Hi. I am a newcomer here. I have a question on the CELTA certificate for teaching English.

I am a non native English speaker working in Switzerland. I had my PhD in Computer Science and already have an IT related job here. However, due to my personal interest in teaching languages, I really want to start trying teaching English (at least in my spare time). I have no experience in English teaching, and I came across the CELTA certificate on the internet some time ago, which seems an interesting and important entry point if one really wants to teach English "seriously". Then I contacted a CELTA center in Switzerland, had an interview and got offered a place in the course.

Now I am about to pay the course fee. But just at this moment, I start to hesitate and be suspicious about what CELTA can really bring me despite the cost in time and money. I will spend almost 4000 CHF for the course (not including the train ticket), and as I have a full time job, I can only take the part-time course in a course center which is 2.5 hours away from my town in single trip (5 hours go and back), which means that this course will really take up almost all my spare time for several months. The thing is that, I am a non-native speaker. Will I really be able to find some jobs in English teaching with CELTA? Will the HR of language schools really bother to read my CV after seeing my nationality and mother language? What can this course really bring to me? Another thing is that, I already have a full-time job, and CELTA is out of my personal interest. It is neither the case that my current career is going to an end nor that CELTA is a must for me to survive.

I don't know if someone has some experience in the similar case: non native speaker with CELTA. What happened after? How is CELTA helpful for these people? Any experience, idea or suggestion is welcome...

As far as I know, it would be pretty much impossible for you to get a job at a private school- their clients demand native speakers.

The Celta could help you get a job in your own country, though. It just depends on the available supply of native speakers.

It could also help you to get a job as a trainer in your field. But honestly, unless you have money to burn, you should investigate, i.e. speak to hiring managers, and not the ones at the school where you're thinking of taking the course.

Additionally the course teaches you how to teach. As an educated native-speaker of English, I certainly would not have felt confident to teach (adults) without first taking such a course. You can attend the course in the UK for a month. It's a bit cheaper, but may not fit your schedule.

Be warned this will be an intensive course requiring great commitment and a lot of your time. Nothing can guarantee a job at the end. Without meeting you it is impossible to know how much of a non native-speaker you are...

If, you are looking at a possible career change, then the CELTA certificate does lead on to a diploma, after which certain universities give credit for the course that can then lead to a degree in teaching English as a foreign/additional language.

The route you are looking at doing sounds dreadfully time consuming, with travel. If you do a google, you will find other course centres in other countries, where it would end up being cheaper, and less time involved, for you to take four weeks leave fro your job, to do the intensive course. ( I did the CETYL in Cambridge one summer and have done other intensives elsewhere) I, along with others who were already qualified teachers, still found the TEFL course of benefit.

Also, have a look at the Trinity TEFL certificate course as another option - the time involved and the content, is very similar and just as acceptable as a Cambridge certificate. ( also with a diploma route.)

Something else that you may find interesting, is to check out dates for the regional day (Saturdays) or evening seminars that are run for teachers of English, through either Cambridge or Oxford. Both have a focus on teaching their particular course books, which you may or may not like. However, they do both have excellent speakers and may give you enough ideas to decide whether you do want to invest more time and money into becoming qualified.

http://www.cambridgeesol.ch/events.php

I will post the Oxford connection later, if I can find it.

As someone who has English as a second language, you will probably find that the grammar content of the course is easier for you than it is for native speakers who have generally had less exposure to grammatical theory in the past.

Sorry, I have nothing extra to add re chances of actually getting work with a language school in Switzerland - having the training and the bit of paper will certainly help if you are interested in part-time private tutoring.

Thanks for the information. I have no plan for changing my main career to language teaching. I would pretty much stay in the IT field. For teaching English what I am expecting is just to take some flexible parttime positions at most. However, I suddenly come up with another question (inspired by kslausanne's reply). Will CELTA in any way help if later I want to teach in my field, for example, teaching science/computer stuff in an international school/college/vocational school, or in an English speaking country? In other words, in practice, is CELTA also helpful for non native speakers to teach other subjects using the English language?

There are non native speakers and... non native speakers. My mother tongue is French and I was born and educated here. I later went to the UK for 6 months to learn English - stayed, married a Brit and after 2 children, went back to Uni to do a teaching Degree. I first taught French and German (although my Degree was in Humanities and German) - and later on in my career became Head of Languages, including English and taught English for many years - despite my slightly weird accent (I lived in the UK 38 years- and nobody ever placed my accent right - been asked if I am Welsh, South African, etc). Mind you, I know plenty of natives with VERY weird accents who teach English, lol. Perhaps you should get some experienced teachers to assess you to have a unbiased review of your English.

Having done the Celta, Delta and other adult training courses, the Celta does give a basic introduction to pedagogy which could be easily extended to other subjects. All the same, it really depends on the person you're sitting across from at the interview and local regulations. The latter are so important... to teach adults English in Toronto's public system,you don't have to be a native speaker, but they don't recognize the Celta. I haven't really investigated in Switzerland's public system because I've worked in the private sector.

Having any sort of added bit of paper is never going to harm your CV. Apart from anything else, it shows interest and an ability to study. And if someone is wondering about your level of English, then having the CELTA should reassure them that you have reached a "certain" standard.

At the language school where I work there are a number of non-native English teachers, though they all have taken a CELTA course.

SebCheng, I'm just a visitor at this message board and thus I'm the last person you should listen to for advice about Switzerland. However, I have seen questions posted by others where it becomes fairly obvious that the poster isn't a native English speaker. If you had not identified yourself as a non-native English language speaker, I would have assumed you were a native English speaker.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavours. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that if you try to become an English teacher and fail, it will not be because you don't know English well enough.