Bored with your current job?
Feel like you are spinning your wheels?
Or perhaps you are thinking of a career change.
Wouldn’t it be great to pull up a chair at a cafe somewhere in the world and enjoy the surroundings of a new and exciting location? Or watch the sun set on a beautiful beach as you prepare to go out into the city for dinner? Well, thousands of new TEFL teachers do this every year. And there is no reason why you can’t be next.
So if you are bored, tired or just want a change, there are 3 steps to making the change come true for you. I did!
Now think about where you might like to live. Remember, it doesn’t have to be forever. You could move from one country to the next with the right qualification. Perhaps it is a destination you have always wanted to go to, or a country you used to visit on holiday, maybe that lovely Greek island you went to years ago…
But I enjoyed the Mexican experience and it was my first step working around the world.
Once you have a place in mind, you have something to focus on and this will help you as you begin to make your plans. But how to you get from where you are today to your dream destination? And how will you manage to make ends meet when you get there? Well, this is where the TEFL course comes in.
Step 2
Choosing the right TEFL/TESOL course and setting your budget. Now TEFL courses come in all shapes and sizes (and cost from £170 to over £1000, depending on what you choose). The course you decide upon should be a good fit for your ideal destination. There is no point doing something quickly and cheaply if you get there only to find you can’t get work when you get to your chosen country. Similarly, spending lots of your hard earned cash on an expensive course may be a bad investment, particularly if you are only thinking of staying a short while.
As a general rule, if you are volunteering in continents such as Africa, Asia or South America, you should be able to get by with a short Weekend or 3 day TEFL course. You can do these up and down the UK at convenient city locations. It is a good way to dip your toe in the TEFL water, so to speak, get a paper qualification, and then off you go. Prices are competitive and start at £170. You’ll also get to share in some classroom experiences with other trainees in an exciting classroom environment, with some classroom teaching practice as well.
Alternatively, if you are heading for a more established destination, such as Western Europe, Japan or other countries with a more mainstream TEFL industry, you are likely to want a little more. An online course, providing it is accredited by an independent professsional body, can help you get to where you want to go. These start at 70 hours / £195 and are customisable, so you can add specialisms such as teaching English for business, to young learners or in a one-to-one setting ( listen to a teacher speaking about how to teach English one-to-one). These courses go more into theory and methodology, as well as grammar, so you’ll be more confident when you stand up in front of the class for the very first time. Budget for spending up to £395 for these programmes, but they are very flexible and fit around your schedule.
Of course, online and distance based courses work really well if you want to take time over your studies and go at your own pace. If you work best in a group situation, you might want to consider a 4 week CELTA course, which will give you the theory and methodology, along with 6-8 hours teaching practice in front of ‘live’ TEFL students, rather than the peer teaching you get on the weekend programmes. This was the traditional way of getting started and provides a more thorough introduction than the Weekend TEFL. Good for those who like working intensively. Budget for spending up to £395 on a CELTA course. If you’d like more information on CELTA or online programmes you’ll find this blog on Online TEFL vs CELTA helpful.
We suggest you look at the following country guide to help you - we have listed 43 of the top TEFL destinations around the world, with recommendations for what course works best in different countries. It also pays to watch out for some countries, like Japan, Korea and increasingly Thailand, who require their TEFL/TESOL teachers to have a degree.
Step 3
Making the Move and finding work. This is the big jump. You can put a pin in your map, and buy your TEFL course from the seat you are sitting in, all in the next five minutes. But actually packing up and getting on the plane is the final step. Don’t be dissuaded - you have come this far already. Now is the chance of a lifetime to get that job and realise your dream.
But how to find work? Well, there are lots of jobs out there, as many as 20,000 new TEFL positions are offered around the world each month. So if you are a new TEFL teacher there is a good chance that one of them has your name on it. Here is how to go about it.
a) finding TEFL work from the comfort of your armchair - or computer chair
Nowadays arranging a TEFL job starts with a google search for EFL jobs. Alternatively, a visit to one of the specific TEFL job websites may yield results. Probably the biggest is http://www.tefl.com/jobs/, which has a wide range of positions and RSS feed accessibility so you can be updated with the latest positions.
b) in situ
But the fact is that many TEFL jobs simply don’t get advertised - especially in places where there are several teacher travellers passing through, dropping in CVs. Like me when I started, a number of people find work by speculative drop ins, in Spain in this example. In the more ‘off the beaten track’ places you will need to be persistent, so check out this advice given on finding work in Finland.
C) planning your job from overseas
The British Council offices in different countries often hold a list of local schools and ESL base has a list of schools in various countries. But I also like this idea of finding TEFL work that is offered in Germany, by searching through the online yellow pages to find the local language schools in a particular area.
We have expanded on all of these ways of finding your first TEFL position and we hope you find something that inspires you. In the meantime, here is a look at how it is done, from experienced TEFL teacher Louisa Walsh :
Hope you found this helpful and like me, twenty years later, you can still be doing what you love, wherever you decide to travel!
Devon Soul Singer Joss Stone has formally opened the Kira Farm Training Centre in Uganda.
Joss has been a supporter of Amigos ever since she made a visit to Uganda in 2006 to see the work that the Devon based charity is doing for young orphans there. So it was great that she could spare the time to go back and formally open the training centre 3 and a half years later.
The centre, based around 45 minutes from Kampala, has been up and running since March, with the help of generously donated funds from a wide range of individuals and organisations, local and national, including Global English.
On her website, Joss posted the following comment on 27th October:
‘Hey guys! I’m in Uganda at the moment, its gorgeous! And very very hot.
We opened Kira Farm a couple days ago, its really amazing there. Amigos are doing a great job and so are the girls at the school and there is one boy. Goes to show that it doesn’t matter where you are from or what your situation is, there is always hope and you can truly do anything you want in this life. You just have to stop talking and start doing.
I’m impressed, there is a link on this site to Amigos, go check it out. Where would we be in this world with out the lovely people.’
Amigos Director Phil Pugsley has been one of the driving forces behind the north Devon based charity Amigos. He has seen it grow from a dream with humble beginnings to this exciting point. He said:
‘It was great to see how much our students have achieved in just six months. It breaks your heart to hear of their backgrounds. We just pray these kids make it as they get this great second chance in life Kira Farm Training Centre has to offer, I have a very strong feeling they will!
Joss Stone has this amazing ability to totally empathize with our Kira students, she encouraged them to use their talents, just like she has done with her voice. We’re all good at doing something!’
Students at Kira Farm are learning a range of skills, from agriculture, animal husbandry, home economics and tailoring to English, Maths and business skills. The aim is for them to take these skills back to their villages, where they can share them with their local communities, therefore improving the life for rural Ugandans.
Representatives from Westcountry TV in the UK also travelled out to film the opening. Cordelia Lynch has put together a 3 part report, to be shown live starting this week (November 10th). You can catch Westcountry Live at 6pm in the Westcountry ITV region or via the website here>>.
If you are interested in finding out more about Kira Farm, or the Amigos charity, visit their website at www.amigos.org.uk.
Remember the old BT ‘It’s good to talk’ adverts? Yes, even if we think of BT as a dinosaur of the telecoms age, the marketing phrases they used still reverberate with those of us who remember the 80’s & 90’s it’s good to talk ads with old Bob Hoskins - ads that shaped a generation of us TEFL teachers and reminded us why we had to call our mums every so often. So speaking to one another, even in this digital age, is still important. Facebook can provide an artificial conversation (while we juggle mum with our friends and plans for the evening) but it can’t take the place in any of our lives for the direct emotion we hear in each others voices.
OK - don’t get me wrong (as Chrissie Hines once said - sorry - I grew up with this stuff), I do enjoy Facebook, but I am definiltely of the pre-digital age. I yearn back to the sound of Tears for Fears and Duran Duran in the decade that music forgot called the 80s. But that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten how to communicate (and if you can name all of the acts in the 80’s pic below you are can do more than me - hint - some are pictured twice!)
So life has taught me that when an opportunity comes around to speak and communcate I need to take the chance that is offered. Which is why I love The Language Show. Because it is good to talk. And I know that, like last year, I’ll speak to at least 200 people every day at the show. So this is why I find it surprising how many TEFL course providers shy away from exhibiting and putting themselves up in front of their potential customers.
If you Google ‘TEFL Courses’ or ‘TESOL courses’ you’ll find hundreds of providers who have never presented more than a faceless website to the world. You’ll not find them in any way on YouTube, or even a picture of them. They’ll say ‘We offer this course, accredited by ZZZ’ (never heard of them), or ‘We offer that course, with added bells and whistles, accredited by YYY’ (no, who are they either?). Do you ever feel like they are fishing for you? Casting their rods out and hoping you’ll figure that this one must be OK, because…
When actually, what really matters is talking to people. When you speak to someone about something, if you delve deeper, you get more than the company line - the ‘bells and whistles’ - because at these shows you get real advice from people who have been there at the sharp end of teaching - which may well be where you are heading. So If you really want to know how far a distance learning course will get you, or whether the CELTA is really all it is cracked up to be, don’t just trust a static website, or a blog where someone says ‘yes, it’s great’ or ‘no, you need this’. Speak to someone - 2 or 3 organisations at least. Look at different types of courses - think about whether you need a £1000 course if you are off on a gap year, for example. It’s your money - an investment in your career. Spend it wisely.
So taking to people is why I love the Language Show in Olympia. At Global English we want to give you the right advice for your TEFL journey, be it short or long. We are not interested in selling you the ‘latest flavour’ course - rather we’d like to know where you want to go - whether you want TEFL/TESOL as a career abroad or in the UK - or just a passport to you next step around the world. We have been there - done that - and enjoyed the experiences TEFL has given us. So we’d be happy to help you on your way too.
Thinking back to my new romantic days, if I’d had the opportunity of visiting a TEFL fair, I’d probably have received better advice, rather than playing roulette with a range of different distance TEFL providers, and picking the poor course that I ultimately did. So at the Language Show you can come along and compare different TEFL products - and if you stop by our stand we look forward to seeing you and answering your questions!
Remember - it is still good to talk!
William, 80’s throwback, 15 years TEFL experience
Global English
Hi, I’m William Bradridge. I am a partner at Global English, based in Exeter, UK. We run online TESOL / TEFL courses along with practical weekends and teaching volunteer programmes.
This blog is for anyone who is interested in TEFL, getting trained or thinking about developing their TEFL careers. My main themes are training, the TEFL industry, finding work and earning a living through TEFL, which is what I have been doing since 1990. Welcome your comments, ideas and suggestions.
‘I saw some Chavs, WAGS and hoodies getting trolleyed.’
‘I needed some munchies but I didn’t go in ‘cos the shop was skanky.’
Understand these phrases and chances are you are native to the UK. But outside of these isles, you’re not likely to get the cultural reference. Yet we hear these expressions used in the media and in everyday speech. And what about ‘Simples’ the new phenomenon of a word currently spreading like wildfire thanks to the ‘compare the meerkats advertisement to mean ’straightforward and easy, as in
‘I finished the exam early and left knowing I’d done well. Simples!’
Pity the poor English language learner, especially those who set out to learn English to native speaker level. Such an aim must seem almost unobtainable when you consider our rich language, ever growing thanks to the influence of America and the media - and already positively bursting at the seams with idiom, slang and the almost incomprehensible array of complex phrasal verbs which make up our every day speech.
You don’t see slang words and expressions written down often as it is mainly the preserve of newspaper headlines or spoken speech but such is the variety and their prevalence in our language that it’s given way to dictionaries devoted to their recording and usage. There’s the Oxford English dictionary of slang no less and if you fancy updating your own bank of current slang terms, or just want a translation of the 2 sentences at the beginning of this post, then have a peek online at this very comprehensive list here ( Note, you may find some terms or descriptions offensive. )
So, if slang is widespread enough to warrant its own dictionary, can we ignore these terms and expressions in the classroom? And if they do have a place in the classroom, what exactly do we teach our students about form, usage and context? It’s one thing to understand what is meant by an expression so they become part of the learners passive vocabulary but quite another to encourage our our learners to use them.
Can you imagine your intermediate French student saying ‘I’m always getting my knickers in a twist’ about English tests, explaining in a glorious French accent that her car ‘goes like the clappers’ or that the accommodation she stayed in on holiday was ‘minging’. It’s almost laughable.
So, I’m curious about the importance of slang and encourage your comments on the subject. Particularly:
Current teachers, what place does slang have in your classroom?
Do you know of any new (and clean) slang that hasn’t made it into common parlance yet or is geographical in usage?
What do you know about slang in other languages; does it exist to the same extent as UK slang? Share your experience of foreign slang.
Katie Sheehy, Global English grad and new TEFL teacher, completes her report on her 3 week trip to Uganda, where she taught English at 2 primary schools. In this report she talks about teaching kids all about Arsenal FC, moving on to a small private school in Masindi, Northern Uganda and a final trip to Kira Farm outside Kampala.
During the course of the week, I used four more of my prepared plans, including one dedicated to the topic of Arsenal football club. This is my favourite team and I had written to the club’s charity department to ask for some resources. They sent me a lot of brochures on the club and pictures of the players. I used the brochures as a basis for a team quiz and gave the pictures out as prizes for the winning teams. This was certainly the quietest lesson as 60 heads were bent over the brochures trying to work out the answers to my most difficult questions!
The funniest part of this lesson was the fact that nobody would take the picture of Emmanuel Adebayor as a prize.
“Why don’t you want this one?” I asked; only to be told “But he’s left Arsenal and gone to Manchester City for £25m”. I didn’t know this and I was amazed that they were so up-to-date with what was happening in the English Premier League.
I further witnessed their devotion to football when I went along to support AsabaPrimary school in a match against another local school. The two teams had brought along plenty of supporters but I was pleased to hear that most of the noise (songs, drums, clapping and whistles) was made by my school. I sat with them and picked up the words and when Asaba scored the first goal, I watched as all the spectators swarmed onto the pitch and held up play for at least 5 minutes.
By the end of my first week, I was exhausted and worked out that I had taught over 20 hours of lessons in four days but I had thoroughly enjoyed it and found the students a delight to work with. There was a wide range of abilities in each class and with the class size it made it difficult to notice who needed individual attention let alone give any and I definitely admired the way the Ugandan teachers knew them all.
I spent my free weekend visiting MurchisonFalls national park (on a very long day trip that started at 4:30am!), visiting Masindi market & shops and then relaxing at the hotel. Masindi town is a friendly place and many of the locals are very glad to chat with you, find out where you are from and share experiences. During a brief torrential downpour I took shelter in a small shop and got chatting to the proprietor. It turned out that not only had he visited the UK on a teacher exchange a few years back but he had stayed in a number of small villages in Essex that I knew very well as that is the area I grew up in – it’s a small world!
For my second week, I travelled a few miles outside of Masindi to a small village called Kyema and taught at their local community school which is called Masindi Progressive Primary (MPP). This school was much smaller with only about 200 students in total but it still had the range of classes from nursery to P7 and about 6 full-time teachers. They gave me a lovely welcome, with the children lined up along the side of the road to greet me. Then all the school gathered to sing songs and I took this group picture.
The rural setting of the school is beautiful as it sits on top of a hill overlooking Masindi, but its facilities are very basic as there is just one large building and the classrooms are divided from each other by some grass partitions.
My co-ordinator at MPP was Teacher Harriet and she was very keen for me to meet some of the local community members as well as teach English.
In fact my week at MPP was far more flexible and wide-ranging as I never knew what or who I was going to teach on any one day, so I turned my hand to a variety of lessons and taught all classes at least once. I brushed up my singing skills and got P1 and P2 singing & miming to “ Old MacDonald” and got P3 running relay races and dancing the “Hokey Cokey”. The funniest part of this week (for them not me!) was me being easily beaten by a small boy in P3 class during a hopping & jumping relay race. Next time I will get hold of some sacks, cloth ties, spoons & eggs and do a full replication of an “ English sports day”.
I was also able to meet all the children at MPP that are sponsored through Amigos. There are 28 children, mostly orphans, who benefit hugely from having a sponsor that pays for their school fees, their uniforms and school books. Without the sponsors their guardians would struggle to send these children to a school with such good results.
Paying fees to send children to a private school was actually one of the issues that I struggled the most with. There are free, government-run primary schools in Uganda but many people consider the educational levels to be poor (and indeed the class sizes are often over 100) and hence they scrape money together to send their children to the private schools. When I visited the homes of the guardians in Kyema, I was invited inside and I could see how little they had (just a mattress and a few pots & pans) in this rural community. This helped me to understand why they valued education highly and were prepared to pay fees so their children can get the best available and hopefully improve their future prospects. (You can find out more about sponsoring a child through Amigos here>> - Ed.)
At the end of my week at MPP, the school held a big fundraising day. Many of the students & teachers had spent the week visiting the local communities to ask for donations (which was why my teaching timetable was so fluid!) and they brought back various items of produce, including beans, bananas, groundnuts, maize and a few chickens & goats. I attended the fundraising day in the morning but unfortunately had to leave to catch my bus back to Kampala before it really got underway. But I hope they did very well from it and raised money for their planned building improvements.
I had many emotions during my journey back to Kampala. I had settled into Masindi, was pleased that the placements had gone so well and felt I had made friends with many people that I had met.Once I was back in Kampala, I was able to squeeze in a couple more visits; one to Kira Farm where Phil (below right, pictured here with Amigos Volunteer Coordinator Joseph) showed me around and explained all the progress so far and one to Joseph’s local Pentecostal church where I was welcomed as a guest during a lively & interesting service.
Now I am back in the UK and planning my next adventure in my career-break. I intend to continue supporting Amigos work and would love to return to Uganda sometime soon. I am hoping those teaching English skills will come in handy once again!
To conclude, I would like to give many thanks to everyone who helped me before and during my placement – I had a fantastic experience and I send best wishes for Amigos’ continued success and good luck to future volunteers that come via Global English.
Katie Sheehy, Global English grad and new TEFL teacher, sent us this report on her 3 week trip to Uganda, where she taught English at 2 primary schools. All the words here are hers so thanks for the report Katie!
My volunteer English teaching experience in Masinidi, Uganda, Part 1
by Katie Sheehy
Thanks to Amigos Worldwide and their partnership with Global English, I recently spent two fascinating weeks teaching English to primary school children in Masindi, Uganda. It was the first time I had ever been to Uganda and the first time I had ever taught but I definitely hope it won’t be the last time for either!
How did I end up doing this? Well, it was my first “project” within a career break that I am currently still in the middle of. I had spent over 10 years working for a software development company in London and I definitely felt I wanted a change – to visit new places, develop new skills, meet new people but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do hence I kept dithering and time disappeared.
Then in March this year, my company announced some voluntary redundancies and I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I spent a weekend debating pros & cons with friends & family and only my father looked sceptical and muttered “must be mad…in the middle of a recession…” but even he respected my reasons for wanting the break.
So I applied and then travelled home on the tube, wondering what I was going to do with my new found freedom.From a serendipitous glance at the adverts on the tube, I found out there was an exhibition at Olympia the following week. Called “One Life”, it was all about taking control of your life and doing what you wanted with it, whether that be travelling, voluntary work, a career-shift, starting your own business etc. This seemed like the perfect way to get some ideas and meet some organisations that could help me.
And that is where I met Amigos and Global English. They had an exhibition stand and were promoting a recently established Volunteer Teaching program. Students that take an online TESOL/TEFL course with Global English can follow it with a teaching placement (co-ordinated by Amigos) in either Kampala or Masindi in Uganda. At the exhibition I was able to speak to both the Amigos Director (Phil Pugsley) and Global English Director of Studies (William Bradridge) and could immediately sense their enthusiasm for Uganda and for the mission of this and other Amigos’ projects.
I had wanted to visit sub-saharan Africa for quite some time and had thought of voluntary work but I felt that my existing skills were not particularly relevant. So it was great to know that I could develop useful skills (the ability to teach English) in a short space of time and then utilise them immediately.
When I finished work at start of May, I started working from home on the TESOL Level 1 course with Young Learner extension. Initially I had thought doing the course would just be the means to the end but as I made progress I found the course was very enjoyable and it was refreshing to challenge my brain on other topics (than those I had spent 10 years dwelling on!)
Meanwhile I was also organising my volunteer placement and I chose to go to Masindi in July 2009. Masindi is a small town of about 15,000 people in northern Uganda and I chose this above Kampala because I wanted to get out of the big city (after all, I live in London) and discover rural Uganda.
1 - Crossing the equator during my tour
I also combined the 2-week volunteer placement with a 1-week organised tour to western Uganda to visit national parks and track the mountain gorillas. The wildlife in Uganda is amazing and I couldn’t miss the chance to see so many animals and birds in their natural habitats.
I arrived in Entebbe and then on to Kampala on 11th July and initially spent some time finding my feet (and the best coffee shop in Kampala) before meeting up with my organised tour group. Doing the tour first enabled me to acclimatise to Uganda before I did the volunteer placement on my own.
I was fascinated by Ugandan traffic and the way unstable bicycles (sometimes with up to 3 people and/or huge bunches of bananas) and dilapidated motorbikes would weave recklessly between minibuses, overloaded trucks and huge, bullying coaches. I soon worked out that the use of indicator lights is governed by a completely different set of rules than the UK!
Being adrenalin-phobic, I had no intention of driving myself (or on climbing aboard one of the boda-boda motorbikes) and was happy to trust road safety to the excellent drivers that I met with my organised tour and through Amigos.
After a week spent on the trail of the wildlife, it was time to return to Kampala and to get started on my volunteer placement. I was met by Joseph, the Amigos co-ordinator, and escorted to my overnight stop in Kampala (a very comfortable guest house run by Fields of Life charity) and hence to the bus park to get the big green Link Bus to Masindi the next morning.
It took about 3 hours but I soon realised why everybody else sat at the front of the bus as I was flung mercilessly around my seat by the WORST SPEED BUMPS IN THE WORLD.These huge speed bumps rose like an endless wave for about 5 miles and I dreaded the thought of experiencing them again on my return but luckily they had miraculously disappeared two weeks later!
When I arrived in Masindi, the bus announced its presence by loud horn-honking and the cry “its Link time” from the cheerful stewards. Everyone was keen to help the “mzungu” off the bus and offer her a place to stay or a lift somewhere. My head was still spinning from the speed bumps so I chose to rest at the Link office until Susan, my Masindi volunteer co-ordinator, arrived.
Susan is an English teacher at AsabaPrimary School and was my main point of contact all the time I was in Masindi. She ensured my accommodation and travel was all fully booked & paid for and helped me organise my teaching timetable at Asaba.
I was taken to my accommodation and given the rest of Sunday to settle in. My home during the placement was the New Court View Hotel which is a very friendly, well-run, clean and comfortable establishment on the edge of town.
2 - My home-from-home at New Court View
I had thought I might get a bit bored in the evenings on my own but in fact I was rarely on my own as there were plenty of travellers passing through and also a number of other volunteer workers who were also using it as their Masindi base. In particular my thanks go to the Harrow network of teachers who allowed me to gatecrash their weekend trip to MurchisonFalls national park.
And then my first school day on Monday approached!
I have to admit I was more than a little nervous as I had done the online TESOL course but had not yet stepped foot in front of a class. I spent my first week at AsabaPrimary School which is a large, relatively well-resourced school in central Masindi. The students range from nursery age to Primary 7 (P7) year and my assignment was to teach English to four classes of P4 and P5 years, with each class containing up to 60 students each. As I was a guest teacher for a week, I wasn’t asked to teach their usual curriculum but to choose my own lesson content and types of activity.
Before I travelled to Uganda, I did some preparation work to think of some lesson plans and to gather school resources (e.g. pencil, paper, books and pictures) that could be used in my lessons or left to the school for later use. I am very glad that I did this as it gave me a wide range of lesson options and I didn’t need to panic every night about what I would teach the next day!
On my first day, I was given a warm welcome to the whole school during their assembly and then I visited each class in turn to say hello to the students and meet the Ugandan teachers. Teacher Susan was my guide throughout this orientation day and I spent time observing some classes as well as discussing lesson ideas with some of the teachers in the staffroom.
3 - Teachers John-Paul, Susan and Director William at AsabaSchool
On the second day, I walked into my first class at 8am and started with a simple “Getting to know you” introduction lesson. This was based on my pre-prepared lesson plan but with some adjustments as I quickly judged which types of activities would work best in a large group. This first class went very well and I felt my confidence growing as the students responded, especially when we started talking about football, and told me about their lives and what they like doing.
During the course of the week, I used four more of my prepared plans, including one dedicated to the topic of Arsenal football club. This is my favourite team and I had written to the club’s charity department to ask for some resources. They sent me a lot of brochures on the club and pictures of the players. I used the brochures as a basis for a team quiz and gave the pictures out as prizes for the winning teams. This was certainly the quietest lesson as 60 heads were bent over the brochures trying to work out the answers to my most difficult questions!
4 Learning English with the help of Arsenal at AsabaSchool
Katie’s story continues in part 2, where you’ll find out more about teaching in Uganda, life in Kampala and the Amigos education project at Kira Farm.
If you give to charity, do you ever wonder where your money goes?
Well here’s where ours is being spent. Or more accurately, yours!
As you probably know at Global English we give 10% of all our profits to Amigos, a Christian based charity that works in Uganda to help alleviate poverty and educate the next generation of young Africans.
Global English started supporting Amigos this year and Amigos are using our donations, along with donations from other organisations such as British Airways, Brend Hotels and several other local South West businesses, to help develop the Kira Farm Training Centre, Uganda.
Lying around 14 miles to the North of the capital Kampala, Kira Farm started 5 years ago as a dream. A 22-acre site was purchased by 3 men with a mission to do something worthwhile for the people of Uganda. Gradually over time the project has grown and on 2nd May 2009, 16 female students were enrolled into the Kira Farm Training Centre. This first intake will stay for 12 months, learning vocational and business skills, English and Maths, Home Economics as well as agricultural and horticultural skills. The main thrust of teaching will be ‘in the field’ with sustainable, pioneering, crop growing methods always at the centre of the programme. Chicken, fish, rabbit, pig and bee husbandry will be taught as small rural projects next to Home Economics, Health & Hygiene and First-Aid, alongside basic Maths and English. The teaching is conducted by trained Ugandan teachers who understand the ethos and support the aims of the programme.
But before the girls could start on their education, a lot of ground work had to be done. One of the first learning experiences was for them to sew their own pillow cases!
These youngsters (like so many Ugandans) are orphaned teenagers, and Amigos aims to help them build their confidence, honesty and faithfulness so that they will become valuable citizens in their communities. They come from different parts of Uganda, so there were some dialect, language and cultural barriers to overcome. The girls sleep 4 to a room in the newly built dormitories and have their indoor lessons in the brand new classroom below.
The Amigos Charity believes that Kira Farm students can become a catalyst for change, as they demonstrate honesty, fidelity and integrity, coupled with a good work ethic. Once their training is complete, they will return to their villages from all over Uganda and take back the knowledge they have gathered, to share with their communities.
Amigos Director Phil Pugsley (pictured below) says ‘Thank you to everyone who has faithfully supported Amigos and this project over the past 5 years, it seemed as if this day would never come! Because 35% of Ugandan primary aged children drop out of school, they never have the opportunity to reach higher education. Yet most Ugandan young people either own land or have access to land. Amigos believes this is a great starting point for their future existence.’
Type ‘TESOL Courses’ into a search engine and Google will display a vast array of TEFL course providers all over the world offering online TEFL, weekend TEFL, 4 week CELTAs, part-time Trinity’s, 4 week non-CELTAs, university courses (pause for breath) and exciting combinations of the above. If I was looking now, with an outsider’s head on, I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t know where to start. How would I choose a ‘good’ course? They all say they are ‘accredited’ so what does that mean? Is one accreditation better than another?
These questions didn’t bother me much when I was looking to get started in TEFL many moons ago. Why? Because it was either CELTA, Trinity, or um well CELTA or Trinity. It was pretty much your 4 week standard intensive or nothing. There was no way I wanted to wing it around the world without a qualification, trading on my English native speaker status alone. The thought of standing in front of a class, mouth dry, not knowing my prepositions from my prefixes just made my blood run cold. So, a CELTA it was. No worries over accreditation, recognition or acceptance worldwide. Oh, life was so much easier then.
My, how things have changed. When considering a TEFL course. Where do you start? Well, first you might want to read my other blog Online TEFL vs CELTA
Then, I suggest working backwards to ensure that the course you take will get you where you want to go. If you want to work in the UK and need the security of working for an English language school year-round, then I’d suggest a CELTA. However, there is very much more to the UK than working in a language school as many successful freelancers in the UK TEFL market will tell you. For many others, especially those with a degree and flexibility, an online TEFL course will often suffice. For many, the CELTA vs Online question is purely academic since they can neither afford the money nor time to invest in a CELTA.
Is there an online TESOL accrediting body?
If it’s an online course you want, how do you choose a good one and how does your employer know it’s a good one? I would like to argue the case for external accreditation.
There’s every chance your prospective TEFL employer will not have heard of the school you did your TEFL course with. Even the biggest online schools have little or no international reputation with most TEFL employers. How then does an employer satisfy themselves that your qualification has any merit and that you have the necessary methodology to conduct a class? I suggest the only way is for the qualification to come direct from an independent awarding body.
While there are a wealth of online course providers, there are only 2 independent accrediting bodies that specialise in TESOL , have specific TESOL qualifying criteria that providers have to meet and award their own certificate upon successful completion of a TESOL course. These are:
Both have set specific TESOL qualifying criteria and strict codes of conduct. As a non-profit making body, ACTDEC’s sole responsibility is to ‘maintain professional standards in TESOL distance programmes’. ACTDEC awards three certificates and a diploma to successful course participants. This quality training guarantee is backed up by the publication on the ACTDEC website of a pass list so employers can verify the validity of the certificate.
In the anonymous world of online TESOL provision, is there any better way to ensure quality training and a certificate that will stand above other online TEFL qualifications?
Well you could visit a comparison site but often they either have a) an axe to grind or b) get commission either overtly from sponsoring schools or less obviously through an affiliate marketing site, such as clixgalore. Even blogs and forums have to be treated with a pinch of salt; it’s well known that schools often respond to forum questions posing as happy TEFL graduates from xxx school saying ‘why don’t you try xxx school?’
My advice is to ask yourself ‘is online training for me?’ If yes, then choose a provider whose courses have been independently scrutinised by an independent TEFL body and awards a certificate with their seal on to back this up.
Deciding to try and obtain ACTDEC accreditation some years ago was a big decision for us at Global English. Time consuming and expensive, we had to submit our courses, marking papers, marketing and tutor biographies for investigation. We had to justify and in some cases amend our material to ensure it was up to scratch and met the tough qualifying criteria. By the end, we knew we had courses of quality that would prepare our students for the TEFL classroom.
The good news for students and employers is, it’s not just us that says so.
Teaching business English - especially in a freelance capacity is often regarded as the crème de al crème of the TEFL world. Goodbye crowded classrooms of unmotivated noisy teens and hello to negotiating your own time schedule and better pay with very motivated and highly intelligent professionals.
The good news is you don’t need a business background to succeed in teaching business English. A good TESOL course with a business English specialisation will give you the right techniques to rise to the challenge; plus that all important business English qualification to prove your prospective but oh-so busy business learner that you know your stuff and you won’t be wasting his time.
But why do you need a specialist qualification to teach business English?
Well, consider this scenario: Imagine you are to teach the manager of an injection molding factory English. Imagine that’s all you know about him when you meet him to teach for the first time, except for the fact that he is not learning English for fun. In fact he desperately needs English for his job.
Where do you start? It is likely he won’t be impressed by those amusing getting to know you games you learned on your general English course…and anyway, what do you know about injection molding? Help!
This brings us neatly on to the fundamentals of teaching business English…
What is business English?
Quite simply, it is the English required to do business. It refers to the English needed for negotiating, socialising, making presentations, telephoning or for contributing in meetings, for example. The exact business English needs will vary depending on the student, and this means conducting a proper, in-depth needs analysis early on. This is where you ask them about - and record all they need to do in English and it will form the basis for all future lessons. This means you need to be thorough to ensure that after your first lesson you’ve got a really good idea of what the priority areas are for your next few lessons.
So far, so good. But, what about your lack of injection molding knowledge?
This can actually be a positive thing. Yes, really. This is because information gap exercises (where two people need to communicate to get the full picture) form the basis of many excellent communication tasks for the EFL classroom. This is no exception. He has the business knowledge. Get him to fill you in, using straightforward Q and A or more creative tasks such as questionnaires, role-plays etc. requiring him to impart information so you get the full picture. Where possible, use your student as the resource. Get him to bring in brochures, explain his website, tell you the price of injection molding widgets or write down the last telephone dialogue he had in English. It’s the surest way to keep lessons relevant.
You’ll also need to blend general English in to the classes so that he has sufficient grammar and vocabulary to ‘hang’ his business English on.
Will I get more TEFL work with a business English qualification?
While it is not always necessary to complete a specialist business course in order to teach business English, many of our graduates have found that a TESOL with business qualification has given them the edge in finding certain types of employment. Here, Matthew Bruce a graduate of our business course describes the difference it made to him.
‘I was offered an excellent job teaching English to staff of a major electronics company. Over 150 applicants applied and just 10 were interviewed. I was able to answer and present some good ideas due to the fact that I had learnt many valuable points through the Global English Business English course.
Our graduates in France who have found work in-company through the chamber of commerce network have had similar experiences. Kerry Edwards in Caen comments:
The TEFL with Business has certainly helped me to specialise within this area. I have taught English to company Directors, Salesmen, Technicians, Engineers and accountants as well as others within the Hotel and Restaurant sector.
The other advantages in being able to teach business English are:
• Better prospects: particularly with certain employers in countries such as Germany, France and Japan - but in increasing demand worldwide.
• Better pay (in general) for more lucrative freelance teaching
• A change from general English classroom teaching/kids etc. Many business people learn 1-1, making it intense but challenging.
At the very least, the ability to teach business English should certainly broaden your appeal - and provide the springboard to some fascinating personal encounters.
