable schools require TESOL certification, but the vast majority of gigs in Asia do not. However, those schools would often choose a European who can barely speak English over an Asian American whose English blows the average White American's out of the water.

[toml]

I apologize if this is slightly off-topic, but just wanted to mention my experience in tutoring English.

In college, during my summer vacations, I would often go back to Taiwan and hold 1-day English Workshops.

It would basically be from 9AM to around 3PM and each workshop had 6 people--each paying around $250 USD to attend.

(I preferred teaching middle school-ers. Theyíre English-level is acceptable, and theyíre eager enough to learn. Theyíre also easier to amuse than high school-ers).

Unfortunately I donít have my lesson plans anymore or else I would share it with you, but the general idea was to split up my students into 2 teams and the team with the most points would a prize (the ìlosingî team would have a prize as well, just not as cool). Points go to the team that remembers the most.

Some of the stuff we did was:

1. Introductions where they would have to remember what the other person said.

2. I had them watch a sitcom (e.g. Threeís Company, Friends, etc.) where I would pause it every few minutes asking them in English what just happened.

3. Play pictionary.

4. Common English Slang (they loved this)

5. Commonly Mistaken pronunciations (damn, I had a really good worksheet on this as well, but I donít know where it is anymore. I basically complied it by listening to my fob friends talk :) )

6. Another thing I did was word recognition and basic grammar. I would have a paragraph with no spaces, punctuations, etc. and have them make it correct.

e.g.
Somethinglikethisandtheywouldhavetocorrectitandput inthecorrectpunctuationandstuff.


I would also take them out to lunch where we would all chill and I could talk to them in Mandarin and get to know them.


Of course getting clients like this is always hard, but I was lucky that my cousins knew a lot of people and they could pull in students for me. I also got a lot of referrals because I think my students had a lot of fun.

I only did a few workshops during the summer though. It was quite tiring and besides, by making it a rare event, I seemed more valuable :) ... ok, ok, I was just lazy.

***

I also think there is an advantage of being an Asian English-teacher. Mainly, your students won't be as embarrassed to talk to you because you are "one-of-them." At least thatís how I advertised myself.

[toml]

Oh, let me add that the workshop was conducted in a mix of English and Mandarin.

For example, in the sitcom game, I would have them explain it to me in Mandarin, but I would give extra points if they could explain it in English as well.

Also, I would first give the instructions in English, and whoever could explain what I just said in Mandarin would get points.

***

Also, if you do this, you might get some kid whoís English is vastly better then the other kids. If this is the case, you can make rules, like, no one can answer 2 questions in a row.

[koreaninfrance]

I'm thinking about teaching overseas.

Do you need to be a tesol certification to teach overseas. Some of the jobs that I looked at requires this?

i am an academic manager of an english school in paris. you need a university degree and a toefl and a work visa. if you fulfill these requirements give me an email and i will interview you. we need more americans here in our company.

[Justin]

The most respectable schools require TESOL certification, but the vast majority of gigs in Asia do not. However, those schools would often choose a European who can barely speak English over an Asian American whose English blows the average White American's out of the water.

Yeah thats usually in South & SEAsia though..
Schools in Europe & East Asia often require some kind of degree or something. In Taiwan, you cant even get a work visa if you dont have a BA.

[little mixed girl]

I'm thinking about teaching overseas.

Do you need to be a tesol certification to teach overseas. Some of the jobs that I looked at requires this?
tesol = icing on the cake.
if you have one, you get paied more. and like you saw, some places require it.

but basically all you need is a bachelors degree...in anything...and be a native or near native english speaker.

i have a korean-american friend who came to the states at a young age and now that's she's graduated college, she's about to start some english teaching in korea.

[seoulbrotherno1]

Brother Kwak,

A teaching certificate is not essential. Most hakwons will hire you if you have a bachelor's degree. However, hakwon teaching is not where the money is at. If you are gonna be teaching part time while taking Corean language classes, private tutoring is where the money is at. A hakwon will pay $20-$30 per hour (ridiculous!), while private tutoring pays $40-$50 per hour (offensive!)

Don't stress too much about things. Just come to Corea, settle down, figure out your class schedule, and both your family and I will set you up with some private tutoring gigs.

sb1