Pocaloca

Everything you say rings true to me, and coincides with what other people I know who are teaching English in Spain have said.

But there are always people who know better, even though they've never been near a classroom since they left school ...

mogsmum

thats interesting to know

LOL how very true, obviously a lot of toilet paper in spain

jackytoo

TEFL is mainly and probably always will be a job for backpackers and transients

MoonBaby

Says a lot about the kind of people you know then, doesn't it?

I didn't meet many backpackers when I was teaching in the European institutions in Brussels, nor in any of my other workplaces. In one of them, I was the only teacher in the room without an Oxbridge degree.

You clearly know better, though, so go ahead and think your prejudiced thoughts and carry on spreading false information around the Internet. The more people who hold your view, the more decent jobs around for me.

jojojojojo

The trouble with TEFL is that its so easy to get and IME anyone with the right money can have one after only a 6 week course. Proper teachers go to uni and study hard, which feels like more of a commitment and a better understanding

Jo xxx

Retired in Euskadi

Tell that to the British Council then.

MoonBaby

Again, more false information. You need a degree to do the CELTA course in most cases and even if you manage to do it without one, most good schools expect a degree + CELTA. It's a tough course as well, with loads of assignments and teaching practice. You don't just pay for it and get it. Two people out of ten failed when I did mine and I imagine more of us would have if we hadn't had a background in languages and linguistics. You also don't just get good jobs because you have the certificate. I've had to do practical tests for most of the jobs I've had. Think of a CELTA as a minimum requirement for a good teacher, a screening tool, rather than the only thing you need.

The trouble with TEFL is other people's ignorance, to be honest. Sure, there are some 'backpacker' type TEFL teachers who buy a weekend course on the internet and teach 50 kids at a time in Thailand - that doesn't mean all of TEFL is like that. There are less qualified and less experienced people in EVERY profession. I could have gone and worked in a fee-paying/ independent school in England when I was 21, having done just my first degree. I'm sure that's 'proper' teaching in your opinion, yet I was much younger, much less educated and much less experienced.

The PGCE doesn't make you a 'proper' teacher. It's a postgraduate course designed to teach you how to teach kids. There's no need to do it if you're going to teach English to adults. A lot of what's taught in the PGCE doesn't apply to adults.

agoreira

Saw this in another forum, this family seem to have got it right and loving their life in Spain. Nice video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=osofly_Prxg

rspltd

Excellent - good grasp of the language too - I would be very surprised if she achieved this in 3 years!

cricketman

They say they moved to Spain 6 years ago but came to Asturias to look for a place where people spoke Castellano rather than Catalan

She speaks good Spanish but is quite deliberate rather than very fluid. Anyway, it is a very good level and one that should be achievable after living here for 6 years - and they are very much an "integrated" family!

Emmis

I'm loving reading this. I'm loving the wonderful passive aggression that some people on this forum are so fond of using. I keep asking myself if all this pent up aggression is some kind of envy, because someone else has found success in doing something that is assumed to be too easy.

"Proper teachers go to uni and study hard" - really? Wow, I studied my TEFL at University...and it wasn't easy. In fact teachers with PGCEs, the university, studying hard qualification you seem to be talking about, found the course far harder...

To clarify things TEFL is not something that anyone with a bit of money can do. For a start, you have to have a degree to do it. Of course there are phoney weekend courses that you can attend, which produce teachers which desperate schools that are not accredited or affiliated to the British Council, RSA etc, would employ. But these courses are much like degrees that you can buy online without ever having entered a lecture hall. If that's what you want to waste your money on, so be it, but you'll only ever be able to teach children games or desperate housewives some basic grammar, like Jo's friends. Once again, there are good and bad schools employing people with good and not so good qualifications.

But this has nothing to do with PGCE qualifications. I have taught Business English to the Dutch Minister of Defence. If I'd turned up at my language school with a PGCE in Secondary school level English, knowing how to teach Shakespeare's sonnets, or Primary education, I'm not sure my employer would have been keen on sending me to prepare an MP on delivering presentations in English to lecture halls of hundreds of European MPs.

And as for the hallowed PGCE, when I did my TEFL course, at University, there were two PGCE qualified teachers, who arrogantly thought they would sail through the course that would allow them more kudos in teaching in international schools. One of them failed the course, the other got the lowest grade, which just allowed them to pass... and shuffled off back to their Secondary school classroom, humiliated at the appalling lessons they had delivered.

I've seen primary school teachers in action nowadays, spending mornings reading with my children's class. My children attend international schools, as we travel a lot. Most teachers are organised, lovely, welcoming teachers. But would I want them delivering lessons on a Business English level to adult clients? Never.

I've heard of a primary school teacher at my children's British school, grab a struggling child's school work, drag them to the front of the class, and use them as an example of how the rest of the class shouldn't study. That's actually cruel and a failure to manage. I cannot imagine someone like that being capable of handling a class of business men.

Some school teachers are lucky to have a set curriculum to follow, as given space to use their own ideas, I'm sure they may actually melt and cry. They follow a set regime of curriculum set lessons, which from one school to the next have an identical flavour and content. A good TEFLA teacher can deliver lessons to students from a wide variety of backgrounds, needs and levels, changing course content and structure accordingly.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language is not a walk in the park. The poor qualifications that you can buy online or receive after a weekend course give TEFL a bad name. But those courses would never get you a job in a good school. And if you did manage to blag your way into one, you'd be screwed the minute you had to stand up in front of a classroom of politicians, CEOs or Project Managers.

Stop bad-mouthing an industry all of you negative, aggressive people know nothing about. Go back to criticising Spain and your neighbours and leave the successful teachers to their jobs.

Man, this forum is full of nasty people.

jackytoo

Teaching English as a Foreign Language is not a walk in the park. The poor qualifications that you can buy online or receive after a weekend course give TEFL a bad name. But those courses would never get you a job in a good school. And if you did manage to blag your way into one, you'd be screwed the minute you had to stand up in front of a classroom of politicians, CEOs or Project Managers.

Well, we agree. What I was refering to. Seems everyone and their Mother has these qualifications () on the CDS. I did some teaching when I was at Sevilla Uni...I was crap actually, having a Spanish degree and English as a first language in no way qualifies someone to teach English

MoonBaby

Of course it's envy. There's no other explanation, really. It must be tough to fail somewhere and have to go home and then hear how successful other people have been there.


Some people just don't seem able to grasp the difference between teaching English as a school subject and teaching the English language. I don't think my secondary school English teachers had even heard of the present perfect or a reduced relative clause.

One of the people who failed on my CELTA course had a PGCE and had already taught in international schools abroad. Her grammar was shocking.

Agreed.

jackytoo

Why would it be envy Teachers jobs are not exactly the pinnacle of success are they. I thought it people did those jobs cos they couldn't crack it elsewhere in a real job

6monthshere6monthsthere

Crikey, I am not reading the entire thread that for some reason has become a teacher discussion group of some sort?

I usually live in Italy but had 6 weeks in Sevilla end of August into October

Bluntly, Spain is not a patch on Italy for me anyway.

There is so much poverty and its in your face poverty, we had people going through the bins daily lots of people

Compared to Italy, there are many drunks
Compared to Italy the food although way better than the UK is not as good

I was in Sevilla which has some lovely sights but no sea
The places near the sea are tacky and whitewash is god awful to look at
Saw some ghost towns clearly just abandoned.

I cannot see why anyone would want to live there if they had been to my part of the world, its a bit of a slum. I am talking about Sevilla,malaga, cadiz and most places in between..

Oh yes I almost forgot
Hire car was PUSHED into an illegal spot and towed 340euro!

The car on another day also had its stereo nicked!

Italy is better in every way EXCEPT there is more litter here!

ciao