Teach English in WudAn Zhen - Chifeng Shi

Take or not to take a TEFL/TESOL course? A lot of teachers of English ask themselves this question earlier or later, when they think about their career development. From one hand it`s a good chance to get new experience working in international environment and earn better money then in your native country (as in Ukraine for example). From the other hand, is it worth to pay even not a very big amount for the course and then not to have a real opportunity to get the job abroad competing with native-speaking teachers of English. Talking about my experience I haven`t been even thinking about working as a teacher when I graduated from school and faced with my future profession choice. I thought that to be a teacher is boring and not enough to be a really successful person. I thought in a stereotype way, as unfortunately in Ukraine, where I`m from, teacher is not very respectful job (it`s one of the least payed jobs in my country but employers` requirements and job responsibilities are huge at the same time). I got a prestige education with Master`s degree in Management of International relations. Years were passing and I wasn`t really feeling satisfied. I changed several jobs (bank, flying company, another bank, beauty shop) and the only thing that I`ve realized is that English is something that I really interested in and it`s also something that I`m really good at. One day my best friend who is a teacher of English offered me to open an English club together and I thought: “Why not?”. As I told before it was always interesting for me and my language knowledge was pretty good, but I didn`t think about working at government educational institute for reasons I mentioned above. And we started. For today we have a small but quite successful and constantly developing English club for children and adults and I love what I do. I see the results of my work and students like me as a teacher. The only thing that I needed is some teaching methodology base to feel more confident and improve my lessons. Another thing that is very important for me is travelling and desperate desire of new impressions. That`s why TEFL/TESOL program is perfect for me. Talking about competition with native-speaking teachers. It`s considered that the only language that a teacher should use on the lessons is English. But I think it`s advantage when a teacher knows native language of the students to explain or clarify some moments especially teaching grammar. Another point is that as person whose native language is not English could learn it so good to teach it, then this person is really worth to be hired and paid as well as native speaker. More over non- native speakers understand their students much better and can explain some moments more clearly and in more simple way as they studied English as foreign language as well and can look at the process from student`s side. So I think that employers have to examine teacher`s competence first of all, not their origin. By the way I know a lot of examples when non-native speakers get good job abroad and become very successful. So I`m sure to be a good teacher you need to love what you do, not afraid of experiments and challenges, to develop your knowledge all the time, to be honest with your students (if you are not able to answer some question, just tell that you don’t know and find out it for the next lesson as it`s impossible to know everything and it`s ok). In my opinion, TEFL or TESOL training can be a great opportunity for those people, whose real passion is teaching and who can`t imagine their life without travelling.