Anyone who is currently teaching or has recently taught english in istanbul??

Question

i am planning to go over to turkey to teach english and am really confused about the schools available to me and how i should apply for them. english first and wall street sound good...any others?

also how important is experience? i have none! though i will have a degree and a tefl by the time i move.

any advise will be much appreciated ! x

thanks

Answer 1

Work at Wall St. It is an easy place to learn the ropes and gain experience, classes are small and the school is honest.

Answer 2

EF has a good reputation, Wall Street less so.

If you have appropriate qualifications (degree and TEFL Cert. eg CELTA) you should be able to find work fairly easily even without experience. Some schools are usually still hiring in October.

Most legitimate schools will arrange (and pay for) work and residence permits.

Check the terms of any contract carefully. Be aware that payment by the hour usually refers to 60 minutes teaching and wouldn't include breaks or preparation time. Some contracts offer accommodation (either shared or subsidised) while others do not, so check that.

I urge you to look at the following fora and search them for specific information about any school you consider working at - there are some distinctly dodgy employers out there!

http://eltworld.net/forums/viewforum.php...

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewforum....

Good luck!

Answer 3

I currently work as an English teacher in Istanbul. As long as you have a college degree and an ESL cert you will be fine. There is a dearth of good, qualified teachers. Probably the reason for that lack is that employers are not always trustable. You probably won't be provided with a residence permit if you work at a language school, and even some private schools make their teachers do border runs.

With your qualifications you could work at a private elementary school or prep class in a university (more likely to get a work permit and maybe even private insurance). It's getting a bit late in the day to apply, though, it takes months to do the visas.

Check out eslcafe.com, the section on Turkey is useful.

Good luck!