I recently read an article on TEFL that was better written than most rants about my chosen profession but equally short sighted:
So while teaching English is fine if you want to spend a year abroad, and great for meeting pretty foreign girls, considered as a career that might offer some degree of professional fulfilment, it fails on every count. No one with a scrap of ambition can possibly consider it. As the philosopher Alain de Botton says: "You become a TEFL teacher when your life has gone wrong."
From the point of view of career, social advances, financial gain, the last two-and-a-half years had been completely wasted. More that that, they had left him physically exhausted and mentally addled by all these stupid lessons, besieged by boredom and mediocrity . . . He had reached the end of his tether . . . What was a language teacher in the end? A nobody. A mere failed somebody else.
What strikes me about the article is the talk of hangovers and mediocirty. A mediocre TEFL teacher may have trouble making ends meet but since when are hangovers and mediocrity rewarded in any profession? And sure, I know an excellent TEFL teacher who sometimes struggled to make ends meet. Although an excellent teacher, he never rose to the top of his profession. He now works in Korea (where salaries are higher than in many other EFL countries) and makes enough money, but when I suggest that he apply for a position at a university he says it's not his style.
Yet here I am, working in a university, 15 hours a week, pursuing my masters, making speeches, working on ESL go - free English as a second language learning and teaching, and planning my career (and what to do over the next 5 weeks or so while I'm on vacation).
EFL is a highly competitive field, with far more bad jobs than good ones, but the good ones do exist. I can't agree that it's a deadend profession.
For the full article: http://education.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2004/01/17/teftefl17.xml
Posted by James Trotta at January 19, 2004 4:45 AMI agree 100% with your sentiments. A few people with lack of professional ethics does not indicate how the entire industry behaves.
I first read this article over on Daves cafe where there was an active discussion on it.
Posted by: Sean at January 20, 2004 2:09 AMI used to read Dave's message boards, but there's just too much negativity. Too many poorly written rants.
Posted by: James Trotta at January 20, 2004 5:26 PMYes it used to be that way but about a year ago the format changed and now it is more of a community. You should give it another shot.
Posted by: Sean at January 21, 2004 2:49 AMI agree totally with the article.
When I started out in Tefl some eight years ago, it was exciting, fun and fullfilling. Now, after eight years of exploitation, stupid and greedy bosses, constant insecurity and lack of money, it is a soulless nightmare with only cynicism keeping me afloat.
It's worse for me as I have a family to support. The constant underpay and lack of respect that I get in Korea undermines both me and my relationship/s.
There is no future in Tefl.
Thanks for the compliment Katie. And Marcus, dead end for who? I see upward mobility in my future...
I honestly think that we can find positions where its possible to earn both respect (from students and colleagues) and money here in Korea.
I will say that a successful TEFL career probably means becoming an academic, earning advanced degrees, writing articles, etc. Admittedly this is not a path everyone is wiling to take. Sadly, one can be a great teacher and if s/he doesn't do any academic stuff s/he may never be rewarded appropriately.
Posted by: James Trotta at January 24, 2004 6:41 AMAnyone have any idea where one can find the source of this Alain de Botton quote?
Posted by: Shonuff at February 8, 2004 6:03 AMIt's not a dead-end. It can be frustrating at times, but what career isn't? It may depend on where you're practising. Europe is bustling with EFL activity. The Poles want to be able to handle the Danes. Guess what language they're going to use.
This same feeling will soon reach other parts of the world, for the trend isn't less English but more English. We're not going to speak more and more languages but less and less languages. And English, you can be sure, will one of the last to peter out.
Posted by: Rethabile Masilo at February 13, 2004 1:03 PMI agree with you James - For me, the TEFL industry is a bit like the Restaurant industry : there are some very good places to work and some very bad ones. Most people don't start off in the good ones (especially if they only have a basic one-month certificate). If you want to make a decent living out of TEFL, the key is (strange that a lot of teachers don't think of it this way, being educators) to get more education.
Taking a Masters degree, or whatever step you take to improving your knowledge and skills base is also necessary if you don't want to become staid professionally and personally.
What I don't understand is why the author of the article waited eight years, working in sub-standard academies. It sounds to me as if he never wanted to be a teacher in the first place and was just biding time, trying to write 'his novel'. When this didn't work out, he woke up and decided to do something about it. This is not an isolated case - there are so many teachers just drifting along, without really trying to progress. You can't do this in any job unless you weant to stand still, be it TEFL, engineering, medicine, or the restaurant business.
After five years teaching, I realised I needed to do something. I spent a long time pondering whether to take a MEd, but I remember very clearly the day I decided to do it - I was team-teaching with another teacher who was older and had about ten years more teaching experience than I did, and it was obvious that she wasn't enjoying or getting anything out of the class. She was clock-watching, waiting for the class to end so she could go home. I realised I didn't want to become like that.
There are good jobs out there, and good places to work (universities are the obvious choice, but not the only), but they won't come looking for you. The best way to start is to show you are serious about TEFL by investing in some more education.
Posted by: Graham Stanley at February 14, 2004 10:08 AMI forgot to mention that the Alain de Botton quote probably comes from his book 'The Art of Travel', although this is just a guess...
Posted by: Graham Stanley at February 14, 2004 10:26 AMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.