Can I be a TESOL trainer?
Yes, you can become a TESOL trainer if you have a TESOL qualification and extensive experience as an ESL teacher. This role involves preparing the next generation of ESL teachers for classroom challenges, offering a rewarding and potentially lucrative career opportunity. Responsibilities of a TESOL trainer include ensuring comprehensive teacher training and readiness. Additionally, this career path can lead to further opportunities in management, or even enable you to start your own language school. The key requirements for becoming a TESOL trainer are a strong background in ESL teaching and a formal TESOL qualification.
Table of Contents
What are the basic requirements for becoming a TESOL trainer?
What advanced qualifications are required by a TESOL trainer?
Will I need classroom experience to become a TESOL trainer?
How do I find vacant TESOL trainer positions?
What are the basic requirements for becoming a TESOL trainer?
The basic requirements for becoming a TESOL trainer include completing a TESOL certification course and gaining practical experience in teaching. The TESOL certification course provides essential insights into the training process, along with the necessary skills and knowledge that you will need to impart to future trainees. While excelling in the course is beneficial, facing challenges during your certification can also be advantageous. It can help you develop empathy and understanding for your trainees, especially when they encounter similar hurdles. After obtaining your certification, it is crucial to further develop your skills through teaching experience and additional study. This combination of formal education and practical experience equips you to effectively train aspiring ESL teachers.
What advanced qualifications are required by a TESOL trainer?
Advanced qualifications required by a TESOL trainer typically include completing an advanced level course, such as a Diploma in TESOL. This is crucial for gaining an in-depth understanding of the English language, including areas like grammar, phonetics, and phonology. Additionally, it is important to acquire a broad range of teaching skills necessary for effectively training future ESL teachers. Beyond the Diploma in TESOL, obtaining specialized certificates in areas like teaching business English, teaching young learners, and teaching online can further enhance a trainer's expertise.
Will I need classroom experience to become a TESOL trainer?
Obtaining a range of teaching qualifications will certainly help build your understanding and knowledge and they will look good on your job applications, but in order to suitably impress potential employers you will need to have a considerable amount of teaching experience. Ideally, this experience will cover a wide range of age groups, language levels, and class sizes, across more than one school or language center. Any other training or mentoring of new teachers you can get involved in while teaching will also look good on your CV/resume. It is also worth mentioning that employers are typically not keen on teachers who have only short-term jobs on their portfolio as they prefer to hire trainers who are likely to stay in the role for a reasonable amount of time.
How do I find vacant TESOL trainer positions?
Once you have plenty of experience and have completed some advanced-level TESOL qualifications, you might think you have done all the heavy lifting. However, the biggest problem that potential teacher trainers are usually up against is the small amount of suitable positions out there. There are only a limited number of trainer positions at any one time and people do not give them up easily. The best approach is to identify the countries where you would like to be based and then draw up a list of all the training centers you can find in that area. You can then contact them all personally with your portfolio of work, or, if you are already in the country, you can visit them in person which is certainly going to be a positive if they have any vacant positions. If they like what you have to offer but there are no immediate vacancies, you might find you can secure some part-time work to get your foot in the door.
Another option that can be effective in this situation is networking. By joining online teaching groups and forums, signing up for seminars and conferences, and even hanging out in places where you know you might come across the right people, you will give yourself a better chance of finding vacant positions before they are filled. As there are a limited number of potential teacher trainer jobs out there, there is no one straightforward route you should take. Finding the right job will take time, patience, persistence, hard work, and probably a little bit of luck.
