Thoughts On A TEFL Job Post #11?!
I’ve omitted details so that this ad is not immediately identifiable. The purpose of this is to share the thoughts of an experienced teacher (me) – who’s found her own jobs before – on a random job ad. Of course you should investigate any opportunity you’re interested in thoroughly yourself – I don’t mean to slam nor endorse this ad…For more advice and examples see the Finding A Job Table Of Contents.
A BIT ABOUT THIS CITY
..This city is a developing city with a wide range of facilities. The native speaker community is very tight. [I don’t know that this is a good thing, and it strikes me as odd that it’s first]
Social gatherings during the week and the weekend are common. An hour flight will put you in places like City X and Y (capital city of this country) [does this need to be said?], A and B (neighbourhood country). Cost of travel is cheap. Living cost is also low.
A BIT ABOUT THIS HIGH SCHOOL
A modern and relatively new high school
School Facilities
• Air Conditioned room [I don’t this region well, but again, it’s an odd choice for the first facility listed]
• Sport facilities : Basketball, volleyball, Tennis, Soccer, and the only school that have it’s own swimming pool
• Language laboratory, personal work station and free Internet Access
[so there are some English grammar mistakes; it’s nice when they pull out all the stops to make a good job add, but it may just mean that while a native speaker hasn’t written it and it hasn’t been officially translated, someone there probably speaks English this well.]
Please visit our web :
[okay, it’s good that this is included…oh! …There is a religious component and the website mentions that all classes start and end with prayer…to each his own of course, but it pays to check out a website in general if one is offered; I suspect this might be a deal-breaker for many teachers.]
Requirement :
University degree with ESL teaching certificate [one year experience also noted elsewhere.]
Expected Duties :
1. To provide a professional service and hav to follow a teachers code of ethics
2. To expand on the curriculum already set by previous teachers, prepare lessons offer a range of activities, and develop lesson plans as well style [the language interferes with the meaning here]
3. To help develop the studens and the school; to motivate the studens to speak English [these are fairly broad duties; I don’t think they’re totally unreasonable but it’s well worth finding out what the practical requirements are: conversation classes? Other subjects in English? Hours per week? Responsibilities outside the classroom? I’m also noting more typos…]
Compensation
Benefits :
1. Competitive Local Salary; US 700 (around…in local currency )
Cost of living is very low. Expect to spend at most [one third of that]- a month (incl. reg.social events with staff and with other native English Speakers in town)
2. Free accommodation. Air conditioned bed room. Furnished. Cable TV, Telephone [Shared? How far from the school?]
3. Lunchtime allowance
4. Driver to take you to work and home [I find this very strange but enjoy hypothesizing explanations of why it’s necessary.]
5. National holidays around 20 days and 9 weeks holiday throughout the year. [This could be nice but I’d want to see it specified if it’s paid…I’m guessing not]
6. Monday to Friday
7. School time 7.00 am to 3.30 pm [This is something concrete but I’d want a quote on contact hours and if you need to be involved in extra-curricular activities.]
8. Health insurance
9. Re-imbursed of US$750 for coming air ticket from origin country
10. Visa and work permit paid for by school
11. Severance bonus of one month wages for completing 1 year contract