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TEFL in Dublin

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  • 04-08-2017 7:55pm
    #1
    LionelNashe
    Registered Users Posts: 1,961 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks,

    What are people's experience of teaching English in Dublin?

    Questions I have would be:

    Is it possible/easy to get hired without experience?
    If not, is it easier to get experience abroad; say Spain?
    Is it very seasonal?
    I see a couple of jobs advertised at €18 per hour. Do the rates vary much?
    Who does it currently? Irish people? Part-timers? Contractors?
    Do the schools treat the staff well?


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    #2
    gaiscioch
    Registered Users Posts: 1,531 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    LionelNashe wrote: »
    Hi folks,

    What are people's experience of teaching English in Dublin?

    Questions I have would be:

    Is it possible/easy to get hired without experience?
    If not, is it easier to get experience abroad; say Spain?
    Is it very seasonal?
    I see a couple of jobs advertised at €18 per hour. Do the rates vary much?
    Who does it currently? Irish people? Part-timers? Contractors?
    Do the schools treat the staff well?

    I did the CELT years ago and was offered a job by the first firm I applied to a few months later (when summer recruitment began). I got the course cost back and some more in those 6 weeks of teaching. The following year I applied to another company as it paid more, and I returned to them in subsequent years. There was never difficulty getting a job with the CELT, the issue was would you get work all the way to August and the people who were working with the language school longest would be given first preference on that, which is fair enough. If you get four weeks out of your first year with a company that would be decent.

    I would think €18 is very low for 2017, unless something has changed a lot. In 2009 when the economy was in the doldrums I was getting precisely €20 per hour - I remember because for the 15 hours teaching (all classes were in the morning) you'd get €300 (extra money would be paid for doing the tours with them in the afternoon). I'm glad I did those years of teaching, and the course, as the CLT techniques have been very useful to teaching languages in secondary school (although as class sizes were limited to 15 students in each ELT school, it's unfair to compare secondary school language teaching with it). Overall, though, ELT schools pay really poorly and you have to do quite a bit of work for each of those €20 classes and pay your costs in travelling in each day and lunch. Therefore most people doing it would be younger and wouldn't stay at it. There are older teachers in some schools such as the one I did my CELT in but they teach in those schools part-time all year round and have various other sources of part-time income. The summer schools generally have very few such people, if any, as they have better options at that stage in their lives.

    I taught with MLI and ATC. I had no complaints with either company. They paid the agreed amount of money when they said they would. Keep your expectations low and it's a decent experience to add to your belt and move on from.


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