ELTOnline Offers Solution to Recent College Grads Entering the Worst Job Market in History: Teach English Abroad
New York, New York (PRWEB) August 30, 2013 -- Recent college graduates face a job market that has become saturated due to older workers waiting longer than ever to retire, and the remaining jobs have long been snatched up by past grads. Many exit university with the hopes of securing employment that is both fulfilling and affords them to pay off student loans. “Every student exits college at the beginning of May full of hope and eager to start working,” Brandon Wade, founder of SeekingArrangement.com, told The Washington Examiner. “By June, graduates who have yet to land a job in their desired fields have very few options open to them: settle for less pay than they deserve or settle for a job they don’t want.”
This lack of employment opportunities has caused several grads to look at other countries in order to make ends meet. English teachers in Asia can expect to make similar salaries to entry-level jobs in the U.S. ($25,000 to $30,000 annually), and they are often provided with government-subsidized health care and retirement benefits; things becoming ever-more elusive in many jobs back home. It also doesn't matter if college grads majored in education or not--most Asian countries require only a four-year degree in any discipline to process teaching visas.
Teaching abroad is not without its problems, however, as it is not uncommon for teachers new to foreign countries to be taken advantage of by their employer. “I’ve seen cases that were clear human rights violations, school directors holding their teachers’ passports, demanding they work in excess of 80 hours per week. This borders on human trafficking,” says Daniel Davis, an experienced teacher in China. New grads also face the challenge of being thrown into a classroom and told to teach, without having any prior teaching experience. Cathy McBride, a teacher in Seoul, says, “I was given eight classes with forty or more students each, and when I asked what to do, I was told ‘Teach them English.’ I wasn’t given any kind of support…it was sink or swim, really.”
ELTOnline has recently published a tutorial that addresses these issues and offers a solution to the problems above. The course, titled “How to Successfully Teach English Abroad,” offers new grads 22 lectures and 2.5 hours of content, giving seasoned advice on how to find legitimate jobs, as well as providing the basics of teaching English, classroom management, lesson planning, and testing, among others. Career counselors, professors, and friends or family of recent grads would do well to recommend this course to anyone who may be having trouble finding employment. The course can be found here: https://www.udemy.com/teach-abroad/.
Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, ELTOnline provides training and professional development opportunities to teachers in the field of English Language Teaching. ELTOnline can provide your institution with customized workshops suited to your needs. Areas of expertise include: Teaching English Abroad, General ESL, Assessment, Placement, English for Academic Purposes, English for Business Purposes, as well as Curriculum Design.
Joshua Durey, ELTOnline, https://www.udemy.com/teach-abroad/, +82 1046279137, [email protected]
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