And CELTA versus a cheaper TEFL course???
Cool, thanks for the info.
Go to England and get your Celta certificate. Then go to China and teach for a year. When you come back to Switzerland, you'll have some qualifications and experience!
Looking at the Helen Doron site it certainly looks like a very professional organisation and is well organised. One thing to check on before committing is the training you would receive. The site does not mention any recognised qualification, only their own training which may be very good but will not be acknowledged outwith this organisation. I could be wrong but I would have thought it would shout about the type of qualification it provides.
Before I came to Switzerland I also considered teaching English and was repeatedly advised to get the CELTA qualification over anything else as this is the most recognised.
Yeah I thought that too, and it is only a week long course, so can't be CELTA.
I think if I was to get involved with them I would still also do CELTA.
hi, i m new on the website. I'm a swiss girl living in lausanne and my boyfriend is irish. he d like to come to live over here in switzerland and he needs to find a job. He doesnt speak french for the moment and he s working like a saler. he d like to do the celta course to be able to teach in lausanne.Do you know how much is it and if its worth? he s ready to take any job to be able to stay and have a permit C. Do you have any ideas where he could work with just that much of french? and do you know if its hard with the permit. it s a lot of questions i know but i m a bit lost and i dont really know where to start. thank you.
Welcome to the Forum, ebaierle,
If I don't say it, someone else will... I think almost all your questions are already answered, or at least, you'll find links to the answers, either on the Forum or in Google. Isn't there a bit about CELTA in this same thread?
Have a good look through, then come back if you still have problems which someone here can perhaps help you with...
hi
you could try an internship at one of the international schools. they are always looking for people that stay for about a year.
cheers
[quote=AbFab;252724]I have been teaching English to adults here in Switzerland for almost 20 years.
- I would not consider even trying, however good your English may be, without taking a TEFL course. Knowing English is not the same as teaching it.
Firtsly, thanks Abfab for your informative posts.
I am a qualified teacher (UK) and I'm trying to start teaching EFL here in Switzerland.
Is teaching EFL very different to general classroom teaching? Considering your experience in the area, your comments are appreciated.
My thoughts are that as long as one is teaching to a school's syllabus, in terms of delivery teaching is teaching is teaching (?). I have many years teaching experience to all age ranges (age 7 - adult) but not in language. I also have experience delivering lessons to EAL (English as an additional language) learners in school environments. Considering this, do you think a TEFL course would helpful to me for pedagogical reasons, or merely in terms of securing a job?
Thanks in advance.
RB
Firstly my experience is with adults and unless you are prepared to go through the Swiss school system and gain the matura etc. It is very unlikely that you will secure a job in the Swiss state system. This leaves private language schools and international schools outside the state system.
Teaching EFL is a very different approach to teaching English native-speakers: a simple example, you do not need to teach the tenses to native speakers. Although I had used the present perfect, simple past, past perfect and so on all my life without thinking about, tenses are a major consideration in EFL. Again, short forms and 'have got' are fundamentals that were frowned on when I was taught English at school in the UK.
It is unclear whether an EFL qualification will help secure a job, compared to say a degree in English - it certainly won't hurt. I was not a teacher in the UK, so my position was different, but having been on the receiving end of English as a pupil and the giving end as an EFL teacher, there was not much common ground...
Yes, I agree, the whole thing with the relatively large amount of English tenses is a consideration. I have shared houses with Germans, Swiss, French Spanish and Portuguese native speakers, and some of the creative tense use is quite enlightening.
Also the persistence of particularly German speakers of using the present continuous where one would normally use the infinitive and vice-versa is quite interesting - I presume the present continuous is taught in schools voraciously, hence its over use by the natives (German and Swiss).
I'm looking into TEFL courses here, but on investigation think I might go over to Spain for a month to take a CELTA as it's considerably cheaper there...
RB
This is due to there being only the present simple in German ('I go', question 'go I?'). The present continuous (I am going) is usually taught first as it is easier after learning 'to be' and questions are more logical. The difficulty is when to apply which and finding that 'I'm living in Switzerland' is completely understandable, it's a hard habbit to break...
Yeah, I still find it amazing after 3 years living in England (Bristol), my partner (Swiss) still confuses present continuous/infinitive. She even has a slight South-West/Euro accent when she talks!
RB
Hello there all,
I ́m kind of new to this forum,
after reading this thread I have some question if you dont mind,
I have a year left to get my B.A. so I cannot get CELTA
Is there an other way, an other TEFL courses I can take to teach english in Switzerland?
which is a good course? from searching the net I saw a big variety where each company clamis to have valdity and it is a bit comfusing
where is the best place to take such a course? Switzerland? Spain?
Thanks for the help
enjoy the summer
Shalom!
Have a look at www.helendoron.com site...very interesting as it started in Israel in Hararit.
Bahatslacha
Mim
tamarmeleda it's pretty hard to get work as a non-native English speaker. What's your BA in?
There's no 'best' place to get your CELTA / TESOL certificate - you can go wherever suits you best. Your certificate should be internationally recognised whichever country you get it from.
I got mine in Greece. You can get them in Spain, China, Poland, all over the place. Even from the 'University of America' if you want the cheapest, quickest one...
Mim,
Shalom Shalom
Thanx for the reply, but still, i couldnt get any information about its validity from the website,
is there other TEFL courses also for adults?
is this course recognize in Europe?
do you know ppl who took this course and are teaching now?
good night,
pan
hey there,
my B.A. was in political science, communication and public service,
what kind of course did you take? which company? would you recommend it? is there any in Zurich? where is the cheapest but with validity?
and is it really that hard for non native speaker to teach? there is the advantage of the personal example, no?
anyway, anymore details and more information will be really appreciated,
thank you and good night
I believe it would be both difficult to teach and find a job. But it of course depends how much a non-native speaker you are...
You need to use Google and find things such as TEFL FAQs .
TEFL courses are only for adults. (And it's ' Are there courses...')
I recommend only taking a CELTA course that is accredited by Cambridge ESOL or Trinity College. I found this info by googling...
Many of the questions you get from students are completely mental and unexpected. You might be asked, for example, for the difference between 'motionless' and 'still', or be asked to use the word 'dismember' in a sentence, and you'll need to pick up on errors made and correct them properly. You can say 'I'll tell you next lesson' and do some research but eventually the students will start asking hard questions just to test you.
Having said that, I've met excellent non-native teachers.
It will be hard for you to find a full-time job in Zurich though. My school has a couple of hundred applicants for every position and 99% of them are native speakers.
If you really want to do it, go for it! But there will be more obstacles for you than normal. You'd probably benefit from improving your English a lot before you get started.