How not to commit career suicide?
Posted: 24 May 2012, 19:14
Hi there,
I'm a London based CELTA qualified teacher with one year's experience of teaching General English at a BC accredited school in London. I'm currently unemployed and I'm facing a bit of a dilemma over my rather limited job options and would really appreciate some advice.
I have been offered a summer position at EF, who are refusing to disclose the terms and conditions of the post until the day I will be expected to sign the contract. Teachers are also asked to complete a significant number of unpaid training sessions, and to pay £50 for their CRB checks, which will not be reimbursed. This is leading me to suspect that the pay will be really poor.
In the meantime, I have been offered interviews at a couple of other schools for longer term work- one is a Berlitz school, and another one that doesn't have BC accreditation. I also see a fair number of ads for long term posts at various Callan method schools. My question is whether I'd be stupid to be picky about the schools, given the lack of long term positions available in the UK at the moment (I've been out of work since January)... would it be a bad career move to teach Callan or Berlitz (I don't know much about the Berlitz method, but I think it's similar to Callan??) or in a non-accredited school in favour of longer term stability, or should I take the temporary contract with EF, knowing that I'll be unemployed again in September, may be just as badly paid, but will at least be working at an accredited school using the more highly regarded communicative method? I know that taking longer term work sounds like a more sensible option, I'm just worried that it's still a bit early in my TEFL career to move into teaching with an unorthodox method and the deskilling that it might entail. The same applies to teaching at non-BC accredited school in the UK- would it be career suicide?
If it helps, my longer term career goals would be to teach in Paris in 2013, and then to move into teaching EAP after I've gained enough experience to do the DELTA.
Sorry there's rather a lot of questions there! I'm just despairing a little over the lack of decent long-term contracts in the UK at the moment- going abroad is not an option for me until 2013, for personal reasons.
Many thanks for your time.
I'm a London based CELTA qualified teacher with one year's experience of teaching General English at a BC accredited school in London. I'm currently unemployed and I'm facing a bit of a dilemma over my rather limited job options and would really appreciate some advice.
I have been offered a summer position at EF, who are refusing to disclose the terms and conditions of the post until the day I will be expected to sign the contract. Teachers are also asked to complete a significant number of unpaid training sessions, and to pay £50 for their CRB checks, which will not be reimbursed. This is leading me to suspect that the pay will be really poor.
In the meantime, I have been offered interviews at a couple of other schools for longer term work- one is a Berlitz school, and another one that doesn't have BC accreditation. I also see a fair number of ads for long term posts at various Callan method schools. My question is whether I'd be stupid to be picky about the schools, given the lack of long term positions available in the UK at the moment (I've been out of work since January)... would it be a bad career move to teach Callan or Berlitz (I don't know much about the Berlitz method, but I think it's similar to Callan??) or in a non-accredited school in favour of longer term stability, or should I take the temporary contract with EF, knowing that I'll be unemployed again in September, may be just as badly paid, but will at least be working at an accredited school using the more highly regarded communicative method? I know that taking longer term work sounds like a more sensible option, I'm just worried that it's still a bit early in my TEFL career to move into teaching with an unorthodox method and the deskilling that it might entail. The same applies to teaching at non-BC accredited school in the UK- would it be career suicide?
If it helps, my longer term career goals would be to teach in Paris in 2013, and then to move into teaching EAP after I've gained enough experience to do the DELTA.
Sorry there's rather a lot of questions there! I'm just despairing a little over the lack of decent long-term contracts in the UK at the moment- going abroad is not an option for me until 2013, for personal reasons.
Many thanks for your time.