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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

TEACHING OVERSEAS, qualifications, grammar, spelling, time management

If you are a native English speaker you can get work by teaching English. I am going to tell you how solve problems which plagued me for years.

PROBLEMS
1 QUALIFICATIONS
How to get qualified - to learn to teach fast

2 GRAMMAR & SPELLING

3 SETTING TIMES
One hour tutorials and two or three hour workshops can spill over time. What could you do?

4 KEEPING IN TOUCH
How do you evade people who are a nuisance or dangerous?
How do you keep in touch with people who you like and/or could be useful later?

ANSWERS
1 QUALIFICATIONS
INSTANT ENGLISH
You can do a course full-time over a year or longer, in the evenings, at weekends, or as a crash course in about a month.

To get paid work in a school you might need a TEFL course or similar qualification.
You can learn a foreign language for free by having an hour with somebody who wants to learn English

2 GRAMMAR & SPELLING
Use Grammarly.

3 SETTING TIMES
If you travel times are too long for you, get pupils to come to you or your area, or meet in a central place.
At first I would teach for an hour, then spend another ten minutes setting homework. If you teach for an hour you could set a silent buzzer to warn you when 50 minutes is up and then start setting homework.
If pupils outstay their welcome or constantly arrive late, make it clear at the outset that another pupil will arrive on the hour after their hour. Or tell them that you have to leave for another appointment and get a family member or neighbour or colleague to arrive and call you away.

4 KEEPING IN TOUCH
To guard privacy, make your contact through an intermediary, such as a college or employer.
This is also a way to keep in touch. You could tell somebody that when you move house they can keep in touch through your employer.

Conversely, if you think you might change jobs, or countries, you can give the pupil or friend a home phone number.

Story
I tried to trace an old friend (both of us moved countries) through his current employer (an American Company with an office in Asia). The employer took my details but said my friend was away on leave and they could not release his details to me until he came back and agreed that he was willing to do so. Of course, when he came back he was delighted to be in touch. But they had done the right thing.

Once you start taking the steps, you are on the road to success.

Tips
Take a look at these. I use Grammarly and it is very handy at picking up typos.
http://grammarly.com
http://tefl.org.uk
http://www.teachinghouse.com
https://www.tefl.net/elt/articles/training-articles/avoid-tefl-course/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.

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