1932 TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language)

Hi there,

Best of luck! There are so many possibilities of studying for a TEFL qualification. Have you searched Google?

There have been several threads about TEFL courses in the past. If you go to the 'Search' option on the grey info bar above (just underneath your 'Private Messages' link) and type in TEFL, you'll find a whole long list of threads... such as:

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1623&highlight=TEFL[/url]

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1552&highlight=TEFL[/url]

Good luck!

Stephanie (not started course yet - postponed to the spring!)

Welcome to the forum. no idea about TEFL courses just wanted to say hello! We have family in Salisbury, lovely part of the UK if you have to be there.

[QUOTE=simonandjo]We are interested in following some new career paths so we can get over and live in our (almost) newly purchased house in Italy permanently! Currently living near Salisbury

We would be interested in hearing from anyone who has undertaken a TEFL course and is practicing in Italy or plans to very shortly.

Interested in course lengths, venues, costs, types e.g. online, classroom, etc., and providers

Mille grazie, Simon and Jo[/QUOTE]

Hi Simon and Jo,

I have just registered and am now on Module 2 of an on-line TEFL course :
[url]http://www.onlinetefl.com/[/url]

Special introductory offer of the On-line TEFL Course + weekend course + Grammar awareness module (80 hours) was £295. On top of that you need to purchase some books/dictionaries etc. You have up to 6 months to complete it from date of registration.

Its very early days, but I'm enjoying it so far. Like you, I thought it would be useful for a possible future life in Italy (and means I can take a completely different career path in any case!!). I can also carry on my current job in the meantime.

Good luck.

Julie

Id say that the easiest, quickest and possibly most highly regarded way to do TEFL, as in CELTA.. is through International House. They do a 4 week course which costs about 1100 quid, but you're ready for anything when you've done it. London or Bristol are your options I think. You can also do the course in Italy, which has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, all your classroom experience is with monolingual Italians, exactly what you will meet when you start teaching. On the downside should you have a class of varying madrelingue you could be in for a shock.
As far as work goes, you can work your bits off for a ESL school and not get much reward, or go directly to state schools and try and get work teaching the European funded courses, PONs, which pay much better. It depends where in Italy you are. North of Rome there are too many teachers, south of Rome there is always work but the rates of pay are lower, but then so are the costs of living.
A CELTA is now the minimum qualification for working in Italy, and you'll be exceedingly unliekly to find a job without your certificate. Good Luck

Thanks a lot to all you plebs, senators and equestrians out there! Some very useful stuff. It really gives us a lift to hear from like-minded Italiophobes(?)

SandJ

Just a quick note to say that I'm an EFL teacher currently in the middle of arranging a move to Italy, so I'll be interested in anybody's experiences.

Thanks to Ram for the points s/he made, which I agree with and are obviously based on some knowledge. The problem with on-line courses is the absence of observed teaching practice; so if you can do something like the CELTA, so much the better. I did mine part-time at a local FE college which avoids the intensity of the 4 week course.

Eventually I hope to get some work in state schools, but what does PON stand for, RAM? Are such jobs obtained through bandi, or by knowing people locally who can help you make the right connections?

Thanks for any contributions

Pon's - can't remember what it stands for sorry! - are open to most schools. usually liceos or istituti tecnici, ecc. They are funded by the provincia direct from Europe and usually only happen where there is an Prof of English in the school who is dedicated enough to do the mountain of paperwork that comes with it. They are technically 'voluntary' in that they happen in the afternoons and lead to an exam.. usually Trinity Orals. They're 100 hours each. There are no bandi for these. They are in the gift of the school. Usually language schools are fighting for them because they pay so well, but theres nothing to stop you walking into a school and giving your info to the head of English or the PReside. Most state schools in my experience would rather employ a private teacher than a langauge school anyway, but with Pon's you can't be sick/ill or go on holiday in the middle of them. You'll also need a reference or proof you're a decent teacher. Its unlikely you'll get one with no other teaching experience. Because they're voluntary attendance can be sporadic, but they all expect to pass the exams. Its important to make the lessons fun! Good Luck. If you need mroe info let me know..

I am also about to sign up to a TFEL course and am considering using i to i. The cost for the basic course is £200 and is a 40 hour online course.

Cheers

[QUOTE=Chico]I am also about to sign up to a TFEL course and am considering using i to i. The cost for the basic course is £200 and is a 40 hour online course.

Cheers[/QUOTE]

Chico, some areas (Liverpool) have a government funded TFEL course, choice of full-time or part-time at the University - including teaching practise.

Financially, still think you'd be better off pursuing a career in show-biz ;)

[QUOTE=Chico]I am also about to sign up to a TFEL course and am considering using i to i. The cost for the basic course is £200 and is a 40 hour online course.

Cheers[/QUOTE]

Hi Chico,

I was looking at their courses and considered taking the same as you are just signing up for. However 40 hours isn't that much and you might have to take extra classes or courses to increase that, plus gain teaching experience (if you haven't got any, that is).

I've recently come across the London College of Teachers who offer various levels of TEFL & TESOL classes online. I', inclined to go for a 120 hour course which costs around £100 more than the i to i course, but you can then in addition do a one week's teaching course (in London or Spain I think) with them for an extra £75 which I quite fancy.

So many choices eh?

Good luck with yours!! Let us know how you get on...

Stephanie

INSEGNANTE MADRELINGUA
Con provata esperienza nell’insegnamento della lingua inglese a stranieri (Ragazzii ed adulti 14-50 Anni) Disponibile a trasferirsi in Italia a partire da Gennaio 2006. Per informazioni: Dott.ssa Giovanna Monti [email]royal.scott@libero.it[/email] +39/347/6904865

A CELTA is now the minimum qualification for working in Italy, and you'll be exceedingly unliekly to find a job without your certificate. Good Luck[/QUOTE]
This is not actually true. You can do any TEFL course and with a good personality get a job. The CELTA does not teach you how to teach in the real world. I am currently teaching in Naples and was a qualified teacher in England, in a different subject. Teaching is about experience. If you don't have any then volunteer in a school for a few hours a week as a teaching assistant. This is MUCH better than any course, although you will need some sort of qualification, and a bucket load of personality. Good luck.

there seem to be an awful lot of these courses... bascically because it helps to further the dream of many to find work in a european country without knowing much of the local language.... is it money well spent.... the difference in rates here in abruzzo between qualified tefl and non qualified mother tounges is e2 per hour...the non qualified gets e10 and tefl e12 ...
...at this sort of rate of pay you are not talking living wages... basically because the contracts in most schools only run for the term times... ie sept/oct to may/june.. and you will be lucky to work more than 20 or 30 hours per week....

school jobs ...especially those that carry higher rates of pay and largere funding as has been said is at the discretion of the school director and are very hard if not impossable to come by.... now there will be replies saying i have managed to do this...or that ...but in general it is hard to impossable to get work in this line here and if you are planning to live off the wages and are buying a house ...say with children and running costs you will never earn enough....

despite claims of southern costs being less than northern .... this will only in reality apply to accomodation or property...the rest is more or less the same ...the difficulty in the south is that there are less jobs and they are less well paid....

i would say if you are single or young...with a wish to travel and are prepared to rent low cost student accomodation then its a good way of living and earning.... getting to know a culture... but for those of you thinking of ways to fund the dream and buy property and live to the same standard as say in england...especially if you have a family .... it is something that not even full time italian teachers can do .... if only one of them works... they basically seem to have other income or family support... no mortgages... and really seem to only work in a sense because the pension when they retire is good... and these jobs are so hotly contested that to get one you have to know someone to be reccomended....

so i am not saying dont try to follow the dream ...but i think the only part which will be easy is getting the tefl qualification... investigate more the levels of pay...the number of hours that you might be contracted to... and see the yearly income.... then look at your living costs in england.... because they will be the same or higher here if you want to maintain the same standard... and then do the sums...

Although I'm not in Italy from my researches I'd have to pretty well concur with the last poster. If you visit the English teacher web sites you can find stories of people giving up Italy in disgust and finding better paid employment in Poland or Thailand or China!

A recent job offer for Italy on one of the sites asked for recent arrivals without much experience: anyone else presumably would have expectations that the language schools are largely not willing or able to meet.

Fortunately I have some other resources and no dependents, but anyone without those advantages (or an earning partner) would be well advised to heed the warnings.

I aim to use this course to give me confidence in TEFL, but not to teach in a school, but to perhaps trade English lessons for perhaps music lessons for my children, or to teach privately once we live in Italy and have gained the confidence of the locals. The thought of actually teaching in a school fills me with fear.

If I tried to start teaching tomorrow, I just wouldn't have a clue, but with a TEFL qulaification at least I would know what I'm talking about.

I'm only a simple surveyor after all!

For what it's worth, I did my 4-week CELTA course in Edinburgh (Basil Patterson School) and couldn't recommend it enough for someone like myself with no teaching experience and pretty poor grasp of the more technical aspects of grammar.

Would agree with previous posts about wages. My wife is working in a private "English school" and, as we have two kids, both salaries are just enough to week-to-week expenses.

Also consider that most TEFL work unless you get a school or business contract is in the evening - NOT ideal if you have family (or a social life)

I have been making enquiries today about enrolling on a tefl / tesl course (i take it there isn't a difference between these 2?) How is anyone finding the course? quite straight forward ? time consuming?

Many thanks Sonia

have to add my two pennyworth here :TEFL is good if you want a qualification that will take you anywhere to teach English- as per a previous post, Poland, China etc aswell as Europe. I have to say it only gives you the basics - mainly in looking at our own English language - how to describe (in English obviously) the difference in usage between
I am learning English at the moment
I learn English twice a week
and that's an easy one.

What it doesn't do , is teach how to teach - lesson preparation, variation of pace, resources and how to use them and, if with young people, expectations management

Even teaching adults in England for 2-4 hours a week, which I did years before qualifying as a secondary MFL teacher, took a lot of preparation of lesson plans and materials to make the lessons interesting. TEFL only touches the surface - get in a classroom if you're thinking of teaching - try observing an evening class in the UK or better still see if a languages department in a school will let you observe the strategies and techniques used. A really good course (I did one years ago in London at International House) will teach you in the morning and set you loose on a multilingual group of young people in the afternoon and that's when you REALLY learn. not sure about on line courses therefore
PS TESL is teaching English as a second language ie more relevant to ethnic communities in the UK and there is a significant difference as they have English all around them - on the street, TV etc etc. You have to provide the resources unless in an exceptionally well equipped language school
hope this is of use

Right - I did a TEFL course in Rome and subsequently taught there for a little under a year.

At the time, in 2001, there were a number of new establishments teaching the TEFL and verying validities of TEFL certificates were awarded. Most of the establishments had dead offices in the Prague. I don't know why. Well this was a fine thing to do to get teaching as it gives you a very good grounding in the subject. I would imagine very prestigious schools would not recognise this, however, and a better option would be to get training in this country. I live near Frome.

It was a very enjoyable period of my life and would highly recommend it. I would be happy to answer any questions people may have.

I'm also considering one day opening up a school of my own, but I don't know.

About 10 years ago I worked as a TEFL teacher in Turin. Iworked for some private schools and did some private work. The money was poor and the problem was you were only paid for what you did so if classes or students cancelled it was hard luck. Although I am a qualified teacher and Tefl trained aswell you did not have to be at that time and were certainly not paid any more than if you wern't qualified. It was a great experience but not a career move and so I came home. I am now looking to get into the state system in Calabria.
Good Luck
Carolyn

Does anyone have any experience of approaching Italian multinational companies direct and pitching their own language courses to them?

It seems to me this could be one way around the problem of TEFL teachers being the modern equivalent of slave labour.

I did do that, submitting my CV through a senior manager I knew but they just handed it ovaer to the language school they usually used and said that they'd found a teacher for them. As i was doing some work for the school elsewhere they let me know they were not happy with my attempt. When a new school opened by the original they said we could not work for them or they would not give us any work. I did get some private work through students I got to know but again I had to be careful.
Carolyn
[QUOTE=johnsm13]Does anyone have any experience of approaching Italian multinational companies direct and pitching their own language courses to them?

It seems to me this could be one way around the problem of TEFL teachers being the modern equivalent of slave labour.[/QUOTE]