Get a 'proper' job!

Joe Hallwood

"Shouldn’t you get a proper job?"

That’s what my parents told me back in 1993. The truth is that’s exactly what I did!

Still a proper job

 I went to teach in Greece in the early nineties for a few months - I stayed for six years!

I left Uni with debts, but wanted to travel. So I decided to pay off my overdraft from Greece. I didn’t think of it as a career at the time, just somewhere other than the UK to work and earn money.

Just like any other 'proper' jobs, I started out with a minimum qualification (a weekend TEFL course) and no experience. After a few years, my qualifications grew (a 4-week CELTA) and my responsibility grew in the school.

I earned money, spent money and was a respected (mostly!) part of the community in Greece, how much more of a proper job do you want?

Plus, I learnt another language, got a half decent tan (well more of a sunburn really!) and gained a thorough appreciation of a very different culture.

Being professional

Like any profession, as an English teacher you have to take responsibility. You need to know that you are doing your very best for your students. You can’t turn up for work hung-over, wearing last night’s Metallica t-shirt and watching the clock. Your students depend on you to teach them the English that is going to improve their  future.

Enough of the lecturing...

Building a career

I have been in the TEFL game for over 15 years now.

Lots of people build careers in TEFL. Some are serial-teachers, roaming the planet going from school to school and learning about new cultures and picking up new languages along the way, others increase their qualifications become Director of Studies and boss other teachers about! Some get into the business side of TEFL, working for publishers or even writing, some even start their own schools. Some return to their native country and get full-time TEFL work at language schools for foreign students.

I did a bit of all of that.

I spent 6 years teaching in Greece. Initially, I was a teacher and then Director of Studies.Later,I went to France and taught Business English and applied for publishing work in Paris. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized the interview was going to be entirely in French and bang went that idea. A couple of years, two kids and a wife later, I returned to the UK to work at a TEFL school in Bath. I was Centre Manager, meaning I had to organise accommodation, activities and the social lives of hundreds of young learners from all over the world.

After a few months of that, I found work with a TEFL training company as a course tutor teaching the i-to-i weekend courses and marking their online ones.  I then moved onwards and upwards, writing, revising and creating new ones eventually becoming the Head of TEFL via the routes of both  TEFL Manager and E-commerce Manager.

When the time came for a change I took the giant leap of setting up my own TEFL training company and TEFL Scotland, TEFL England and www.onlineteflcourses.com were born.

I’m still in the world of TEFL now and that won’t be changing any time soon!

Unusual career path

 It is a proper job, just more exciting than most. It is hard to get excited about accounts, even harder to get a job in the sun as one (Sorry Allan!)!

It rarely gets dull (well, maybe with the odd ultra quiet private student) unlike most other careers.

It might not make you rich, though I have friends who have bought houses abroad and some who have set up schools.

But the fact is that working as a TEFL tutor is just like any other career - it is what you make of it!

  Joe, many years later....