Do I NeeD a FucKinG CeRTifiCaTE?

Okay, so, you’ve heard all the horror stories, and you’re still convinced that a change of scenery might make your life less pathetic. Or at least get you laid a few times. Well, all right then.

So, how do we get started?

Well. First things first. Do you need a teaching certificate?

The firm answer is: maybe. Is it absolutely necessary to get a job? No. Will it enable you to get a really good job? Not necessarily. Will it pay for itself? Generally not. Will it make you more comfortable and confident in the classroom? Maybe.

There are a VAST number of certificate courses available. Typical prices range from $500 to over $2000. The supposed “gold standards” of acceptability are the Cambridge CELTA certificate and the Trinity college Certificate in TESOL course. These will generally set you back $1500 to $2000. You can even take them in some flashy destinations like Thailand and Prague if you want to get your dick wet early on the international thing.

These are both generally in the form of four week courses. I’ve never experienced one personally, so I can’t go into any detail about it, but there will be both theoretical instruction (you might read a book or two) and practical instruction (they’ll haul some refugees in from somewhere and you’ll give ‘em some lessons.) You will be trained by a lot of ESL professionals – grungy middle aged eccentrics who couldn’t get a real job anywhere else.

Basically, you’d have to be quite a retard to fail one of these courses, and it will at the very least give you a glimmer of an idea what to do in class. Most of the organizations that give them will probably have some kind of “job placement” function, also, although that will likely just mean they’ll farm you out to some schools they have kickback deals with.

Don’t confuse the CELTA with the DELTA, the CTEFL with the DipTEFL. The latter are “advanced” teaching courses for teachers with some experience and a preliminary qualification. The second tier of the bottom of the barrel, if you will.

The downside of CELTA courses is the huge price, of course. In most ESL jobs, you’d be lucky to save $2000 in three years, if ever. But if you intend to make ESL your career (ha ha) in this day and age it might be a good idea, just in the vein of being well-armed.

Of course, a lot of people enter the profession thinking they’d gladly do it for the rest of their life, and go scurrying home after a year or two vowing never to leave their home country again. And a lot of people do it thinking they’ll only do it for a year or two, and end up an international English bum for life. So it’s something of a Catch-22.

As far as being the gold standard of acceptability, all that means is that they’ll definitely get you in the door at the international McEnglish chains around the world – International House, English First, etc. The nicest thing that can be said about most of these places is that they are generally adequate. The facilities are usually pretty well-equipped, the pay usually average. Being franchises, however, they vary widely in management quality. You can at least be RELATIVELY sure you’ll get paid for whatever you do, although don’t think you can’t lose your job quickly, get cheated out of some promised perks, etc.

For most other schools and institutes, they won’t know a CELTA from a CHUD, so it won’t make any difference if you have a cheap certificate.

Now the cheaper courses are legion, and they will make grand promises about all the possibilities for work you will have with their fine certificate. Some of this is absolute bullshit, some of it isn’t. You can research the companies yourself on the Internet and find the level of scorn directed at them by former students – I assume if you’ve made it far enough to find this page, you’re well acquainted with ESL websites in general.

What about a college degree? Having a BA or an MA in anything will still swing some weight, and if it’s related to English or the humanities in general, even better. In some countries I think it’s still necessary to get a work permit – I know it was in Korea and Thailand, although that was back in the mid 90’s and things might be different now as the tentacles of the Oxford/Trinity conspiracy encircle the globe.

Ironically however, a lot of the international McEnglish chains will NOT accept an MA in English as a valid qualification if you have no relevant experience. Especially those chains like International House, who have a huge sideline in offering CELTA courses. I don’t need to draw you a picture, do I?

Now of course, you’re saying to yourself: hey, can’t I just get a fake one?

Yeah, of course. A friend tells me they are available on the Internet for download, and I’m reliably informed that you can buy them on Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand, right next to the fake international driver’s licenses and pirated software. An EXTREMELY common ploy is just to take a friend’s certificate and photocopy it after having doctored your name onto it.

Generally these will work, particularly at the cruddy fly-by-night institutes that make up the bulk of English language emporiums worldwide. In fact I’ve been told that a lot of the “reputable” chains will in fact not ever ask to see certificate, unless they need it to get you a legal work visa. Trying to use a fake one at an International House chain that offers CELTA courses is probably not a great idea, though, for obvious reasons.

So there you are. The bottom line, especially in big cities, is that there is a HUGE demand for teachers and if you’re willing to start immediately and accept a cruddy, low-paying position, you don’t generally need to have a certificate. Particularly if you lie about having some experience. Having a certificate, however, just puts you in competition with all the hopeless geeks like yourself who got their start on the Internet, fighting like mad for the few decent positions that exist in this shoddy game.

Next month, we’ll look more closely at that second step: finding employment.

BAcK To TeEChuR TiPz MenU