ESL Teaching - Jobs, lesson plans - View Single Post - Any school for non-native ESL teacher?

gfell · Sat 19-Aug-06, 08:16 PM

It's always going to be difficult for non-native English speakers to find work teaching English. Whilst your English may be grammatically perfect, you can still fall over due to a thick accent. Eg: Although Hong Kong OFFICIALLY has both Chinese and English as their official languages, many schools around the world will not recognise Hong Kong nationals as being native English speakers. Similar problems occur with those from India. Having such a thick accent in the classroom is not conducive to an optimal learning environment for students.

Anyway, to answer your question - I would first telelphone EF English First. You may have heard of them and they currently employ over 20,000 English teachers around the world. Am sure some of these teachers would be non-native's.

To teach English as a non-native, you really need to have excellent grammar and pronunciation without a clouded accent.

If still no luck, then try the smaller husband and wife run schools. Usually they are trying to save costs and would consider a non-native English speaker IF you spoke like a native. Expect though to receive a lower salary compared to a native English speaker.

Don't forget, you will also run into visa issues as governments only want to issue work permits for teachers who are from native English speaking countries. That is:

Australia
New Zealand
United Kingdom
USA
Canada
Ireland
South Africa

Sat 19-Aug-06, 08:16 PM	#2 (permalink)
gfell Administrator Join Date: May 2005 Nationality: American Occupation: Teacher Location: Posts: 654	Non-native English speakers looking for ESL jobs It's always going to be difficult for non-native English speakers to find work teaching English. Whilst your English may be grammatically perfect, you can still fall over due to a thick accent. Eg: Although Hong Kong OFFICIALLY has both Chinese and English as their official languages, many schools around the world will not recognise Hong Kong nationals as being native English speakers. Similar problems occur with those from India. Having such a thick accent in the classroom is not conducive to an optimal learning environment for students. Anyway, to answer your question - I would first *telelphone* EF English First. You may have heard of them and they currently employ over 20,000 English teachers around the world. Am sure some of these teachers would be non-native's. To teach English as a non-native, you really need to have excellent grammar and pronunciation without a clouded accent. If still no luck, then try the smaller husband and wife run schools. Usually they are trying to save costs and would consider a non-native English speaker IF you spoke like a native. Expect though to receive a lower salary compared to a native English speaker. Don't forget, you will also run into visa issues as governments only want to issue work permits for teachers who are from native English speaking countries. That is: Australia New Zealand United Kingdom USA Canada Ireland South Africa __________________ English Teacher and Student Site Teach English and Study Abroad! Teaching Community at Teacher Forums ESL Teacher and Student Directory!