How to become properly certified to teach in an Australian accredited ESL school.
This article is written for two people in mind: Those of you who are currently looking to change your career into something more meaningful and those of you who are already working in an accredited language school but aren’t properly certified yet.
Whichever category you fall into, I’m here to outline what the requirements are, so you can properly meet them and teach in any accredited language school in Australia. Please also keep in mind that once you are properly certified to teach in Australia, you will also be certified to teach ESL in pretty much every country in the world. You will also be able to teach online and at home as well.
What are the requirements?
Before I talk about the government requirements, there is something I want to talk about first. As an ESL teacher in an accredited language school you feel a sense of respect from your students that you don’t get with other jobs. You get to make a difference, while working with self-motivated adult learners. The pay is $40-50 an hour and the typical workday is from 8:30am – 3pm. Not bad at all.
There is a catch though. Because you do have an impact on your students’ lives, you feel a great kinship and responsibility for your students. This drives you to want to create the most engaging and effective lessons you can. This means that sometimes you might spend more time than is actually required outside of the classroom, preparing your next masterpiece of a lesson. Part of being a great ESL teacher means learning how to limit your lesson planning to strike a good work/life balance.
So, if you are someone who only wants a job that you don’t need to think or even care about. Where you don’t feel the drive to constantly learn, improve and master your craft. Then this is probably not for you.
Now that that’s taken care of, let’s get to the two government requirements:
Are you currently studying or open to obtaining a bachelor degree or higher in any field, in the future? Or do you currently have one? If you are not at all open to obtaining a degree at any time in the future, then you won’t meet the first requirement. You should stop reading this article and read this one instead: Teach English Overseas Without A Degree.
Now let’s move onto the next requirement.
The second of the 2 government requirements is an Australian government accredited Certificate IV in TESOL. Not just any TESOL certificate will do, it needs to be an accredited Certificate IV or above. There are a few important “gotchas” you need to know before studying a Cert IV in TESOL with someone, which I will also outline below.
Are there a lot of jobs available and is it easy to get work in an ELICOS school?
If you meet the requirements, there is always work available. TESOL is a much bigger industry in Australia than most would expect. English is the global language in science, business, mathematics and so on. So it is in huge demand worldwide, yet only 20% of the earth’s population speak it natively.
To add to that, Many ESL teachers go on maternity leave to start a family. You will also find that many ESL teachers regularly leave and go overseas to teach, as they have partners from another country.
What do I need to be aware of when obtaining my Certificate IV in TESOL?
So I mentioned above that there are a few “gotchas” that you need to know when obtaining your Certificate IV in TESOL. The first thing you need to be aware of is that a face to face teaching practicum is required as part of an accredited Certificate IV in TESOL. You will not be able to receive your certificate without one.
So this is fine for those of you who already have connections in the industry to get this done. But if not, you need to wary of companies who tell you can just go and organise it yourself, that it’s no big deal. We have 3 different options for people to complete their practicum each at different support levels and price points. So you know you will be absolutely covered when it comes to this critical component when you study with us.
The other critical part you need to consider is your job support. You need to study with someone who has connections and a dedicated team to help you. Our job team will help you with your CV and even send it on your behalf to ELICOS schools in your area. This automatically gives you credibility with schools because of our standing in the industry. We also have our overseas job expert who has online and overseas jobs waiting to be filled now.
We offer a comprehensive Certificate IV in TESOL, that meets all of the requirements you need, at a great price.
So that’s it for the requirements. If you’ve read this far, I’m going to assume you’re serious about becoming a certified ELICOS teacher. If that’s the case then you will probably have a few questions coming up. If you would like to speak to me about becoming a fully qualified Australian Language school teacher, fill out the form below. My name is Lynette Kim. I have more than 27 year’s experience in the TESOL industry. I carefully and thoughtfully reply to every message.
