I am currently teaching for a public school here in Taiwan as a teacher licensed
and certified from Canada. The school tells me later this semester that my contract
will not be renewed, I go searching for a new teaching position everywhere including
here in Taiwan. By the month of July, nobody offers me a new job, so I end up back
in Canada. OR, I am offered an occasional position to teach in Canada, but I do not
get supply teaching assignments every day and, I have to make ends meat by teaching
online part-time. What if that online job (part-time or full-time) requires for me to have
a TEFL certification?
OR how about if I move to another country to teach EFL or teach for an international
school, what if that job requires a TEFL certification?
Is the reason for this that you don’t have a TEFL cert?
If you find a good job contingent on the TEFL cert, then get one (that’s why I got one). Otherwise, if you are already qualified to teach in Canada you probably don’t need it.
As for supply teaching in Canada, take a look at the market where you plan to go. If you will move to Nunavut you can probably get a full time gig. Southern Ontario there was an oversupply of part-time teachers pre-COVID (depending on your teachables, I have an ex who did alright straight out of uni because she could teach French in the Catholic system). I don’t know how COVID has affected markets, except to say it probably has.
Is there a difference between TESOL and TEFL certification? Someone said that esl is for native speakers that have no other language ability but efl is for bilinguals.
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages / Teaching English as a Second or Other Language (TESOL)
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)
English as a Second Language (ESL)
Often they are used interchangeably, because the difference is slight. In countries where English is the local language, EFL doesn’t quite work, because it isn’t a foreign language in places like Canada (where we do teach English to Canadian-born native speakers of French). In academia, and education specifically, a lot of time and energy is devoted to various definitions that aren’t really different but can be argued.
There is also language immersion, CLIL, bilingualism, etc. Basically these often refer to the same things, and the people talking about them don’t really know what they are talking about.
My definition is ESL students study English in an English speaking country and EFL students study English in a non English speaking country. So, English language learners in Taiwan are studying EFL.
TESOL was created because English might not be their second language. It applies to both ESL and EFL students.
I consider most of the acronyms and initialisms to be pretty pointless.
No. ESL (English as a Second Language) is what it’s called in western countries when you’re teaching immigrants (or other foreigners) English. EFL (English as a Foreign Language) is what it’s called when YOU are the foreign teacher instructing English to the native population in their home country.