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Ireland and degree

Posted: 04 Sep 2006, 11:20
by kova313
Hi

I have the advanced tefl certificate but no degree. I am moving to Ireland in few months and will be doing Hifger certificate (level 6 of 3rd level education). Would that be enough to apply for tefl jobs or would you need a degree in Ireland? Higher certificate is a part of the undergraduade system.Do you have any experiences in that? I've been told that is quite a good thing to have but I am not sure about the tefl area.

Re: Ireland and degree

Posted: 29 Sep 2008, 12:29
by Leamh
I can only speak from my own experience on this, so ...

First off I'm not familiar with the term "advanced TEFL cert", but .. I am Irish and have worked in EFL teaching there for the last 3 years. Obviously Dublin is the place with by far the most work in basically every field and frankly I'm not sure how much EFL work exists on a year round basis outside the capital


I would divide the Dublin market into 2 poles : legitimate serious opertaions, and complete cowboys. I have worked for both

serious operations (who pay well eg 20 Euro per hour) will require an ACELS (full time EFL course) cert or international equivalent which in Ireland can only be obtained via having a BA degree. However your ACELS equivalent may be this advanced cert so this might be OK

suffice to say the one good company I worked for required a copy of my degree quialifications for the purposes of EQUALS inspections (European body that inspects language schools)

the 2 slightly less professional schools did not but 100% needed proof of a full time TEFL course completion (again what we call ACELS)

I do know of schools that take university educated people with no ESL qualifications - so the reverse I'm sure is also true

the quantity of work is also seasonal - in summer there is vast amounts, in winter there is significantly less.

The one plus in Ireland is that salaires are relatively high with extremely low taxes on the potential earnings of a EFL teacher