non-native English speakers as TEFL teachers

zomambik

Hi there. It's my first thread ever - I hope it posts ok...

Has anybody heard of a non-English speaker successfully employed as a TEFL teacher? Does anybody have firsthand experience as such? I'm Polish, 3 years teaching experience in Polish private language schools, CAE certificate with an A grade, bachelor of science. For the last 2 years in non-teaching jobs in the UK and currently Ireland. I'm considering doing a TEFL course in order to get back to teaching long term. Any advice, tips, observations absolutely welcome.

spurious

We have a Slovak woman teaching Second Language English and Science to some of our students. She does not have a permanent position but we have no difficulty employing her. Her language skills come in handy too.

zomambik

Hi Spurious. Thanx for quick feedback.
if you can spare a few more minutes - what credentials does she have? And what did you mean by "handy language skills"? Is it that she speaks more languages, the fact that she had to learn English ( = more aware of the teaching process as opposed to natural acquisition of mother tongue) or finally the fact that she is of Slavic origin and therefore in an advantage when teaching Eastern European folk? Or still something else?

spurious

I don't know her exact qualifications and I don't really want to ask her out straight, but I believe she was a qualified second-level Science Teacher in Slovakia and also took English conversation classes.

She has some Polish and Russian which is useful for trying to communicate with children whose English is poor. I am learning Polish this year to augment this (I hope the Polish community will be patient).

Her English is better than some of the natives - it's certainly grammatically perfect. She helps out quite a bit in Learning Support classes too.

P. Breathnach

I know quite a few French people who teach English as a foreign language. They do it in France. Correspondingly, we have many Irish people who teach French as a foreign language here in Ireland.

No, I'm not taking the piss. What I want to point to is that there are many instances all over the place of people teaching a language other than their own first one. It's fine, so long as their command of the target language is good (and the limited samples we have of zomambik's English suggest that -- except for that horrible non-standard "thanx"). A non-native speaker brings a different perspective to the task, one that can be useful. It would be especially useful if the teacher came from the same language community as the students.

Go for it, zomambik, and good luck.

is_that_so

zomambik wrote:

Hi there. It's my first thread ever - I hope it posts ok...

Has anybody heard of a non-English speaker successfully employed as a TEFL teacher? Does anybody have firsthand experience as such? I'm Polish, 3 years teaching experience in Polish private language schools, CAE certificate with an A grade, bachelor of science. For the last 2 years in non-teaching jobs in the UK and currently Ireland. I'm considering doing a TEFL course in order to get back to teaching long term. Any advice, tips, observations absolutely welcome.

An A in CAE is an extremely good level and in practical terms probably as good as you can get. I would suggest looking at TEFL courses, although you might want to have a read through the comments on courses. I personally favour the more expensive 100-120 hour ACELS or CELTA courses.

As for getting a job in a school , well my impression and as posted above, is that no-one really seems to know how people are being employed. It might just be a case of doing a TEFL course and sending in your CV to a school. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there doesn't not seem to be any organisation to identifying and employing "language assistants". Good luck with it.

Agnea

Hi,

I am as well new to this board. I am a Lithuanian national working at a primary school teaching ESL ( as a language support teacher) on part-time, temporary basis, though. As far as I know, there are only a few foreign nationals employed in this capacity. I have a Master's in English Linguistics from Vilnius University ( 6 years full-time). I have been working as ESL teacher for 6 years part-time, sometimes combining part time hours with other local primary school. In September 2009 DES have cut a lot on ESL posts as well as the way part-time teachers are employed, so it was not easy for me as I had to undergo through many hurdles till I finally got garda vetting and Teacher registration number, without it nobody can be considered for the post cause DES will not pay such a person. Grants given to the boards of management have been abolished.
In terms of other foreign languages: yes, it was really beneficial that I knew Lithuanian, a bit of Polish and fluent Russian - as I offered to interpret at numerous occasions and we could communicate better with the kids and their parents and there was less stress involved.