TEFL/CELTA/CELT answers...

Yellow121

Hi does anyone know good CELTA courses in Cork and how much are they?
Thanks.

Cole

Yellow121 wrote: »

Hi does anyone know good CELTA courses in Cork and how much are they?
Thanks.

http://cambridgeesol-centres.org/centres/teaching/centreContactDetails.do?centreNumber=IE002&qualification=10&source=teacheraward&country=IE

It's only UCC and IH in Dublin that run the CELTA here.

StradBally

Trinity Cert TESOL course in Schull - see links -

http://www.atlantic-english.com/blog/category/offers/

http://www.cactustefl.com/tefl/course.php?course_id=1567

Yellow121

Thanks, so there's only 2 CELTA courses in Ireland? What about CELT? And am I wasting my time doing this if i don't have a degree?

StradBally

Yellow 121

You'll find that the Trinity qualification is as highly regarded as the Cambridge

Cole

Yellow121 wrote: »

And am I wasting my time doing this if i don't have a degree?

You don't have to be a graduate to do the CELTA....presume it's the same for the other certs....but not having a degree will limit your options for teaching abroad, even with a teaching cert.

In order to get the appropriate working visa, most countries require English teachers to have a degree (in anything). Others, more in the know, might be able to advise of countries where you don't need a degree.

About to sign up for the Celta in Hanoi, Vietnam.. Then work here for a few months. How does 20/25 dollars an hour compare to the likes of Seoul?

dayna2010

Hi everyone so I am 20 years old ,I have just dropped out of college because the course wasn't for me. I cant afford to do another course so I have desided to move to italy. I have a passion for italian and there culture , and Iam planning to complete a tefl course in febuary . Is it pointless??? without a degree can I find a teaching post in Italy??? I want to live in turin ..... and I have promotional and retail experience but my italians not at a good enough level to get a job in retail at the moment....Iam only 20 so will they even let me teach or am I just being really negative...does anyone have any experience in Italy with a TEFL course...I live in dublin does any1 know any good tefl couses availible in (north) Dublin???
My emails daynasara@hotmail.com
If anyone has any info for me because Iam a little lost on what I need to do ....
Thanks
Dayna:p

aridion

Deleted User wrote: »

About to sign up for the Celta in Hanoi, Vietnam.. Then work here for a few months. How does 20/25 dollars an hour compare to the likes of Seoul?

20 to 25 dollars an hour in Vietnam? you sure?

Yep, in Hanoi anyway... Met a lad from Liverpool on 23 nd another girl who had just landed with an online tefl and she was offered 18. Maybe it's all lies, I dunno.

population

dayna2010 wrote: »

Hi everyone so I am 20 years old ,I have just dropped out of college because the course wasn't for me. I cant afford to do another course so I have desided to move to italy. I have a passion for italian and there culture , and Iam planning to complete a tefl course in febuary . Is it pointless??? without a degree can I find a teaching post in Italy??? I want to live in turin ..... and I have promotional and retail experience but my italians not at a good enough level to get a job in retail at the moment....Iam only 20 so will they even let me teach or am I just being really negative...does anyone have any experience in Italy with a TEFL course...I live in dublin does any1 know any good tefl couses availible in (north) Dublin???
My emails daynasara@hotmail.com
If anyone has any info for me because Iam a little lost on what I need to do ....
Thanks
Dayna:p

Hi Dayna
Though I do not profess to know much about Turin, I am teaching English in Naples and have been doing so for just over a year. I would recommend that you do CELTA as it is very highly thought of here and you can gain work here teaching English without a primary degree if you have CELTA. I would recommend the CELTA course in International House. Though it is pricey and hard work it is well worth it in my opinion. Also there is a fair amount of work in the South of Italy if you would ever consider coming down this direction. Hope that helps:)

wild heather

Hey everyone, I'm interested in enrolling on a CELTA course but there seems to be few places that run this course in Cork city or county. I applied for the course in UCC but was too late. Any help appreciated.

txs

leblanc

Hi KevinDublin
Pity I didnt read your post prior to booking an online course. But while I am on it I might as well fisnish it. Can you recommend a good grammer book I can buy to use with the grammer section of the course please?

DAVIDDOLAN

I would like to inquire about teaching overseas. I am wondering which course is most generaly accepted overseas for teaching english. I am considering doing an online 120 hour tefl course but im afraid it would not get me a job overseas if another qualification is more accepted. Can anybody shed me some light on this subject

livinginkorea

DAVIDDOLAN wrote: »

I would like to inquire about teaching overseas. I am wondering which course is most generaly accepted overseas for teaching english. I am considering doing an online 120 hour tefl course but im afraid it would not get me a job overseas if another qualification is more accepted. Can anybody shed me some light on this subject

Do you have a degree? If so then Asia is easy enough to get in to.

Toto Wolfcastle

Post moved to TEFL thread.

Twixaroo

Hi I am new to boards so apologies if this is the wrong place to be posting this thread. Basically I'm in my final year of my BA Degree and hoping to do some travelling. Very much interested in becoming a teacher in the long run so was thinking of taking this course. Has anyone here experience of this course? Anyone ever gone abroad teaching English? Where would be the best place to go? A guidance counsellor has told me to be aware that there can be some bogey courses around that wouldn't be recognised in some places? Any help would be much appreciated as i want to get in motion and try to organise myself now. Thanks!

Toto Wolfcastle

Moved to TEFL thread. Have a read through this thread to see if you can find out any information.

Twixaroo

Brilliant thread, very insightful thanks to all the main contributors for their opinions and help. Korea does sound very interesting. I had been considering doing a i to i course but i think after this i may opt for the CELTA course. To be honest i don't think i would be teaching EFL in Irelnad when i come back, is CELTA still the best option for me yes? And like a previous poster asked, CELTA won't prevent me from teaching kids in schools will it? Has anyone here any experience of teaching in the United Arab Emirates or around there? This would be my first choice i think. I hope to do a course after May when i have completed my final year exams and hopefully have it done and everything in order to apply for jobs for the September recruitments.

Check Daves esl for the jobs in dubai, uae and qatar.. I think alot want experience along with celta. I think.

barclay2

Hi all,

Looking for advice from anyone who's familiar with teaching in france or spain, maybe italy too. I have one year of recent teaching experience in South Korea, but i do not yet have any tefl course. I am considering teaching in Europe for a while, maybe 6 months or so. I don't see it as a long term career for me but would certainly enjoy another while in it.

I am aware that the Celta course is the most respected qualification to get. However, it is very expensive and as far as I can tell it is probably only worth the money for people who intend to teach for years. I do not. So I am considering doing a 120 hour online course, and then head to france or spain in search of work in person (which i successfully did in Korea).

Can anyone tell me what my chances are of finding work in spain or france with a year of experience under my belt and a 120 hour online course?

Just finished day 2 of a 4 week Tesol course in Philippines... I have no idea of what a Tesol course should be but so far, this one feels like a pile of shlte.

Will be gutted if it doesn't improve.. There's only 4 of us so it should be good for that reason but there's one massively retarded canadian who keeps relating stuff back to his course in college. Incredible how he does it.. Every few minutes he's telling a story about how he was taught this or that and I can see the teacher debating to herself whether or not she should tell him to stop.
Not only that but when she's doing games that we can use with kids, he can't even understand them and makes a big issue about the rules. When we were doing a bingo game about countries in Asia, he was complaining about "how do i verify if it's right?".. Missing the point completely. The lad has never even heard of laos or burma before and is 100% socially inept. I might just tell him to shut up myself or somethin.

Now I've to do a one hour 1on1 with a teenage filipino on thursday and we've done nothing in preperation for it.. It's being graded nd I'm relying on youtube now for my info. Rant over.

livinginkorea

Deleted User wrote: »

Just finished day 2 of a 4 week Tesol course in Philippines... I have no idea of what a Tesol course should be but so far, this one feels like a pile of shlte.

Will be gutted if it doesn't improve.. There's only 4 of us so it should be good for that reason but there's one massively retarded canadian who keeps relating stuff back to his course in college. Incredible how he does it.. Every few minutes he's telling a story about how he was taught this or that and I can see the teacher debating to herself whether or not she should tell him to stop.
Not only that but when she's doing games that we can use with kids, he can't even understand them and makes a big issue about the rules. When we were doing a bingo game about countries in Asia, he was complaining about "how do i verify if it's right?".. Missing the point completely. The lad has never even heard of laos or burma before and is 100% socially inept. I might just tell him to shut up myself or somethin.

Now I've to do a one hour 1on1 with a teenage filipino on thursday and we've done nothing in preperation for it.. It's being graded nd I'm relying on youtube now for my info. Rant over.

Wow that sucks, can I ask how much you are paying for this? Hope the teacher will step up and tell that lad to shut up. Usually there is one in a class and the teacher has to stamp their authority early on or lose the rest of the class for the duration of the course.

About the 1-on-1 lesson on Thursday I suggest something cultural might be worth a shot. How much info. do you have on the kid - age, English level, hours spent per week on English, prior experiences with native speakers, textbook, etc? No harm to find out as much as you can beforehand. One hour can be pretty long especially if you are being graded - perhaps he/she can do a task related to introducing the country to you as you are new to the area and what to know where you should go and what you should try? Try to elicit certain phrases and vocabulary related to your topic to indicate a high amount of student to teacher interaction.

The course is $1,500.. Standard for 4 weeks and I didn't want to do the Celta because it's for adult teaching and sounds very difficult. The only redeeming factor is that we met a guy who did the course last month and he spoke very highly of it so hopefully it should pick up..

I know nothing about the student only that he's 13-18. I'll try find it all out tomorrow and make some sort of lesson plan.. They've given us a rough outline of how the hour should go without actually teaching us it. The proper teaching practice is in week 3/4 and that will be 6 students and I should be much more prepared.

Back to this guy though... He doesn't stand a chance of being a teacher and it's annoying that he's there. His plan was to goto South Korea and he only found out about the need for a degree this afternoon when I mentioned it in passing.. Pretty big move to shell out the cash without looking at the job sites and seeing the degree requirement for a visa!

cloneslad

I teach a kid one on one. He's a pretty high level too. He's 16 years old (14 years old in western age). I made up lots of simple sheets like regular / irregualr verbs etc because these are the things high level speakers continue to mess up.

recently we've been working on sentence structure, independent, dependent sentences, simple, complex, compound, compound comples ahd stuff like that so what i do is get him to relate them to stuff he is interested in.

He also really likes cars so I spend a lot of time chatting to him and I bring my netbook with me, then we google whatever cars he talks about and then we find out more information on it. This works well because I have no knowledge of cars at all. We also do little fun online quizzes or fill in the blanks to songs I have typed out and play to him. He is too good for most of the songs so I have had to resort to playing eminem and outkast because they are quicker and it annoys him not to get them all correct, especially if I offer him money if he gets them all correct or the opportunity to punch me in the arm.


It's going to be hard for you to teach a kid you know nothing about, but what I did was give him some writing to do, using past / present and future tenses. Get him to insert the correct verb in a sentence. use either am / are/ is in the sentence. etc etc This allowed me to get a grasp of his level at the start then start working on different things to teach him and which parts of the book to skip or focus heavily on.

I typed out numbers like 100 / 2000/ 42,768 / 456,769 etc because a lot of kids in Korea mess up on this and refer back to korean numbers when doing it. despite his excellent speaking, writing and listening skills, he is still messing up on these and needs to think about the number carefully before saying it. In general conversation he just says the korean number because we are talking about korean currency and I let him away with it. I really must stamp it out.


Anyway, I hope you might find some of that useful. If you need any worksheets or anything, I could send you some stuff I have done. I also like to use chompchomp.com as it has interactive activities that you can use online or print out and use.

rentboy

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for you informative post. I do however have one quick question which I hope you can shed a little light upon.

I am two years into my English degree but am taking a year out for my own personal reasons. I really want to teach English abroad, say in France or Spain, and am wondering what the best courses are for me to do here in Dublin, or wherever, seeing as I don't actually have my full degree and won't. Was looking at the I.C.T.I course in Merrion Square. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks,
RB

Almanac

Read through this excellent thread in its entirety on and off over the course of the day.

Just a question for LivinginKorea and Cloneslad if they are still around:

As I understand it, you both started teaching with no prior experience or training, but with a degree (as is required).

How did you go about this exactly? Did you have to organise and plan lessons yourselves from scratch using grammar books or whatever? Did the institutes there give any training or supply books etc?

On another note, do the authorities there make provisions if you want to travel with your wife?

Considering signing up for the CELT (which seems to be essentially simply the Irish equivalent of the CELTA), but wondering if it's really necessary as it would delay my departure by a couple of months (part-time course)...

Certainly would be useful in terms of picking up teaching skills but is still relatively expensive, demanding (maybe less so in the part-time format), and time-consuming.

cloneslad

Almanac wrote: »

Just a question for LivinginKorea and Cloneslad if they are still around:

As I understand it, you both started teaching with no prior experience or training, but with a degree (as is required).

How did you go about this exactly? Did you have to organise and plan lessons yourselves from scratch using grammar books or whatever? Did the institutes there give any training or supply books etc?

I arrived three weeks early and sat in on classes, watched how the other teachers interact with the kids, what games are popular etc. I also asked the teachers in the school at the time what was popular, what the school expected of you etc. Each school is different so you have to cater to their needs as much as the needs of the student.

I did a TEFL course, I can't say it really helped me too much because I have had to improve my own grammar a lot through online sources to get it up to a reasonable standard. It's unbelievable just how much grammar you've lost / never learned in your life.

My school has a syllabus. Each class has a main student book focusing on reading and grammar, then these are supported with writing booking, study books to enforce the grammar, more reading books and then the Korean teachers will teach more grammar from a separate book in their class.

In my school I teach one class for 40 minutes, then, when I leave a Korean teacher comes in and teaches them for 40minutes. We share some books together so this means I should do the required 1-2 pages of the shared books to allow the Korean teacher to review it and enforce the work easily without having to start from scratch (they must also do the same for me in the classes where they are the 1st teacher)

It's not iron fisted or anything and if I am having a good speaking class with the kids then I will keep it going and just tell the co-teacher I didn't get the pages done because we were having fun. When this happens the Korean teacher will do the pages for me. This works both ways. The other supplementary books can be done when and how I feel, sometimes I mightn't teach them for a week, other times I do 2-3 pages a class. It all depends on how I'm feeling that day.

I don't believe in sticking to a schedule / lesson plan. I take note of what pages should be taught and what grammar I need to enforce, but I can do that in about 15 mins or so. I always carry extra activities into each class (scrabble etc). If I think the class has been good then I treat them, if they annoy me then they do writing. These treats may just be spending 10-15 mins reviewing the grammar we have learned recently by asking them to change the sentence. To make it interesting I would put them into teams and let them throw a ball at a bull’s-eye type target to build up points or just put them in teams and get them to race each other in writing down the answer first. It's all dependent on how I feel during the class to be honest, don’t be too ridged or and set to rules

On another note, do the authorities there make provisions if you want to travel with your wife?

Yes, there is. Your wife can come attached to your visa. If she has a degree then obviously she can get herself a job here too. She will be able to come as a dependent on your visa, I believe the type of visa she will get will be an F3 visa, which she must apply for.

She could easily come over as a tourist with you and then change her visa to an F3 when she is here. She gets 90 days in country on a regular tourist visa.

Considering signing up for the CELT (which seems to be essentially simply the Irish equivalent of the CELTA), but wondering if it's really necessary as it would delay my departure by a couple of months (part-time course)...

Certainly would be useful in terms of picking up teaching skills but is still relatively expensive, demanding (maybe less so in the part-time format), and time-consuming.

If you are in a public school then anything more than a 100hour (maybe 120) course can net you an extra 100k a month. If you are going to a hagwon then I wouldn't really bother wasting my time on a worthless short term course. You would be better suited just going online, finding different activities you can play, brushing up on your grammar and generally just thinking of things you can do to make your classes more enjoyable for both your students and yourself.

livinginkorea

Almanac wrote: »

Read through this excellent thread in its entirety on and off over the course of the day.

Just a question for LivinginKorea and Cloneslad if they are still around:

As I understand it, you both started teaching with no prior experience or training, but with a degree (as is required).

How did you go about this exactly? Did you have to organise and plan lessons yourselves from scratch using grammar books or whatever? Did the institutes there give any training or supply books etc?

On another note, do the authorities there make provisions if you want to travel with your wife?

Considering signing up for the CELT (which seems to be essentially simply the Irish equivalent of the CELTA), but wondering if it's really necessary as it would delay my departure by a couple of months (part-time course)...

Certainly would be useful in terms of picking up teaching skills but is still relatively expensive, demanding (maybe less so in the part-time format), and time-consuming.

The only teaching experience that I got was teaching a couple of micro-teachings over the course of an intensive weekend. They were easy going and didn't receive much constructive feedback from the trainer. Having said that I knew that I had no clue so was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. Other than that I got no official training before I came to Korea. I got a couple of grammar books (which I have looked up from time to time) but that was basically it.

Looking back on it I was very unprepared. The day after I arrived I was introduced into a couple of classes, mostly small introductions and started the following day. The business classes were fine, they knew that I was new and I tried to give me lots of activities based on the textbook. After a couple of weeks I made the trip up to Seoul and got some activity based books which gave me lots more ideas. When I was in the public school I was meant to have a weeks training but after two days of observing classes I asked them if I could start and the co-teacher was delighted. I don't know she enjoyed being on show, although I never picked out her mistakes or nit picked through her teaching style.

In nearly every case you will be given the textbooks and some materials especially if you are new in the door. It is no harm to have a look on the net and come up with some general ideas for the first couple of days. Be able to introduce yourself simply for all ages, family, where you are from, famous soccer players from Ireland, singers, movies, how long it takes by airplane (I get kids to guess this to check their comprehension), some color pictures of your house, food, family are always very useful (perhaps in a small folder especially if you are teaching kids - grubby hands).

I think training is very important but it does depend which sector you are hoping to work in. If you do take a couple of months out to do a proper training course then it will give you a taste for teaching and you will know a lot more about it and more importantly, if you think you will like it or not. You don't want to come out here and find out that it's not for you. Think about it a little more. If you are desperate for some experience and cash then come out soon. However, if you want to have some qualifications and an idea about what it all entails then do a proper course. In the long run it will stand to you.

Any more questions then fire away and good luck with your decision.

g5fd6ow0hseima

Hi, first time to post here.

After searching this thread for Argentina and getting only 2 results, I must ask a few questions:

Has anyone on here taught English in Argentina - or in South America for that matter?

Do you need TEFL in order to secure a job there?

[im in the process of doing an MA and looking to head off teaching english once im finished in September and i'd sooner head to South America than anywhere else]